It all happened so fast. The two fell into a rhythm of strikes and dodges, their muscle shirts quickly dampening around the neck and down the back, the buttery yellow lamplight making it seem as if they were fighting in a ring of fire. The contacts, when made, were the kind that sounded like gunshots, the hard, resonant impacts carrying over the churning, restless crowd.
Blood flew—from the cut on Isaac‟s head that was quickly reopened and then from a split in the opponent‟s lip. Neither fighter seemed to care, but the kibitzers loved it sure as if they were vampires—
A hand on her ass whipped her head around.
Moving back sharply, she glared at the guy with the wandering palm. “I beg your pardon.”
He seemed momentarily surprised, and then his bouncing stare narrowed. “Hey…what you doing here?”
The question was posed as if he‟d recognized her.
Then again, he could have been talking to Santa Claus and taking it seriously—his face was slick with sweat and half of it twitched like he had an electrical short in his cheek. He was 61
J.R. Ward
obviously tweaking—and God knew she was an expert in making that diagnosis.
“Excuse me,” she said, walking away.
He followed. Just her luck, the one idiot in the place who was more interested in hitting on her than in the fight he‟d come to see.
He grabbed her arm, pulling at her. “I know you—”
“Get your hand off me—”
“What‟s your name—”
Grier snapped herself free. “None of your business.”
He jumped at her in the space between one heartbeat and the next: The three feet between them abruptly became three inches. “You‟re wicked touchy. You think you‟re better than me, bitch?”
Grier didn‟t budge her body, but took the stun gun out and slipped the safety pin into the grip. Putting the weapon within striking distance of the front of his jeans, she bit out, “If you don‟t get the hell away from me, I‟m going to shoot six hundred and twenty-five thousand volts through your jewels. On three. One…two…”
Before she got to trigger time, he shuffled back and held quaky hands up. “I didn‟t mean…I just thought I knew you…”
As he wandered away, she kept the stun gun out and took a deep breath. Maybe she had met him during her searches for Daniel—but he was clearly out of his mind and she was in enough hot water already.
Refocusing on the ring, she looked up—
Just in time to see Isaac go down like a stone.
Fighting Matthias‟s second in command was a pleasure. Isaac had never trusted or liked the guy, and having a shot at the bastard had been an unspoken career goal.
Ah, the irony. Just as he was getting out, he got his chance—
Wham!
As right hooks went, the fucking thing was a bulldozer, and it caught Isaac square in the jaw, kicking his skull back and causing all kinds of trouble: Given that the brain was nothing but a loose sponge in a snow globe, his mental matter went haywire, banging around its hard bone home and rendering him senseless and off balance.
All things considered, he‟d been more worried about a weapon of the metal variety, but knuckles worked. Fuckin‟ hell, they worked—
That was the last thought he had as the floor of the octagon leaped up to greet him, its hi-how‟re-ya just as much a rocket as his former comrade‟s fist.
Good thing he was the Energizer Bunny.
He was up a second after he back-flatted—even though his legs were numb and loose and his vision was like a TV that needed its knobs adjusted. Lunging, he was all instinct and will, proof that the mind could override the body‟s pain receptors—at least for a little while. He tackled his opponent around the waist and drove him into the ground; then flipped him over onto his stomach and wrenched his arm back, pulling the thing like it was rope.
On a crack, something gave out and Isaac abruptly had to catch himself from falling.
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The crowd went nuts, all kinds of
fuckin’ A
ricocheting around the half-finished lobby until a shrill whistle cut through the roar. At first, he assumed the sound was just an extension of the chaos in his head, but then he realized that someone had stepped into the ring. It was the promoter, and for once, the bastard‟s face was a little pasty.
“I‟m calling the fight,” he yelled as he grabbed Isaac‟s wrist and yanked it into the air.
“Winner!” Leaning in, he hissed, “
Let go of him.
”
Isaac couldn‟t figure out what the guy‟s problem was—
His eyes finally focused properly, and well, what do you know. Matthias‟s number two needed an X-ray, a cast, and maybe a couple of screws: His humerus protruded out of his skin like a snapped-off, bloodied stick, the arm broken and then some.
Isaac jumped off and backed up against the chain link, his breath pumping in and out of his mouth. His opponent was on his feet nearly as quickly and he held the hand that flopped casually, like he had nothing more exciting than a bug bite wrong with him.
As their stares met and the guy smiled in that way of his, Isaac thought…shit, this fight had been nothing but a warning shot across his bow.
A message that they were on him.
An invitation to run.
Fine. Fuck Matthias. And that compound fracture was his response: They could take him out but he was going to do some serious damage on his way to the grave.
Isaac didn‟t hang around. He popped up onto the links and sprang himself over the lip.
Fortunately, the crowd knew better than to get too close, so he was able to quickly head for Jim—
He slammed right into his public defender.
“Christ!” he barked, jumping back from the woman.
“Actually, it‟s Childe. With an „e.‟” She cocked an eyebrow. “Thought I‟d try the taxi offer again—you need a ride back to Boston? Or are you not heading in that direction?”
Momentarily forgetting his manners, he bit out, “What the
hell
are you doing here?”
“I was going to ask you the same. Considering that one of the provisions of your bail is that you not participate in illegal cage fighting. And that realllllly didn‟t look like a game of Parcheesi you just played. You
broke
that man‟s arm.”
Isaac glanced around, wondering what the quickest way to the door was—because she did not belong in this group of roughnecks and he had to get her out of here. “Look, can we go outside—”
“What are you thinking? Showing up here and fighting?”
“I was going to come to see you.”
“I‟m your attorney—I should damn well hope so!”
“I owe you twenty-five thousand dollars.”
“And I‟ll tell you how you can settle the score.” She planted her hands on her hips and leaned forward, that perfume of hers getting into his nose…and his blood. “You can stop being a stupid ass and show up for your hearing in two weeks. I‟ll give you the time and date again, if you‟ve forgotten to write it down.”
Okay…she was
totally
hot when she was pissed.
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J.R. Ward
Annnnnnnnd that was so not an appropriate reaction under the time-place doctrine. Among other things.
At that moment, Jim and his boys approached, but Grier didn‟t spare them a glance—even though Jim was staring at her hard. And didn‟t that give Isaac an idea of what she‟d be like in a courtroom. Man, she was incredible when she was focused and angry and ready to serve someone up on a plate.
“Two other things,” she bit out. “You‟d better pray that guy whose arm needs to be set in plaster doesn‟t call the police. And you need to see a doctor. Again. You‟re bleeding.”
Just to fill in the gap, even though there wasn‟t one, the promoter came up with what looked like a couple thousand dollars. “Here‟s your cut—”
Abruptly, Grier‟s eyes turned pleading, even as her beautiful face remained tight. “Don‟t take the money, Isaac. And come with me. Do the right thing tonight and it‟ll save you a whole lot of misery later. I promise you.”
Isaac just shook his head at her and stuck his hand out to the promoter.
“Oh, for
fuck’s
sake.”
As she cursed and turned away, he was momentarily struck dumb by the fact that she‟d dropped the f-bomb.
Snapping back into action, he reached for her arm, but the promoter stepped in the way.
“Now, before I give this to you”—he slapped the bills on his palm—“I want you to come fight two nights from now.”
Which would be a no-go. He was hoping to be out of the country by then. “Yeah. Sure.”
“It‟ll be here, assuming we got no problems. You were frickin‟ amazing—”
“Just shut up and gimme the cash.”
Isaac rose up onto the balls of his feet and stared over the milling heads, watching Grier‟s fancy-dancy hairdo march out toward the back door. By and large the men got out of her way, but then, given her mood, she was probably capable of castration.
Just by force of will.
Drowning out the promoter‟s jock-sniffer ass-kissing, Isaac grabbed the money, shoved his feet in his combats and took his sweatshirt and windbreaker back. As he ran off after his public defender, he buried the green in his pockets and double-checked on his guns, the silencers and his plastic bag piggy bank.
“Where the hell are you going?” Jim said as he and his boys followed at a jog.
“Wherever she goes. She‟s my attorney.”
“Any chance of talking you out of this?”
“Nope.”
“Fucking hell,” Jim said under his breath as he shoved some guy out of the way. “FYI, Matthias‟s number two left.”
“Black sedan,” the man with the piercings cut in. “The quarter panels were dinged and the thing was dirty as shit, but the tires were brand-new and there were electronics in the trunk.”
That was XOps for you, Isaac thought. Incognito and state-of-the-art at the same time.
As he broke free of the exit, the sound of cars and trucks starting up and taking off turned the night into a traffic disco. Amid the growling engines and flashing headlights, he looked 64
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around for her car. She‟d drive something foreign, he was guessing. A Mercedes, BMW…Audi…
Where was she?
65
Undisclosed location, OCONUS
M
atthias was well aware he was an agent of evil in the world.
Which didn‟t mean he was totally bad. In large measure, the billions of innocent people on the planet were not on his radar screen and he left them alone. He also did not take candy from babies. Or shave cats. Or give the e-mail addresses of people who‟d pissed him off to European sex-toy sites.
And he had, once—back in 1983—walked an old lady across a busy intersection.
So he wasn‟t
all
bad.
That being said, if, in the process of getting a job done, he had to accept certain collateral damage or sacrifice an “innocent” or two, that was the way shit went: In those cases, he was no different from the car accident or the cancer or the lightning strike, nothing but life‟s lottery lost for the given individual.
After all, everyone‟s clock was ticking, and he‟d played Grim Reaper enough to know that firsthand.
As he repositioned his broken body in his leather chair, he groaned. At the age of forty, he felt more like a hundred thousand years old, but being a survivor would do that to you.
At least he didn‟t have to shit in a bag and still had one eye that worked.
In front of him, on the glossy desk, were seven computer screens. Some showed pictures, others streamed data, and one told him where each of his operatives were on the planet Earth.
With what he was in charge of, information was mission critical. Which was an irony of sorts.
He was a man with no identity operating a team that didn‟t officially exist in a world of shadows—and intel was the only concrete thing he had to work with.
Although even that, like people, could fail you.
As his cell phone rang, he picked up the thing and looked at its little screen. Ah, yes, perfect timing. Matthias was looking for two men—and he‟d sent his second in command after one of them.
The other…was complicated. Even though it shouldn‟t have been.
He accepted the call. “Have you found him.”
“Yeah, and went a few rounds with him in the ring.”
“He‟s alive, though.”
“Only because you want him to be. By the way, his lawyer showed up at the fight—and guess what. She happens to be the daughter of a friend of ours.”
“Really. What
are
the chances.” Actually, they were a hundred percent, because Matthias 66
Crave
had gone into the Suffolk County court system in Massachusetts and purposely had retired captain Alistair Childe‟s surviving offspring assigned to the case.
They‟d needed to get that traitor Isaac Rothe out from behind bars so they could kill him and keep his body for future use—and good old Albie‟s little girl was just the ticket: She was a fine attorney with a bleeding heart that led her into places she didn‟t belong. Perfect combination.
And clearly it had worked: Rothe was free less than twenty-four hours after his arrest.
Christ, it had been that easy to find the bastard. But then, who‟d have thought he‟d use his own last name?
Huh, Matthias thought. Maybe he was taking candy from a baby here.
“You should have let me kill him in the ring,” his second in command bitched.
“Too many witnesses, and I want him flushed out of Boston.”
Because now that Grier Childe had served her purpose, he had to get Isaac the hell away from the woman. Matthias had already killed the captain‟s son, and so he considered their score even. However, the sonofabitch had already tried to leverage his way out once and that meant the daughter had to be used to keep her sanctimonious daddy-o in line: As long as she was alive, she could be killed, and that threat was better than duct tape over a flapping mouth any day.