Punching and Kissing (27 page)

I took her hands and, between sobs, she told me.

I thought I’d felt anger before. I thought the red rage that descended on me during a fight was anger, or my frustration at how Rick had used me was anger. But I was wrong. You have to have someone in your life you care about more than yourself. Only when someone threatens that person can you really, truly know anger.

I told Sylvie that everything was going to be okay. I made her soup and cuddled her up in some blankets and turned on the TV. And then I called Charlie.

Charlie’s job is to process the guys the patrol officers drag in, which means he knows everything that’s happening locally and he’s got access to the police computers. Exactly what I needed right now...except I’d long since used up all my favors with him.

I met Charlie back when I was fighting, in the days before Rick had corrupted me too much. One of Charlie’s cousins was just starting out as a fighter and I gave him some tips. Charlie and I had hung out together but, as I’d become Rick’s muscle, the friendship had become more and more strained. He’d told me a thousand times to get out...and then, suddenly, it was too late. I killed Travere and quit fighting. When the rumors went around about a guy dying, most of the cops hadn’t known where to start looking...but Charlie did. He came to me, having figured out pretty much the whole thing, and demanded I testify against Rick.

I managed to make a deal with him: he’d keep quiet about what he knew and, in return, I’d talk his cousin out of fighting. His cousin was following in my footsteps, maybe six months away from becoming Rick’s next attack dog. I persuaded him to quit the scene and get a legit job instead, and Charlie and I agreed things were square. But the other part of the deal was that I’d stay the hell away from fighting. Something I was only too happy to comply with...until Sylvie came along.

Now, I was going to have to tell Charlie the truth. Except, him being him, I barely needed to. He’d known something was up as soon as he’d seen me in the diner.

“You’re in deep with Rick again, aren’t you?” he said as soon as he heard my voice.

I looked through to the living room, where Sylvie was staring at the TV. I could tell she wasn’t really seeing it. “Charlie, I need to find someone.”

“We had a deal, big guy. You said you’d stay away from that piece of shit. Or find some way to bring him down.”

Fat chance of that.
Rick was too smart to be caught red-handed and we both knew it. But I’d sworn, after Travere, that I’d try. “I swear, if there’s ever a way, you can put the cuffs on him personally. But right now, I need your help.”

“Have you got any idea how much trouble I could get in, giving you information?
Especially
if whoever the fuck you’re looking for winds up dead?”

“This isn’t about me. It’s about Sylvie. There’s a big guy, name of Lowell. Just got out a few weeks ago. Assault and...rape.” My voice shredded on the last word.

Immediately, Charlie’s tone changed. “He did something to Sylvie?”

“He’s going to.”

I heard a flurry of keystrokes. “Got him.” Charlie paused. “Aedan, let me get him picked up. Got my buddy Ryan out there in a car tonight and it’s not far from his beat. He’d
enjoy
taking down a scumbag like this, especially if he resists.”

That was tempting, but Rick and his sleazy lawyer might get Lowell off the hook. Besides, I wasn’t in the mood for justice. I was in the mood for good old-fashioned revenge. “I’ll owe you one, Charlie. Please, just give me an address.”

Aedan

Lowell was staying in a motel while he was on parole—the sort with chicken wire over the windows. I figured that the place probably saw enough trouble that someone might actually be watching the security cameras in the parking lot.

So, when he pulled up, I forced myself to wait. Charlie had given me his license plate so I knew I had the right guy. I tailed him to the door of his motel room, palms itching with the need to hit him. I waited until he’d opened the lock...and then I shoulder-charged him into the room.

I kicked the door shut and then it was just us, alone, with no one to interfere. No one to save him. I stripped off my jacket. I didn’t want to get blood on it.

He was studying me carefully. A fighter can recognize another fighter. Meanwhile, I was getting the measure of him. Smaller than me, but not by much. A good amount of muscle, but probably faster than me. A dangerous combination.

I didn’t give a shit.

He figured it out pretty quickly. “You’re with the girl,” he said. “The one who’s training her. You fucking her? What’s she like? Nice and tight?”

I knew he was trying to goad me into making a mistake and I didn’t care. I ran at him, raining punches at his midsection. He grabbed hold of me, swinging me around and into a table. A lamp smashed on the floor and we were plunged into darkness.

I staggered, off balance. He’d been living here for weeks—he knew the room a lot better than I did. Before I could find him again in the shadows, he was on me, kicking my feet out from under me. I went down hard against the table and it crumpled under me like matchwood. His fist caught me across the face once, twice. I tasted blood.

“She’s a hot little piece,” he grunted. “All that time inside, I was thinking about girls just like her.” He jumped up and, before I could get to my feet, his foot lashed out and caught me in the jaw. Pain exploded in my head, white-hot and all-consuming. The room span.

“Don’t worry,” he told me. “I’m not gonna hit her too hard. I don’t want her passed out while I’m bangin’ her. I want her to be able to moan my name.”

I came up off the floor and slammed into him like a force of nature, bearing him down to the floor. I heard his arm break as he landed, by which point I was pounding on his face. He hit me a couple of times in the ribs, but it barely even registered. Three good punches and he dropped his arms. Four, and he went limp.

I sat there, straddling his chest. He was looking up at me through swollen eyelids, not giving in but not taunting, either. Wondering if I was going to finish the job and kill him.

I wanted to. For the first time in my life, I really wanted to. And for the first time, I really understood the difference between someone like me and a real killer.

She wouldn’t want me to. I knew that.

I stood up. Lowell turned his head and spat out a tooth. He clutched at his broken arm. “You’re fucked,” he managed to croak. “Both of you. You’ve brought down hell on yourselves. Have you any idea what Rick’s going to do now?”

I turned and walked away, leaving him in a pool of blood. I felt sated. And I’d done what I’d gone there to do—there was no way Lowell could hurt Sylvie now.

But, as the adrenaline faded, I knew the scumbag was right: Rick would retaliate. I hadn’t had a choice, but I’d just made things worse.

Minutes later, I found out how much worse.

Aedan

I didn’t even make it home. Rick’s goons picked me up on the street, halfway back to my apartment, and bundled me into a car. I knew it was pointless to resist. Better that Rick took it out on me than on Sylvie.

Back when I’d been fighting for him, Rick had operated out of a fancy apartment downtown. These days, he’d moved up in the world. The goons pushed me up the gangplank of a gleaming white yacht in the harbor. Inside, it was all antique-effect wood paneling and polished marble—expensive, but gaudy.

Rick was sitting on the edge of an ornate desk, waiting for me, tapping his cane against his leg. His goons let me go and took up positions by the doors.

“Aedan.” he said, spitting my name out, and immediately I knew it was bad. He didn’t move—he barely even looked at me. But his cane went
tap tap tap
even faster.

Well, fine. I was plenty mad myself. “You bastard. What were you thinking? Even back when I knew you, you wouldn’t have done
this.”

Rick gave me a toothy grin. “I hung out with the right people. People who have enough money that they don’t have to worry about right and wrong. They just want to be entertained. And I had Sylvie all set up to wow them. Ten thousand dollars
each,
I was going to charge. I had over eighty of them on the guest list. You do the fucking math.”

He lazily unscrewed the fat crystal at the top of his cane. When it came loose, he lifted it off. On the underside, hidden inside the cane, was a long, test-tube-shaped vial of white powder. I’d seen coke vials before, but they’d been tiny, enough for a few lines. This was the size of a fat man’s finger. Of course— with Rick, everything had to be bigger and better. I watched as he tapped out a long line on the desktop and then bent to snort it. Jesus, he must be putting a thousand dollars a day up his nose.

I glanced around at the yacht, feeling sick. I’d known that he’d gotten worse, since I knew him, but I’d underestimated how much worse. The money had made him hungry for more money and now he was in a downward spiral. He’d do anything if it kept the rich going to his fights. “Lowell isn’t going to be hurting anyone,” I told him. “I broke his arm.”

Rick stood up, his eyes wide, his pupils huge. “You think that changes anything? You think I can’t find another guy like Lowell,
tonight?”
He walked towards me. “Jesus, Aedan, think about what I’m offering: the guy gets to beat up a woman and then fuck her, with a guarantee that she won’t go to the police.
He
should be paying
me.”

I gauged the distance between us, trying to estimate whether I could break his neck before his goons got to me. He was just a few feet too far away, and he knew it. And he was right: beating up Lowell hadn’t done anything. Except to make him mad.

“You need to learn a fucking lesson,” spat Rick. “You don’t want to see her get fucked? Fine. You can see her die, instead. You know the only thing better than sex and violence? A Roman fucking circus. A fight to the death. People’ll sure as hell pay to see
that.
”

I stared at him. “You won’t find a fighter to do it. Not
to the death
.” A body meant far too much heat, even for some of the scumbags in the underground circuit.

Rick just grinned at me. And the true horror of it slowly dawned.

“No,” I said quickly.

“You and Sylvie walk into the pit,” he said. “And only one of you comes out.”

I shook my head.

“Refuse to fight,” said Rick, “and I kill both of you.”

“No! Jesus!”

“Run, and I hunt you down and kill both of you
and
her brother.”

I stared at him, breathless. My heart felt like it was trying to break through my ribcage. I was terrified. I was raging. I know I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. “You can’t do this!” I yelled.

He just smirked at me. He knew he had me in the perfect trap. Al and Carl were there to stop me killing him, so that wasn’t a way out. If I refused to do it, he’d just kill Sylvie himself.

“I can’t do it,” I croaked. “I can’t kill her.”

“I didn’t think so,” said Rick, leaning forward on his cane. “So you’ll just have to convince her to kill you.”