Wanted: A Bad Boy Romance (13 page)

Her eyes roll. “You sound like a
fucking convict right now.”

“Princess, I
am
a fucking convict.” I smirk. “But that’s beside the point.
A few more fights
, and I’m done. Promise.”

Not sure why I need to promise a
girl I’ve fucked all of three times that I won’t fight anymore, but I do it
anyway.

“These underground fighting
rings,” she says. “Do they ever video tape you?”

Her head tilts to the side, and
her body shivers beneath my touch.

“No cell phones or cameras
allowed,” I say. “That’s one of the rules in the basement.”

Her hand clutches at her chest as
her eyes close. “And the guys you fight, they agree to this, right? You’re not
picking random people from bars and-”

“God, no. Jordana. Fuck. No.” I
know exactly where she’s going with this. “It’s an organized operation.
Fighters fighting fighters.
Willing opponents.”

She nods. “Okay.”

“Now stop worrying about me and
get your hot little ass out of here.” I slap give her ass a squeeze and lean
over her to grab the door.

She’s going to be worrying about
me tonight. I can sense that much.

I shake my head and grab my shoes
and head across the street for the fight the second I see her car pull away.

Kyle’s waiting
at the bottom of the basement stairs. “Shit. You’re here now. Thought you were
going to pussy out.”

“Never,” I say.

“Good.” He places his hand around
the back of my neck. “See that big son of a bitch over there?”

On the other side of the low-lit
room is a guy easily a good few inches and twenty pounds bigger than me.

“Talk about stacked,” I say, not
that I doubt my skills, but I want Kyle to think I’m doing him a solid here.
I kind of am anyway.
This sure as fuck won’t
be easy money.

“Fuck, Titan. He’s all muscle,
but you’re light on your feet,” he says. “I’ve seen the way you float. You’re
fuckin’ Mohammad Ali. You got this.”

“Two grand?” I want to make sure
the terms haven’t changed. Earlier today he finally came back and said he could
to two grand if I win, and he’s giving me five hundred just to fight.

I couldn’t say no.

“Yeah, yeah.” He rolls his eyes,
still bitter from having spent his morning making this happen. At least it got
him out of doing oil changes for a couple hours.

Spectators and attendees from all
walks of life filter into the basement a few minuets later. They all pay their
covers and they see the bookmaker to place their bets.

Stepping into the makeshift ring
to face my opponent, I know two things to be true: I’m going to be sore a hell
tomorrow, and I’m going to win only because I refuse to lose.

Kent is out doing a home check.
He said I couldn’t come because I’m not armed, but I think he just wants me to
sit at his desk and catch him up on paperwork. I’ve never met a man so allergic
to work before. He claims he prefers the face-to-face part of his job, but all
he ever does during his appointments is lecture.

He’ll take some notes and then
shove it off in a plastic stacker bin on the side of his desk for me to do
later.

I regret choosing this agency for
my internship.

And no wonder Kent was so popular
with the interns. He doesn’t make you do any real work and you still get
offered a job at the end assuming you didn’t rub him the wrong way.

So far he likes me.

But I think it’s because I put up
with his shit.

I’m caught up with his paperwork
around ten Wednesday
morning
, but he’s not scheduled
to be back until the afternoon.

With nothing else to do, I peruse
the database, playing around and trying to get a better feel for the kind of
information it holds. These things are meant to help parole officers. Records
of police reports and psych evaluations. Personal criminal records.
Infractions and misdemeanors.
All of it is right here,
guarded behind a security wall and a password in the district’s system.

Biting my lip and glancing toward
the door, I look Titan up in the system once more. I didn’t recall seeing
anything before about a history of fighting. Just that one willful injury
charge when he beat up that drunk driver who was out on bond.

I soak up everything there is in
his case file, which isn’t much. Ten minutes later, I’m convinced he’s telling
me the truth and doesn’t have a history of underground fighting.

For a little while, I get lost in
thought, residing deep inside my head. This town is small. People talk. I can’t
help but wonder if someone involved in that fighting ring might know the person
who beat up my brother.

Fighting and assault are two
different sides of the same coin, and a man doesn’t beat another man to death
for no reason at all without knowing how to do it. Jerome was a kind soul. He
never would’ve made anyone upset. He was quiet. Kept to himself and his close
group of friends. Stayed out of trouble. Got good grades. He was my mother’s
pride and joy until his life was blown out like a candle.

Whoever assaulted and killed my
brother knew what they were doing. He wasn’t that badly beaten. The autopsy
report said it was a quick blow to the head that did him in. He had barely a
bruise or cut or scrape anywhere on him. The police said whoever did this to
him knew what they were doing.

I pull up my phone and search the
local paper’s website. This morning, I’d overheard some of the parole officers
in the break room discussing a random assault that happened last weekend.

A twenty-five year old Hispanic
male leaving the Hammerhead bar was attacked within inches of his life and left
for dead. No suspects are named but the assault fits a pattern of similar
crimes happening in the area over the last several years.

There has to be a connection.

And Titan’s going to help me
piece this together.

He doesn’t have a choice.

***

“I’m going with you to the next
fight,” I say to Titan Thursday night. I’m standing in his doorway just a hair
past eight o’clock. Judging by the black eye and the way he favors his right
leg, I’d say the last fight was brutal.

He rakes a scraped knuckle
through his hair. “The
hell are
you talking about?”

I push past him, showing myself
in, and take a seat on his bed.

“If you came here to get laid,
I’m going to stop you there.” He favors his left leg as he hobbles toward me.
“Gotta rest for a night.”

“I’m not here for that,” I say,
outwardly denying the fact that I could easily be down to fuck right now if he
weren’t in such poor condition. Even gimped up, he’s still sexy as sin. “I was
thinking about that string of random assaults in this town and how no one can
figure out who’s doing it.”

“Right,” he says. “They’re
random. No motivation. No rhyme or reason. Nothing predictable about when they
happen.”

“I think my brother was the first
victim,” I say. “And the police think, or at least they thought during the
investigation, that whoever killed my brother knew what they were doing. And
clearly whoever is attacking these men outside bars knows what they’re doing.”

“I don’t know what that has to do
with you coming with me to the fights,” he groans, lowering next to me on the
bed. “But you’re not going with me. It’s not safe for you.”

“I’m going,” I say. “All I need
to do is make small talk, start asking around, get a feel for what these people
think of the attacks. This is a small town. The rumor mill here is huge. I just
need to tap into it.”

“Okay, Nancy fucking Drew.” He
huffs and laughs before reaching for his ribs on his left side.

“Laugh all you want, but this
might be the only chance I have.” I can’t finish my thought. The idea of living
the rest of my life not knowing who did this to my brother floods my heart and
steals my words.

And my poor
mother.
She deserves to know. I at least want
to try, if only for her sake.

“I gotta clear it with my guy
first,” Titan says. His hands drag across his face and he yawns before rubbing
his eyes. His deadpan tone leads me to believe he has no intentions of going to
bat for me if this guy says no.

His yawn makes me yawn, and the
thought of curling up to him and staying over crosses my mind.

“I’m going,” I say, before I have
a chance to change my mind. He’s not in any condition to entertain my dirty
thoughts tonight, and lying next to him without jumping his bones would be pure
torture.

“It’s up to my guy,” he says.
“And if it were up to me, I’d say no.”

“Thank God it’s not up to you.” I
fold my arms. “And you better push for me, Titan. Don’t accept ‘no’ for an
answer.”

I hold no weight. I know that. He
knows that.

He crawls back, sluggishly, until
his head hits his pillow.

“I’m going to the next fight,” I state
one last time, rising up to leave. I don’t care what his guy says. I’ll be
there, even if I risk my internship.
Even if he doesn’t want
me there.

It may be a long shot, but I know
there’s a connection. I feel it in my gut.

“I know someone,” I say the next
morning the second Kyle walks in. “Wants in on the next fight.”

Kyle stops dead in his tracks,
uncapping his Mountain Dew and cocking a half smirk. “How well do you know
them?”

He takes a swig, leaving his
mouth half-gaping like he’s too lazy to swallow properly.

“Pretty well,” I lie. Only thing
I know about Jordana is she has Grade
A
pussy to match
her Type A personality. But there’s honesty in her eyes. I see it. There’s
something refreshingly pure about her, and maybe that’s because I haven’t come
across her type in a long while. “She’s into watching fights. I told her what I
do. She wants to see one.”

“Nah,” Kyle says. “Doesn’t work
like that.”

“What, you want a background
check on her?”

“How do I know she’s not a cop?”

“Because I’d never fuck a cop.”
Going that route is going to
be
my best bet. If he
thinks she’s nothing more than a piece of ass, it makes her less of a threat.

“Damn.” Kyle pats my shoulder,
his puny knuckles digging in to my flesh. “Fresh out of the clink and boy’s got
game. Didn’t take you long to find some pussy, did it? Wouldn’t be willing to
share any of that good stuff now, would ya?”

My blood boils, hot and molten
through my veins.

“Not really into that.” I grab a
drill and duck beneath a hoisted Buick.

“Fuck, Titan, I don’t mean double
teaming. I mean like let me have my way with her, and I’ll give her back to you
nice and broken in.”

It shouldn’t surprise me that
Kyle’s view of the finer sex is a bit on the less-refined side.

“You kiss your mother with that
mouth?” I ask.

“This mouth is for kissing
slutty-ass bitches,” he says. “And licking juicy-ass pussies.
Ain’t
seen my Mama in twelve years. That dumb bitch left us
for some rodeo clown and never looked back.”

That would explain his lack of
decency. Every man needs a good woman to teach him how to be a half-decent
human being once in a while.

“Kyle!” KJ grabs his brother’s
attention and points him to a red Lincoln waiting to be pulled into his bay.

“Can I bring her or not?” I ask
before he scampers away.

His hands hook on his sides and
his neck extends as he pauses. “Shit, Titan. If she’s with you, she’s fine. If
she causes any trouble, your ass is on the line. And don’t let it fuck up your
game. You lose a fight because she’s there, and
you’ll
be paying
me
.”

“I don’t lose. You know that.”

Kyle trots away to attend to the
Lincoln, and my stomach hardens. I don’t want Jordana to come. I don’t want her
anywhere near that dingy basement and the kind of men who pay big money to
watch a man beat another within an inch of his life. I’ve seen the way the
women who’ve dared to enter that rat’s nest are feasted upon. There’s something
about watching fights that gets them all riled up, like animals, and every
woman they see in there is fair game.

It’s
gotta
be all the testosterone in the air.

But I’ll never hear of the end of
it if I don’t let her come at least once. And, shit, as long as I’m there,
she’ll be protected.

***

“Fight is Friday night at nine.”
I pull Jordana into my apartment late that night. It’s becoming a regular
thing, her popping by every evening just past suppertime. The weirdest part is
I don’t even mind anymore. Plus it’s nice to know I don’t have to work to too
hard to get laid on a regular basis.

Plus it sure beats fucking my
calloused hands.

“Don’t be late.” I yank her into
my arms and slam the door behind her. A hint of a smile crosses her pouty lips
and disappears as quickly as it arrives. “You’ll come with me. You’ll stick
with me. I want you in my line of sight the entire time. You’ll sit where I can
see you.”

“What’s all this?” Her head
cocks. “Is this you worrying about me? Because if it is, you’re kind of losing
your edge a little and I have to say–”

“Stop playing.” I clear my
throat, my jaw tensing. “The guys in there, they’re going to take one look at
you and see you as fair game. For all intents and purposes, you belong to me in
there.”

Her dark eyes flutter as she
pulls in a soft sigh.

“I appreciate your concern, but I
think I can handle myself. I’m a big girl. I’m educated, trained to recognize
that look in someone’s eyes just before they’re about to get into trouble.”

Yeah. Me too.

“You go on my terms or you don’t
go at all,” I say.

“Am I allowed to talk to anyone?”

I think she’s joking, but I can’t
tell for sure.

“I’d prefer that you not.”

“Trick question,” she says. “I am
talking to people. That’s the whole point of me going. I’m going to ask around,
get a feel for the kind of people that go to these things. Maybe get a lead.”

I roll my eyes. She’s not going
to find what she’s looking for there. Most of them are gamblers, alcoholics,
and suburban dads looking for an escape that won’t get them in a heap of
trouble with their wives. Underground fighting is the least evil of all their
other options.

“Fine,” I growl.

“Now are you going to rip my
clothes off or do I have to do it myself?” Her tongue rakes across her upper
lip before a smile captures her mouth.

“You’re insatiable.” I slip a
finger under the waistband of her leggings and yank her toward me, leaning down
to deposit a bite of a kiss. “And I fucking love it.”

I don’t love anyone.
At least not anyone currently inhabiting this earth.
And I
don’t tend to love anything, really. Material possessions are frivolous.
Hobbies are a waste of fucking time, things people do because their lives are
as empty as they are pathetic.

But I’ll be fucking damned if I
don’t love the way she makes me feel…

Wanted.