Chapter 12
Max
The warehouse sits at the end of a dead street. “This is it.” I park the Nova at the back entrance. The parking lights flicker. I was here last to rescue Rainey. With Daniel, you never know what is going on in his pitch-black mind.
“So, this is the Underground?” Drake asks.
I picked him up. Drake deserves to finally unleash the pent-up hatred toward Jason. He deserves to rip him a new one for all the pain he caused us—especially my girl. I will have him bleeding from his eyes.
“Yup.”
“Does the parking lot get full when there are fights?”
We get out of the car, and Drake leans his back against the trunk of the vehicle.
“When I fought, I heard the parking lot was packed. Every spot, but now Xander still fights every once in a while, and he heard there have been fewer people.”
Xander is a good fighter. He’s just not as established as I was fighting in the Underground.
Xander has suffered a couple of losses. To keep the money flowing, you need to fight brutally, or you’ll lose.
Some of these men fight to kill. This is why I’ve told Xander to stop fighting.
He’s lost twice, and he’s lucky to be alive.
I had something savage and hungry stirring beneath my skin, waiting for it to be unleashed.
I used that to fuel every fight. Every hit landed for someone who had harmed me, betrayed me, for every ounce of pent-up pain I carried.
Maybe that was my form of therapy. This was my way of making it to the top.
I won every fight. That came at a price. I was no longer invisible.
“Damn. When I fought, it was in a park late at night. It was very low-key. But this.” He juts his head at the building, taking out a pack of cigarettes. “This looks like the real fucking deal.”
He lights it and offers me one. I shake my head. “I don’t smoke.”
“This is how you got tangled in this mess.”
I groan. “Not like I wanted to. I just wanted to fight and make money. I can’t seem to get rid of this asshole.
” I can walk away from this building, but I know Jason is in there.
I want to hurt him for what he did to Rainey.
No one messes with her and gets away with it.
There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s hurt other kids.
“Let’s hope this is the last time I see this fucker. ”
“I have a feeling you’re not. So how ruthless is this man?”
“Very. His grandfather was a cruel man. He wasn’t a forgiving person, especially within his family.
Stefano Bianchi had his hand in trafficking women and children.
He abused his wife and had countless mistresses.
Daniel’s father had an arranged marriage set up for him with an Italian woman.
” I check my phone, waiting for Daniel’s text.
Nothing yet. “He was in love with another who wasn’t Italian.
He secretly got married and got her pregnant.
His father went feral. He threatened to kill the woman and child, so Daniel’s father killed his own dad. ”
Drake puffs smoke out, shaking his head. “Damn. That’s crazy, but what I want to know is how you know all this shit? Did you two drink and shoot the shit? Because no wonder he has a soft spot for you.”
I laugh. “No, one of his men told me the whole family history when I was getting ready for a fight.”
“And I bet the poor dumbass is dead.”
Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen him since then.
“Soft spot? The dickhead wants money. He has a soft spot for no one.” My phone beeps with an incoming text. Expecting Daniel, but it’s Carlos.
Carlos: Max, we are having a celebration dinner for you. We were waiting for things to calm down before having one. How about next Friday at six at the Prime Steakhouse?
Me: Sure, sounds good. Thanks.
I shove the phone back in my pocket. Four vehicles drive up. The rolling doors lift, and the vehicles drive in. That must be Daniel.
My phone chimes with the distinct tone I’ve set for Rainey’s security camera.
She’s arrived home, but this time she doesn’t tilt her face up toward the lens in that familiar acknowledgment I’ve grown accustomed to seeing.
I should have installed cameras in her bedroom to watch her undress.
She’s always been at my home, our home, I should say. I run my finger over the lit screen.
“How did you do it?” Drake pulls out a pocketknife, then runs his fingers along the spine.
“Do what?” I respond as he plays with his knife.
“How did you look at Sol, or I mean Rainey, and not call her by her birth name? How did you talk to her as if it were the first time?”
When we reunited in high school, nothing flowed as easily as it once had.
I kept waiting for recognition to dawn in her eyes—some flicker of our shared history.
It wasn’t easy at first. I had so many questions, like what happened when she left the foster home.
How did her new family treat her? I swallowed those questions down.
The boy she once knew had vanished beneath years of hardened life.
After everything that happened, after losing her, nothing was the same.
I knew it then, sitting under that tree with her.
I was going to be moved into another home, but didn’t know I would see her again.
It took seven years, but there she was. Call it faith, luck, or an invisible string, but she was back in my life.
Again, for how long? Even then, I wanted to push her away, but after that fall at the lake, it reminded me of the day of the accident.
That’s when I’d try anything to get her to remember me.
Every second in that cabin with her, I treasured.
I always loved her. It was the depths of it that I didn’t recognize until the day I lost her.
Instead of pouring my heart out to Drake, I simply say, “I loved her—always did. She made it easy because she’s always been simple to love. ”
He nods. “How about now?” Drake pivots his boot on the bud of the cigarette. “You know, since she left your ass.”
I snap a look at him. Dickhead. “Of course, I love her, and she didn’t leave me.
I’m just giving her time to rethink things.
” I scroll through my phone and click on my photos.
Fuck, she’s beautiful. “She’s always been the one.
” I’ve been waiting for her to come back to our place and say, fuck it, let’s work on this together.
I understand how it feels to be lost and stuck.
A text comes in from Daniel. He’s ready for us.
The man standing in front of me, his lips sealed with a strip of silver duct tape, makes my fingers curl into fists so tight my nails break skin.
My jaw clenches until my teeth ache. I’ve disliked many people.
Hated a couple. But this man, what I feel looking at him, doesn’t have a clean word.
I want nothing more than to smear his blood on the floor, just like he did the day he made Sol bleed.
But first, a question hangs on the tip of my tongue.
“How do you know about him?” I ask Daniel.
We are downstairs in a large, windowless room I’ve never been in before.
The rusty faucet drips steadily into a porcelain sink stained with years of mineral deposits.
On the chrome table beside the sink lies an assortment of implements: a heavy claw hammer with a worn handle, a surgical scalpel gleaming under the bare bulb, kitchen knives of all sizes, blades ranging from serrated to smooth.
A small metal tray next to Jason contains a set of pliers, a large syringe with a long, pointed needle, and a lighter.
Jason’s wide gaze rolls down my body, then to Drake’s without recognition. Or he doesn’t give a shit.
Daniel picks up a sharp knife, then he grazes it on the top of Jason’s ear, making a small nick.
“I own this city. I have connections everywhere.” The knife slices down his left shoulder.
Jason screams, muffling against the gray tape.
“Those who work for me, I check their history.” Daniel runs the tip of the knife down Jason’s cheek.
Barely pricking skin. “I checked your girl’s records.
” He shrugs. “You know, I needed to know more about the stronzo of her father. Adopted father. I noticed the last home she was at was the same home you had been together at.” He whistles. “Talk about fate.”
“Get to the fucking point,” I growl, my frustration growing by the minute.
Daniel’s smirk dissolves. The mob boss doesn’t like to get pushed around. Neither do I. I know I’m playing with fire, especially when he has a torture chamber down here. I’m not one to back down. I told myself years ago that I wouldn’t let myself get pushed around.
His nostrils flare, and his jaw clenches.
His presence fills the room. I don’t flinch when the cold knife swipes my face.
“Patience, Cano. I know you want to fuck him up. And you will, but don’t ever fucking disrespect me in front of my men.
Remember, I can take your woman from you.
She did eye me with curiosity.” He laughs, licking his top lip.
“I can blow her mind between the bedsheets.”
Every vein in my body strains. Hot blood, furious pressure—I am about to do something I cannot undo. I don’t give a shit who he is; no one talks about my woman like that. I’m about to go nose to nose with him and take the knife in his hand to slice his fucking throat.
Drake pulls me back. “He’s goading you.”
Daniel laughs unapologetically, stepping back. “You must be Drake.”
“We don’t have time for introductions. I came here to beat the shit out of that asshole you have tied up,” Drake thunders, mirroring my annoyance.