Unleashed (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance) (72 page)

The pub’s called
The Spotted Hen
, and it looks different from the rest. Whereas it’s neighboring establishments are all buzzing with people, some even spilling out onto the street, this pub is basically empty.

I’ve been walking winding, cobbled-stone alleys for hours, touring central London myself. I walked along the River Thames, past the London Eye, Houses of Parliament, and Big Ben.

There was never a moment when I wasn’t surrounded by streams of tourists, many part of package tours, but not all.

It was a little surreal, walking around a first-world, metropolitan city, and seeing more tourists than I did locals.

But as the daylight faded, as the sun dipped below the horizon, they all disappeared. Off to package-tour dinners or wherever the fuck.

And my thoughts stayed on Cassie, how I’d let her down.

How much it matters to me with her when it’s never mattered to me before.

She thinks I make
her
act out of character?

She does the very same thing to me.

Outside the pub, two mean looking bouncers wearing leather jackets and scowls deny everyone entry.

“Sorry, mate,” I hear one of them say to a group of college-aged boys. “Venue’s booked tonight.”

They’ve got tattoos extending up their necks, and on the backs of their hands I can see more ink peeking out from beneath their sleeves.

Their crew-cuts make me think ex-military. At the very least, it’s clear they are trained.

And this piques my curiosity. Obviously this particular pub is being used for shady business. A front? A headquarters for some crime gang?

Either way, it’s interesting.

I stand on the opposite side, spark up a cigarette, and wait to see what kind of people go into this place.

There’s a slight drizzle, and so I pop the collar up on my jacket, move a little to stand beneath a tree leaning over the sidewalk.

In the shadow of it, all that can be seen is the bright orange burn of my cigarette, and the misty smoke that drifts outward into the cones of light cast down by streetlamps.

That’s when a black cabbie pulls up, tiny wheels and chugging exhaust. Out of it steps…
Frank Kaminski
.

I blink, do a double take. Kaminski is an ex-professional MMA fighter. He retired a few years ago after a string of humiliating losses to young bucks. Rather than remain middle-of-the-pack, he decided to call it quits.

He lost all his endorsement deals, practically dropped off the face of the planet.

But what the hell is he doing here? What the fuck are the chances that I see him here, now?

From the taxi another two people emerge. One of them is a woman, wearing a disgustingly showy fur coat. She’s got cheekbones all the way to the moon, paired with square-ish features. The wolf’s head is still attached to her fur coat.

She’s wearing a pouty bitchface, seems to check every stereotype box.

The other person, a man, is the visage of a body guard. Tall, broad, sunglasses at night.

Every stereotype indeed.

He taps Kaminski on the shoulder, nods at the woman, and then together the three of them make their way past the bouncers who let them by without saying anything.

I notice the bag Kaminski is carrying. It’s a duffel bag, black, and the zip is open. Inside, I see a roll of red tape. It’s the kind you use to tape your hands and wrists before a fight.

I lick my lips. So there’s a fight going down tonight. Underground, illegal, unlicensed. That means the money will be flowing. Mobsters will all be here to place big bets, especially if they’ve got an ex-pro.

It’ll be a show for sure, but likely a brutal fight. An ex-pro in an underground cage match? It’s not altogether a rarity, but there’s no fanfare about this pub, everything looks extremely discreet.

It’s not a big event, and that likely means Kaminski’s opponent is going to be
very
outmatched. At least, that’s my guess.

But I can’t place what the angle is. Who is going to bet big on some amateur fighting an ex-pro? It doesn’t make sense.

Another cabbie pulls up, and this time there’s just a single man that gets out. By the build of him, the gait, it’s obvious he’s here to fight as well. I don’t know if he’s going to be fighting Kaminski, or if tonight there is going to be more than one fight.

My bet is the latter.

My thoughts go back to Cassie’s slap, but I push it away. I want to distract myself, and there’s no better way than watching a cage match or two.

I begin to unbutton my shirt, then take it off. I’m wearing a black singlet beneath. I stuff my shirt into my back pocket, and walk up to the pub. As I anticipate, one of the bouncer’s stops me.

“The fuck you think you’re going, mate?” The bouncer looks me up and down, sees that I’m no average Joe that just stumbled in off the street.

His eyes wipe over my arms and shoulders, and he considers my tattoos, my build, my scarred knuckles.

“You fighting tonight?”

“Yeah,” I lie. “I heard there was an opening, somebody dropped out.”

“You’re early.”

“I want to watch.”

“Hurry the fuck up then,” the bouncer says, waving me in. “There are supplies in the changing room. You won’t be on for another hour, maybe more.”

“Got any bikes? I need to warm up.”

“This your first fight here, eh?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Yeah, we got bikes downstairs.”

I grin at the bouncer, and then step into the pub. I look around, but the main floor is completely empty. Nobody is staffing the bar.

“To your right,” the bouncer calls. I turn, see the door, and open it. There’s a stairwell going downstairs, dark and musty.

That was way easier than I expected it to be.

The stairwell spits me out into a large underground basement. There are fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling, and the room has this haze to it from all the cigar and cigarette smokers.

The smell of both whiskey and beer hides beneath the smoke, is barely perceptible. Less, still, is the sourness of old sweat and blood.

I feel like I’ve stepped straight onto a movie set.

There’s a growing hubbub of excited chatter. The kind of people here are the unsavory sort. Gangsters, crime families… and a few well-dressed men that aren’t just common street thugs.

But there’s also a considerable number of average-Joe types, with rolled-up shirtsleeves, pot-bellies, and receding hairlines.

So this is a pretty big fight I just stumbled onto. You wouldn’t know it from the outside.

That’s when I see him…
Kyle
, Cassie’s father. I squint, make sure it’s him, that I’m not just recognizing somebody else incorrectly.

It’s him, alright, and he’s got a silver briefcase with him. He’s at the bookie’s table, and I see him slide the briefcase over the top of it.

So Mr. Shannon has a vice, I think to myself. A small betting problem… but who would have thought he’d be an underground fight sort of guy? Certainly not me. I would have pegged him as a horses-man, he has that sort of jitteriness to him.

That’s when I notice how uncomfortable he looks. His hands are trembling, and his forehead is beading. He is completely out of his element.

He glances around wildly, like a dog in danger. His eyes go to the various hard types, young kids with tattoos and switchblades, older types with goons and, no doubt, guns.

There’s a small group of mean-looking men walking through the throng. They’re holding out a big bag and walking up to people. I see one man pull a knife from his sock. It gets labeled, dropped into the bag, and the man gets a chip.

Don’t need anything going down in such a tight environment.

They eventually get to me, and I shake my head. They give me a
come on
look, and so I lift my arms out, let them pat me down.

“You ’ere to fight?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Make sure you check-in down the back. We had a couple of drop-outs tonight.”

They leave, pat down a few other people, and I back up into the corner of the basement, stand in the shadows, and spark up a cigarette.

Kyle has my attention now. He doesn’t want to be here, it’s clear.

A bald man, short and wide, clears through the crowd, and he leads Kaminski to the cage. Kaminski throws off his robe, runs his hands through his short, sweaty hair, and then slaps them together, spraying a fine mist.

He grins at the audience, his small mouth set in a square head baring surprisingly large teeth.

Nobody is talking. There are no announcers, no anything. Across the room, behind the bookie’s table, is a digital sign that blinks to life. It reads, ‘Kaminski vs Mack, 1’.

I’ve never heard of any Mack.

The second opponent is led out by the man with the hairless dome. He’s thin, maybe a buck-eighty if that, no older than twenty-five, and is clearly no match for Kaminski who, even after retirement and in his forties, still looks two-thirty and change.

Jesus, I think to myself. That kid is going to get pasted.

I dart my eyes to Kyle again, and see him rubbing his hands together. His brow is creased nervously, and his eyes follow the Mack kid all the way to the cage.

I don’t know what the hell he’s so anxious about. Everyone will have bet on Kaminski. The payout will be next to nothing.

Mack hands his robe to the bald man, and then begins to stretch a little. He’s got a naturally good body but he needs to work on it. He’s carrying too much baby fat.

He looks unfocused. His baby-face conveys no confidence. His wide, brown eyes skip all over the place, but never meet Kaminski’s.

He’s a goner.

I run my forefinger and thumb across my forehead. This fight is going to be over as soon as it starts. Kaminski might kill this kid.

The crowd around us begins to get noisier and noisier. More people file down the stairway and enter the room. Nobody casts their eyes in my direction, which I’m thankful for. The last thing I need is trouble with gangsters in a foreign country.

It should be the last thing Kyle needs, too… especially since he’s over here with his new wife… with his daughter.

I feel a flare of anger at him. What an irresponsible tool.

More line-up at the bookie’s table, place their bets. Briefcases and duffel bags are handed over, and then are taken to a back room, where there is no doubt a safe and guards with guns.

This is a proper operation. Only Kyle, and a handful of others, look confused.

He wrings his hands continuously, can’t stop from jittering on his feet. He’s sweated through his grey suit jacket.

This fucker needs this bet in a bad way, it seems.

But that’s when it hits me, the oddness of it all. Mack is no match for Kaminski. Even if he’s trained, he is simply outclassed physically. Everybody would be placing their bets on Kaminski… the winnings would be slim.

Betting two grand to make back two-point-two hardly seems worth it. In fact… even the bookie wouldn’t take bets on these odds.

“Oh shit,” I say to myself, looking between Kyle and the cage. Kyle bet on the
Mack kid!
That’s got to be it.

Kaminski is going to throw the fight!

Shit just got interesting.

“You sly fucker,” I say, looking at Kyle. He knows that Kaminski is going to throw the match. He’ll make out like a bandit betting the underdog at what must be insane odds. “You sly motherfucker.”

There must be some kind of agreement. I notice, then, that more people are looking at Mack, rather than Kaminski. They’re practically rubbing their hands together like greedy cartoon caricatures.

This whole thing is a big sham. Kyle and whoever else is betting on Mack are about to rip off a ton of people who bet on Kaminski.

It strikes me that this place could get very dangerous after the upset.

Who the fuck is Cassie’s father involved with? How did he swing something like this? Or if he didn’t organize it, how did he get in on it?

He never struck me as anything but a middle-aged, middle-class man caught in a middle-life crisis.

The low, wide bald man now climbs into the cage, and brings the two fighters together to tap fists. “I want a clean fight!” he says.