Prologue #2
It was damn near four in the morning when we pulled up to the crib.
I waved the driver off like I always did once we made it home.
There was no point in him hanging around.
The house was secure, and Jaylen had taken the duffel bag with tonight’s payout with him.
I was good. The night was over. I’d fought.
I’d won. I’d celebrated. Now it was time for everybody to get some damn sleep.
“You ready to give me some victory pussy?” I whispered to Lyrius as we made it up my front stairs.
“You haven’t gotten enough?” She slid her hand over the underground title belt that rested on my shoulder.
“Nah.” I pulled her into me and placed a couple of kisses on her neck. “I can never get enough.”
“Stop, Dakota.” She laughed softly, like she knew exactly what her calling me by my government name did to me.
Nobody but Lyrius had clearance to call me that.
Not in the ring. Not in the streets. Not even my own brother used it unless something was wrong.
I’d buried Dakota back in middle school the first time I’d knocked a nigga out and realized what my hands could do.
From then on, it was KO, and it stayed that way until six months ago, when I’d approached her at one of those afterparties they threw after the underground fights, and she refused to take anything but my real name.
She wouldn’t call me Champ, wouldn’t call me KO, wouldn’t call me anything but Dakota.
Shit, somewhere between late-night training sessions, her wrapping my wounds, and falling asleep on my chest, she’d become the most important person in my life.
“Careful. You know what my name on your lips does to me.”
She smiled, letting out that cute little giggle that I loved as I unlocked the door and pulled her inside. I was already planning how I was gonna celebrate this win for the rest of the night.
“No!” Lyrius screamed as two hands grabbed me from behind. I twisted my body, instinct taking over immediately.
“Lyrius!” I pulled her in front of me as I elbowed one of the men while my fist connected to the other one before my brain even caught up.
One of the masked men went down, and the other one stumbled back a little, giving me the chance to pull my gun from my waist. I fired two shots, one into both of their heads.
“Upstairs!” I shouted, shoving Lyrius toward the steps. I didn’t know if we were out of the woods yet, and I wanted to make sure she was out of harm’s way. She froze, staring at me, visibly shaken up. “Now! Bad. Lock the door.”
“KO . . . I need to—”
“Go!”
She hesitated just as the front door flew open, and I felt a bullet pierce my right arm and then my hand, making me fall to the floor as the gun flew from my hands.
Fuck! I usually stayed strapped with two pistols, but tonight was fight night, so I only had one.
My eyes shot to the door. Another masked man and two women walked in with their guns pointed at me.
“Go on upstairs, Lyrius”—the man laughed—“unless you finally ready to stop wasting our time.”
My stomach dropped, and I turned to her. This nigga had just said her name like he knew her or some shit.
“The fuck is he talking about?” I looked at Lyrius and she dropped to her knees, sobbing, her hands shaking as she reached for me.
“I’m so sorry, Dakota,” she cried. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t—I didn’t know they . . . I told y’all I needed more time. I told y’all I was handling it.”
The man laughed on some villain shit. “Six months, and you ain’t give us shit but excuses.”
My eyes cut between them. The way he said it.
The way she wouldn’t look at me. None of this made sense.
Nobody knew where I stayed, and anybody who would want to find out wasn’t bold enough to try me like this.
The man stepped closer with his gun raised as I stared at Lyrius with pain pulsing through my body.
“Lyrius!” I called out to her, trying to signal her to run upstairs to the safe room. She’d be safe up there.
“She’s with us,” he said. “Or she was. Until she caught feelings.”
Everything in me went cold. So cold, I didn’t even feel the third shot to my chest at first. Just heat and pressure. Then the pain hit all at once.
“No!” Lyrius screamed my name like it could bring me back to my feet. The man loomed over me, gun aimed at my head.
“We told you to lose,” he said. “Could’ve been easy.” He cocked the gun, and Lyrius threw herself over me.
“No!” she screamed. “Please,” she cried. “This wasn’t supposed to happen like this. You said y’all just wanted the information.”
“You’re compromised,” he snapped. “I told you that.” He pointed the gun at Lyrius.
“Don’t,” one woman grabbed his arm. “She’s not the mission. Leave her. She doesn’t know much.”
The other woman was crying and screaming Lyrius’s name, shaking her head violently.
“This wasn’t supposed to go this far,” she whispered.
He looked down at Lyrius and then back at the woman holding his arm before cursing under his breath.
“You lucky she likes you,” he said, lowering his gun. “You breathing because she said so. You understand?”
Lyrius nodded.
“She’s yours. Deal with your mess.” He glanced at the woman whose eyes looked sad and cold at the same time.
“You’re out,” was all she muttered before storming off.
“You open your mouth, and there won’t be a place on this planet to hide.
” The man added. “Clear it!” he ordered.
The women moved fast, shoving valuables into bags and ripping the belt from my shoulder like it was nothing.
Before he left, the man crouched down, close enough for me to smell gun oil and sweat.
“Should’ve taken the fall,” he said. “This what pride cost you.”
They left through the front door, carrying two duffel bags full of my shit. Both women paused before stepping out, looking at Lyrius like they already knew her life was over.
“Come on,” one of the women said tightly, grabbing the other one. “We gotta go.” They stepped out of my house without another word, and the house went quiet. Too quiet.
“Stay with me.” Lyrius was on me immediately, pressing down on my wounds, hands covered with blood. “Please, baby. Don’t die on me. I’m calling 911. Help is coming.”
My vision blurred as she spoke to what I assumed was the 911 operator. I wanted to touch her. I wanted to pull her close and ask her why. Instead, all I felt was betrayal. I looked at her through the haze, her face filled with fear and regret and something else I couldn’t deny.
“You . . . s-set me up,” I said, voice barely there as my blood leaked from my body.
“It wasn’t supposed to be this.” She choked. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” Her hands pressed harder against my wound. “They use girls to get information. I tried to stop it. I tried to back out,” she cried.
I tried to focus on her face, on her words, but it was all slipping out of view. I didn’t let my guard down. I didn’t lose. Yet here I was, laid out on my own floor in a pool of blood.
“Everything I feel for you is real, I swear. I love you, Dakota.”
“Get the fu-fuck away . . . from me,” I said between breaths. “You set me up!” I tried to make this shit make sense, tried to find a version of events where the only woman I’d ever loved wasn’t a part of this. I’d taken a lot of punches over the years, but none of them felt like this.
“I’m sorry, Dakota.” Her hands froze, and she looked at me like she wanted to crawl inside my skin and never leave. “I—”
Blue and red lights flashed against the walls, and sirens echoed in the distance. Her eyes shot toward the sirens, panic taking over her whole face. She sobbed once hard and then stood. She looked at me like she wanted to stay, like leaving was killing her.
“Fight,” she whispered as I watched her back away step by step, like she was trying to undo everything that had happened.
The front door burst open, and I heard voices shouting before Lyrius turned and ran out the back door like she was never mine to begin with.
That was the last thing I saw before everything went dark.