Chapter Six
Chicks, Dicks, and Magic Tricks
“Next time you see Papa, tell him to kiss my ass.”
Eliot didn’t bother looking up from his ledgers, too engrossed with his numbers to turn away- even for an old friend. Though, if she was being honest, there was nothing friendly about the things she’d seen him do. Like Poppy, he had bone-straight hair, though his was a rich brown. Shaved short on both sides, ravens had been tattooed in place of his hair. They soared down the back of his neck to disappear beneath the collar of his brown suit jacket and white button-down. The rest of his hair was so long he kept it in a tight bun at the top of his head. His shirt was open to his chest, where several necklaces glinted with every move he made. His olive skin and dark brown eyes glowed like warm honey in the poor lighting.
Like Dusty, he wore a pair of leather gloves, though his were decorated with small silver chains. She didn’t know what lay beneath the gloves since he never took them off, but she could guess. She could see the burns marring his wrists, and they spoke volumes. Even after twelve years, he didn’t talk about what had caused the scars he always went to such great lengths to hide, and Dusty had never asked him about his nightmares, for fear she would have to name her own.
“That’s a hell of a way to repay a man who’s doing you a favor,” he said, without inflection.
“Please,” Dusty said with a sneer. “Papa’s not doing me any favors. He’s just trying to make sure I stay indebted to him until he can snatch me back into the fold.”
Eliot sighed. “If you know, then stop making it so easy for him.”
Annoyed, Dusty took a seat on the edge of the table where he was working. From their vantage point, they had a perfect view of the rest of the room. She stared down at the top of Eliot’s head for a good minute before impatience got the best of her.
“Hey,” she poked him in the arm with her boot. “Pay attention to me.” Before she could pull away, Eliot lashed out, grabbing her by the ankle, and she yelped. A high, feminine sound she’d never made before. The damage done to her throat when she was young left her voice too husky for such sounds, and no one knew that better than Eliot. Unlike Edward, he was not at all gentle with her, and her pulse hammered in her ears as he met her gaze from beneath his lashes. They stared at one another as his fingers crept upwards – a game of chicken she was destined to lose. His gloves brushed the bare skin of her calf, and she shuddered.
Eliot smirked. “Happy?”
Dusty jerked her leg back. “Asshole,” she snapped, even more irritated when he laughed and licked the fingertip of his glove as if he could taste her on it. Irate and flushed, she slid off the table.
“You’re the one who wanted my attention,” he reminded her, turning back to his ledgers and calculator, just as calm and collected as he’d been when she first arrived. “Vance isn’t here, by the way,” he continued before she could respond.
Dusty scowled. “Then where the hell is he?”
Eliot shrugged. “He’s supposed to be handling the bets tonight, but he flaked on me.” He shook his head in disgust. “You catch him before I do, tell him he’s grounded.”
“You’re such a dad,” she teased.
He grunted in response.
Well, there was nothing else for it. Once she and Edward were done there, she’d go searching for the little brat. The last fight had been over for several minutes, so staff could mop up the blood and sweat from the ring. They’d drug the body away, and the winner had already collected his winnings. Which meant it was time for the main event. The lights dimmed, and someone set the smoke machine in the corner on high. The bruiser who shimmied under the ropes and army-crawled to the middle of the stage probably thought no one could see him in the dark. To Dusty’s surprise, the crowd didn’t even snicker. In fact, when the lights came back on at full strength and he rose to his full height like the Undertaker from WWE rising from his grave, Crusher was met with thunderous applause. Eliot glanced up as his reigning champion bounded around the ring, hyping up the spectators and snatching beer cans so he could chug the remains and crush them against his skull
“Well, s omeone likes making an entrance,” she said in disgust, sidling closer so she could be heard over Crusher’s entry music.
“Says the woman who begged me to find Powerpuff Girl costumes ‘for morale,’” Eliot raised his brows at her attitude. “How’d that work out for you by the way?” When she didn’t respond, he shook his head in disgust. “Anyway, Crusher’s a fan favorite,” he said. “Even if he weren’t, I didn’t peg you as a hater, Dusty. It’s not a good look.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she replied sardonically. Curious in spite of herself, Dusty took up position behind Eliot so she could see the ring better. The post was so familiar her arm snaked over his shoulder to rest on the bare skin of his chest – her body settling into old habits without thought, or rhyme, or reason. He tensed at the contact but didn’t pull away, and neither did she step back. The first one to back down or show that this small touch meant anything at all would lose the game. It was all games between the two of them. It was one of the reasons she’d left in the first place.
It was easy to see why Crusher had remained undefeated for so long. The guy was a giant. Six-foot-five and almost 300 pounds of muscle and body hair, he was so ripped he couldn’t turn his head. How the hell had they gotten him through the trap door? Maybe he lived beneath the nail salon, and they’d just built the place around him. Like a bridge troll, except it was some college dropout named Brad hopped up on steroids, coke, and monster energy drinks.
“Talk dirty to me.”
“Quarter mil to Crusher if he wins.” He shrugged. “Minus my fee, of course. Double to anyone who beats him.”
She whistled. Some would take the bet just for a chance to win half a million dollars, but most were smart enough not to risk it. Crusher was the favorite for a reason.
“Let me get in on that,” she ordered.
Eliot wrote her name in his ledger without hesitation. “Is your new toy going to be a problem?”
She bristled. “Is that a goddamn tone?”
“No idea what you’re talking about.” His dark eyes were void of emotion.
Dusty leaned across his back, arms wrapping around his shoulders so she could compare her long division on the page to the amount of money nestled in her bra. They were too close, she knew that, but Eliot was one flame she’d never tire of burning herself on. Eliot’s fingers brushed her wrist, and she was opening her mouth to speak, to fan the fire, when Edward came from behind the curtain.
This wasn’t WrestleMania or anything. There were no announcers to tell the crowd a fighter had arrived. But when Edward stepped from behind his curtain, golden skin on full, uninterrupted display, Dusty wasn’t the only one struck dumb. He was all corded muscle bathed in light and eyes like gems. She imagined he was what Adonis or even Thor would look like if they ever walked the earth for real. Well, maybe not Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, but someone’s.
Her gaze dropped to his mystery machine, and she broke out in a sweat. “It’s like watching a guinea pig fight his way out of a tube sock,” she whispered in awe.
Eliot cleared his throat, and his hand dropped, but for some reason, Dusty didn’t notice. Whatever objection Eliot may have had to her choice of words was cut short as people swarmed his table, eager to change their bets. Dusty would have been one of them, but Eliot turned her away, his expression so scathing she knew there had been a tone earlier. And he had the nerve to accuse her of being a hater.
Whatever .
Edward might have had a sleeper build, but he didn’t have the heart to win. Dusty wondered why the knowledge bothered her. A vibration at her hip brought her attention to her cell. “What?” It wasn’t much of a greeting, but it was the best she could do.
“Have you seen the news?” Ape’s voice was tense with nerves, which wasn’t saying much. The guy always had his panties in a twist about something.
“What part of underground fight club screams CNN to you?”
Ape took a deep breath. He was trying not to curse as much ever since he’d found God or whatever, and apparently, she tested him in ways the Almighty would not approve of. Once he found his inner peace, he was much more calm, “It’s him, Dusty. He’s the guy.”
She frowned. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Her phone buzzed as an image came through, and she squinted down at the little screen, waiting for the jpeg to load. It was a screenshot from Ape’s smartphone. A news article with a headline reading, “Genius, Millionaire, Madman. The fall of E.M. Hayes.” Below the scathing words was a picture of Edward, just not as she knew him. This Edward was dressed in a suit, his hair slicked back and his jaw free of the shadow of a beard. He was clean-cut, confident, and expressionless.
Ape was yelling, and it took Dusty a second to make sense of it past the ringing in her ears. “Calm down,” she said through gritted teeth.
Eliot glanced her way, but Dusty turned her back on him. The referee was going over the rules for Edward and Crusher, and her pulse spiked.
“The news is saying he’s been missing since yesterday,” Ape said. “Apparently, he’s in the middle of a psychotic episode. Dusty…”
This was bad. Dusty didn’t need Ape to say it. Hanging up, she shoved through the crowd, leaving Eliot behind without so much as a goodbye. Just like old times. She made it to the stage and used the ropes to pull herself up.
Edward was looking around the room in mounting panic, but when his gaze landed on her relief softened his rough edges. No one had ever been glad to see her before and her throat tightened.
Ditching the ref, Edward hurried over to her. “Dusty, this is a bad idea. I know—”
“Yes.” Dusty nodded a little too quickly. “Yeah, the plan is shit. We should go.”
How many years could she get for kidnapping a psychotic millionaire and forcing him to fight for money? Her guess? Much more than armed robbery. Her gaze dropped to his dick, then back up again as quickly, and she winced as they made eye contact. Was this an assault charge? It felt assaulty. Or at least assault-lite. Fuck, she was going to jail.
The referee cut through the air with his hands, signaling the start of the fight, and Dusty’s stomach dropped.
“What?” Edward squeaked.
Security was in position, and Eliot was lounging in his seat with a smirk on his face as if he already knew what was going on. Asshole. There was no way in hell he was going to let them out of there, not with so much money riding on this fight. Fine, Plan C it was.
“Look, you know what macho sacks of shit like Crusher hate the most?” she hissed, reaching up to grip the back of Edward’s neck and tug him close. From over his shoulder, she could see Crusher making his way toward them, so she didn’t bother waiting for a response. “Feeling emasculated. They hate anything that threatens their masculinity. Use that.”
He frowned. “How?”
Dusty shoved him away as Crusher lunged forward, then she jumped back down into the crowd before Crusher could collide with her. She winced as Edward tripped over his own feet and careened onto the mat. She was holding onto a faint hope that if she sent him home without a scratch on him, no one would ever have to know where he’d been. It didn’t look like things would work out, but she was nothing if not optimistic.
“Swing your dick!” she shouted in desperation. Edward wasn’t the only one who turned to stare at her as she bent her knees slightly and rotated her hips. “Like a helicopter rotor! No one wants to fight the guy with the dick-copter!”
Crusher was coming for Edward but froze when Edward scrambled to his feet and did as he’d been told. The guinea pig went sailing, slapping against Edward’s thighs until he got some good momentum going.
It was mesmerizing.
One of the men who had gone up to change his bet glared down at his blue slip and spat, “God damn it.”
For a sweet, sweet moment, Crusher had no idea what to do. She met Edward’s eyes and grinned at him, and he grinned back. Naively, she thought perhaps everything was going to turn out all right. She’d get him out of here unscathed, and everything would go back to normal. Then Crusher drop-kicked him in the face, and Dusty hung her head and sighed. She could barely watch as Crusher landed blow after blow. The combos came like a monsoon—without warning or mercy.
Edward was fast, and he could take a hit, but Crusher was living up to his moniker, slamming into Edward again and again with fists and elbows alike. What Edward couldn’t dodge, he blocked. His muscles weren’t all for show. Edward had been professionally trained. In what, she had no idea because he refused to go on the attack. But the hits that snuck through his defenses were few and far between. Still, he was beginning to tire. Crusher was beating him down bit by bit, and Dusty stared in growing outrage as Edward buckled beneath the onslaught. That’s when the real punishment began, with bare-knuckled strikes to his ribs and vicious hooks to his face.
Edward’s head slammed back against the floor of the ring. “P-p-please!” he shouted, voice breaking.
Crusher laughed. “P-p-please?” he echoed, staring down at Edward’s curled form in disgust. “Fucking pussy,” he sneered.
A dozen people laughed, and Dusty’s vision narrowed.
He’s shaking , she noted, and something in her splintered. Cracked.
Edward made a sound like an animal broken and lost, and Dusty lunged for the ropes, ready to shed blood. A hand on her arm pulled her up short, and she whipped around to find Eliot standing behind her. She bared her teeth, but all he did was reach for the sheaths hidden beneath her clothes, divesting her of both her switchblade and bowie knife before letting her go.
“Don’t kill him,” he ordered.
Dusty jumped into the ring. Unfastening the belt at her waist and tugging it loose as she stalked toward the fighters. Crusher reared back his foot to kick Edward in the stomach, and Dusty clambered up his back. Wrapping the belt around his throat, she looped the ends around her fists and pulled tight, planting her knee in Crusher’s spine so she could get the most leverage. He choked and spun, clawing at the belt as he bucked beneath her. Dusty gritted her teeth and held on.
“You bitch,” he choked out.
“Those your last words?” she gasped as he sank to his knees. “It’s giving, ‘Toxic Masculinity’.”
He made an inarticulate sound, and Dusty yelped as he brought them both to the ground. She landed hard on her back, with Crusher’s thick neck trapped between her thighs. Rearing back, he drove his fist into her left leg again and again. Old agony mixed with the new, and she cried out, pulling herself from beneath him as tears threatened to fall. Crusher turned with her. Climbing his way up her body, he pulled his fist back as an eager light filled his eyes. Dusty told herself not to flinch, told herself not to give him the satisfaction, but in reality she was back in those woods again. Her sister was waiting in the grave behind her, and soon, the beast bearing down on her was going to snap her in half, grind her up like an ancient giant with his horde of human bones.
Fee-fi-fo-fum.
Only it was her blood he smelled, and she had no catchy rhymes for the way the world hunted down Black girls like her.
Then Edward was there, his amber eyes so dark with anger they were black. “Don’t touch her.” His voice was barely recognizable. A tone that brooked no argument and promised only punishment.
Dusty didn’t know Edward had that kind of anger in him, but she recognized the wild edge of it. He’d come too close to death once too. He wrapped strong arms around Crusher’s middle and deadlifted him off her. The two men grappled, rolling around on the ground until Edward got the upper hand. He punched Crusher again and again, teeth bared in a grimace and face twisted with hatred and…and fear. Blood flew, staining his hands, his face, his hair, and still he continued to pound away.
“Edward!”
He didn’t stop. Dusty wasn’t sure he knew how. Crusher went limp, and Edward crouched over him, his fingers digging into the other man’s eye sockets as the crowd howled, eager for warm, bloody things.
Shit.
Edward wasn’t a killer. He was nothing like her, or Eliot, or even Poppy. But if she didn’t stop him, the only thing he’d have left waiting for him once she got him back to his own world would be a jail cell. Limping toward him, she pressed herself flush against his back and covered his eyes with her hands as if they were kids playing a game of Guess Who. “Edward Michael Hayes,” she said, his name rolling off her tongue as if she’d been born to it. As if it had always been a part of her. “You come back to me this instant.” She didn’t think it would work. Who was she to pull him from the brink? But there was power in names. Her gran had taught her that.
Edward fell still, the fight bleeding out of him like an open wound and leaving him spent. She’d been so focused on him she didn't realize something was off at first. Then Dusty glanced down at her arms to find the fine hairs there standing on end. The air was charged as if awaiting a storm, and she knew what was coming before a familiar voice cut through the chaos.
“Raid!”
Poppy stumbled down the steps, hitting the wall opposite the staircase. A silver canister came bouncing down after her, spilling red smoke. Dusty threw herself onto the mat, dragging Edward down with her as the flash bomb went off with a deafening boom, filling the room with noxious smoke. Her ears rang, and her lungs burned, but she pulled herself to her feet, clutching Edward’s hand tight with her own. Blinded, they fell off the stage, into a mass of writhing bodies. Everywhere, people were trying to run. To get away. But the red smoke was a miasma, impossible to see through after the explosion of light.
A pop, and someone cried out. Several more fell as rubber bullets were fired indiscriminately into the room. Dusty never understood the name. Most rubber bullets weren’t made of rubber at all, but consisted of a metal core sporting a rubber coating. With enough force behind it, one could tear a hole through Dusty’s palm, and she’d seen more than one person lose an eye.
Dusty kept low, Edward stumbling along after her. There was an emergency exit somewhere, a fail-safe for times just like this one. She used to know where it was, but it had been a while since her last visit. Disoriented, she pressed a hand against her aching hip as if that would ease the pain. Was she heading away from danger or toward it? Dusty shoved and elbowed her way through the crush of people, unwilling to slow down long enough to find out. Several times, she lost Edward’s hand in the confusion, but they somehow managed to find one another again.
By the time they reached the corner of the room, SWAT was balls deep into Eliot’s place. Through the thick red smoke and between the flash of one light grenade after another, she caught sight of their black vests and special-issue goggles.
The better to see you with, my dear, she thought, giggling.
Someone grabbed her arm, and Dusty’s hand went to her gun, nestled safe and warm in the holster at the small of her back, beneath her jacket.
“The fuck is wrong with you?” Eliot snarled, his hands tracking her movements.
Dusty flushed but tightened her fingers defiantly around the butt of her weapon. Whether she had a gun or not wouldn’t matter if it came right down to it, and Eliot knew that just as well as she did.
After a beat, he turned away, jaw tight.
“Are they here for you or me?” she asked, and Eliot gave her a look and she winced.
Edward was now the most sought-after man in America. Duh, this was on her. The real question was, how the police knew where to find him and if they were trying to save him or…
Dusty thought back to their conversation earlier. This didn’t look like any rescue operation she’d ever seen before. You’d think they’d show a little tact when it came to bringing in the illustrious E.M. Hayes.
So why weren’t they?
Either the cops weren’t there for him or didn’t care what happened to him either way. He’d said he was in trouble, but Dusty had no idea it was ‘get shot by the cops’ trouble. Edward’s hand tightened around hers, and she glanced back. His eyes were glazed, his face pale. He was shell-shocked, and Dusty wanted nothing more than to shake him out of it.
Eliot snapped his fingers in front of her face, and Dusty turned away from Edward in time to see him motion her to follow him. She complied, sticking to his heels until he led them to a false wall behind more privacy screens. The hallway beyond was narrow and pitch-black, and Dusty drew up short, her heart hammering in her chest and her breath catching. The ringing in her ears was back and, gritting her teeth, she shook it away. She didn’t have time for this. She jerked Edward close, urging him inside of the cramped space. If she could just get him back to the bar, she could take a second and figure out what to do. When she hesitated to follow, Eliot grabbed her hand and pressed a kiss to the center of her palm.
“Go on, sha ,” he urged, creole roots peeking through.
Dusty shivered at the intimacy of his words, like a kiss in the dark. We don’t have time for this either, bitch , she reminded her vagina. First Edward and now Eliot? At least Poppy was good for her. Dusty was the toxic one in that relationship—which was how she preferred it. She needed to get laid. Like, soon. Though, to be fair, her body had always reacted to Eliot. Physical attraction had never been their problem. Trust, on the other hand…
She bottled the urge to ask him if he’d been the one to rat them out to the police, but a quick look around dissuaded her of the possibility. Never mind her, Eliot would never risk himself this way. He never failed to look out for number one. It was one of the many things she loved about him.
“Before I forget,” to her relief, he handed her back the knives he’d taken before she'd stepped into the ring, and she slipped each into place with the ease and speed of long practice as she eyed the entrance to the tunnels. It was like staring down the maw of some great beast, and she shuddered. Edward was already gone, and the darkness loomed over her, reaching for her. Her heart danced an anxious beat, and her mouth went dry.
“Dusty,” Eliot said.
She met his eyes and flinched at the impatience there.
“Go.”
“Take care of Poppy,” she ordered, forcing herself to shake off the fear.
Eliot nodded. “Promise,” he said, a smile teasing his lips.
Satisfied he would keep his word, or risk the wrath of Poppy’s Hamani, Dusty dove down the hall after Edward. Maybe later, she’d ask Eliot why he bothered helping her at all, but just then, she was too busy running as far and as fast as she could to care.