Authors: Courtney Lane
“I’d rather stand.”
“Sit.” Authority and grit wormed into his demand and withdrew any invitation to rebel.
I swiveled around toward the door, and found the guard standing in front of it, blocking my exit.
I closed the door in the guard’s face and slammed my back against it. My body reminded me of the stitch in my ankle and made me wince. “I’m not looking for a job. I work for myself, and it’ll always be that way.”
A disbelieving dark brow raised his forehead. “Do you have an aversion to authority, or do you think I mean to impede on your sense of free will?”
I hesitated and broke my act for a second, despite wishing I could continue pretending to be a tough girl. It mattered little what spilled out of my mouth shortly after.
He knew he’d guessed correctly and it was written in the smugness etched into his smile. “If I’m correct about your concerns, you’ll only have one boss: me. You’ll be protected, and you won’t have to resort to doing this”—he gestured toward the door— “to get the excitement you’ve been seeking.”
“Maybe I do this for shits and giggles? Maybe I don’t need it.”
“Everyone needs something, Sugar.” Gleaming with a ferocious and almost tangible focus, his eyes locked me in place. “You didn’t hear me correctly. What I said is you’re resorting to it, and it’s not due to your need of it.”
“What makes you think I don’t need it?” I asked, playing a game of circles with words.
The man never released the intensity, even when he smiled. “How many matches have you had?”
“Five.”
He nodded, digesting the information. “I can tell a lot about you from the way you presented yourself in the ring. I can tell you don’t belong and you’re putting your life unnecessarily at risk. Consider me an invested party who wants to get you off the streets and
keep
you off them.”
I snorted, wondering if this guy was serious. The golden ticket had to lead to hell; it wouldn’t have looked this enticing if it didn’t. The devil was cloaked in beauty to entice the sinner, and he was birthed from a pool of the devil’s temptations. “And what do you want me to do for you?”
“It’s not necessarily what you can do for me, but what I can do for you. One of those many things doesn’t include an arena.”
My gaze skirted over the dents and peaks shown through his T-shirt and jeans. “I get it. A lot of the guys get turned on by watching the girls fight. Some guys want their fantasy fulfilled because they’re all hot and bothered after the fight is over. Some of the arena girls are into that for the extra cash. I’m not.”
The muscle wrapping around the prominent jawline twitched. The drapes of disapproval came down across his eyes. He obviously didn’t like the word no, exactly like someone else I knew and could’ve gone to my deathbed having never met.
“If I wanted to fuck you,” he began, dipping fully into the quiet but cruel, “I wouldn’t pay for it, and I wouldn’t need to arrange a private meeting with you in order to have it. I could’ve easily fucked you inside my car shortly after we met. It’s not what I want. The beginning of our relationship will be of a less…” He paused for a second. A smile soaked in deviance contorted his mouth. “…Sexual nature.”
Less sexual but not completely platonic? Mr. VIP’s way of dancing with his words made my head throb. “Yeah. Okay. Not buying what you’re selling.” I pointed over my shoulder to the door with my thumb. “Can you tell your muscle to move when I open the door? I need to get the fuck out of here.”
He brushed past me. The crisp scent of his cologne swarmed my senses with a soothing warmth. I inhaled it and closed my eyes to appreciate the decadence of his scent. The kind of scent that made a woman sink her nose into his pillow after a night of sweaty, animalistic sex.
The door was no longer obstructed by a mass of muscle. I made a start for the exit only to be stopped by Mr. VIP extending his hand across the doorframe.
“When you change your mind…contact me.” He moved his arm, allowing me to leave.
Halfway down the hall, I remembered. “Hey, I don’t have your…” I whirled around only to be faced with an empty hall.
-2-
W
EAPON
OF
C
HOICE
A sudden urge to pee hit me when I stepped out the back door of the building. I had my impromptu meeting with Mr. VIP to thank for forgetting my jacket in the arena. The chilly breeze made me feel as though the act of soiling myself was imminent. Scrambling for a place to relieve myself, I scanned the area, turned down the alley, and hid behind the dumpster.
While squatting to empty my bladder two feet away from the large bin, a prickle at the back of my neck made me look up. Two men shadowed the end of the alley. At the other end, two more men blocked my way out. I quickly pulled up my panties along with my faux leather leggings, and walked to the middle of the alleyway. A stray eye was kept on both crowds as they neared me.
“Sugar. Sugar.” Temple stomped down the black pavement. His hoodie was pulled over his head, creating a black cast over his face. His sneakers made crackling sounds on the damp ground with each step. Stopping only a foot shy of my position, he made a horrible decision, and tried to touch my busted lip. “I like your brass balls. I always have.”
I smacked his hand away and surveyed the men closing ranks.
It was sheer luck that helped me win a fight against three women in the ring with more experience than I had. There wasn’t a shred of hope to ensure I could’ve defended myself against Temple and his men.
The street light flirted across his face, giving me a glimpse of the gift I’d left him with: a black eye. “Because I like you”—Temple bit his lip as if I was his next meal— “I’m giving you one more chance.”
“You said that last time,” I reminded him. “And the other three times before that. Then, you had some girls gang up on me in the ring tonight, and failed again at trying to teach me a lesson. Maybe it’s time to cut your losses and give up before you embarrass yourself in front of your boys?” A grin tightened my lips. “You know what happens when you catch me by surprise.”
“Stupid bitch.” Snarling at me, he reached into his back pocket and pulled an unseen device from behind his back. The street lights shone on the glint of silver of his Smith and Wesson.
I scattered backward, missed my step, and fell to the ground. My palms hit the pavement to break my fall. Crunching and cracking sounds filled my ears. The repeated harsh pop vibrated inside my eardrums, leaving them ringing. The world was a whirl of movement, taking many seconds to figure out what I had seen. The crowd surrounding me had adopted a plus one.
By the time my perception caught up with the scenery, the men around me were all but gone. Temple’s henchmen were dragging another—bleeding profusely from the ass and presumably dead—hurriedly down the other end of the alley. Temple had all but disappeared around the bend when he threatened to return with more men to kill my new “friend” and me.
Long legs dressed in black jeans stood in my way. A hand came down to help me. A gun, tipped in blood, hung tightly at his side, clasped in his other hand.
My head reclined to look into the face of the man who helped me: the beautiful man with an ominous job offer. His chest heaved with heavy breaths and the anger held his strong features captive.
He reached farther down to grab my hand from where it rested on my lap, expressing his impatience at my need to figure out what had happened before I reacted.
Shaking my head and declining his offer, I fought to stand on my own.
The man who acted as my dark hero yanked me up toward him, cloaked me in his leather jacket, and dragged me in the direction opposite from where Temple and his men had disappeared. He entered through an unlocked door to a derelict apartment building and led me inside.
Releasing my hand at the narrow area leading to a stairwell, he ascended the stairs.
I didn’t follow.
He looked over his shoulder at me. “If you keep gawking at me instead of moving, you won’t live to see another night.”
“Give me a second here.” I pressed my hand against the dramatic rise and fall of my chest, feeling high on fear as it surged through my senses.
Mr. VIP’s looks were blinding deceptions, dangerously hiding the man’s capabilities. It was impossible to think clearly on the spot. Taking a few breaths to calm myself, I sorted through the labyrinth inside my mind.
“We don’t have time.” Only an easily missed tinge of insistence filled his words.
“A complete stranger helped me by using a gun in a way that wasn’t its intended purpose. Give me a minute to sort through that.”
He turned fully toward me and clenched the railing of the stairwell. “And you took down three women with bigger muscles than you in less than ten minutes.”
And now I knew he’d watched the entire fight. “I’m not a gladiator. I don’t need to be. It was sheer fucking luck I was able to take down even one of those women.”
“It wasn’t luck. You used what you had to gain an advantage.” He nearly sounded impressed. “Smart.”
“One of the guys that was dragged away didn’t look to be breathing. If he was, I’d pity him because he’ll never shit the same way again. And since you
owned
the arena tonight, the death of those three girls were your responsibility. Between the two of us, I’m the one who didn’t kill anyone tonight. Excuse me if I’m not exactly jumping with glee about the idea of running off with a killer.” My delivery was deadpan. I’d witnessed a hooker beaten to death by her pimp. Another gang-raped and left for dead in an alley. And in the most gruesome scene, I witnessed a woman, who was like a sister to me, stabbed to death by one of Temple’s girls in an alley while his men stood watch and made sure no one could help the victim. It wasn’t the only extent of the violence I had witnessed. I tended to stay away—if I had any control over my company—from men who murdered without remorse.
Mr. VIP stepped down the stairwell. “Make the smart choice. Come with me.”
Heavy pounding and threats from familiar voices echoed outside the locked door behind me, announcing my enemies’ return. The popping and pinging outside the door indicated Temple had found more weapons and his balls in the process of running away.
I had no other immediate option. The men who were chasing us would’ve broken inside if I delayed any longer.
I slapped my hand in Mr. VIP’s extended palm. Gooseflesh rifled up my arm when he gripped me strongly and protectively, guiding me up the stairwell.
He navigated the building like he had studied it prior. We cut through the third floor, entering an abandoned apartment rife with addicts and descended down a fire escape facing the opposite block.
Only a few feet away, a car sat idle on the curb and was a different make and model from the one I spied him in earlier when he stopped at the store. The second my ass hit the leather interior and I closed my door, he drove off at a delayed pace and blended into the steady traffic.
I ran through the scenarios of where he would take me and how I would escape in all possible situations when we would reach our destination. I witnessed him kill one man in cold blood. He had three women executed, I assumed, to protect me. There was no reason for him to let me go. I was a witness. A liability.
On the contrary, there was a small glint of hope that for at least an hour, maybe more, he was my way of avoiding prison and Temple’s revenge. It was difficult not to cling to the cover of innocence falling over his face when he smiled at me, or looked at me on occasion.
Noticing the way my legs began to shake and my need to cocoon myself in his leather jacket, he pressed a few touch points on the LCD screen in the dash. Warmth filled the seats and burst across my face.
“You have an interesting fighting style. Where did you train?” He leaned back, leaving one hand to direct the steering wheel.
“Well, there was this guy in an alley handing out ass-kicking degrees. I asked him if I could have one, and he said sure.”
He dropped his hand and shot me a look to show he wasn’t amused, his curvy and full lips molded in the shape of a frown.
“You walked into that one with your invasive question.” I expelled an elongated stream of noisy air.
“Instead of posing questions about who I am, showing fear over what happened and that it might happen to you, you’re sharing bad jokes?”
I shrugged my shoulders at him. “If you wanted me dead, you wouldn’t have saved me. Unless you’re some sick fuck who’s pretending to be nice to me so you can take out your payment on my body. You can try. You’re creative with a gun. How good are you without a weapon?”
“I’m good with many weapons, Sugar.” A skewed smile curved the corner of his mouth.
My bones shuddered in reaction.
“Where can I drop you off?”
My body went rigid. “The Corona Motel.” The pangs over what would await me at the hotel threatened to debilitate me.