Lost Girl

  Even though I’m sure she could take it. Even though I am sure that she would see me bruised and battered and would find something redeeming in me, not just the fact that I hurt people occasionally.

  That’s not my only job in the family. I run the business, make sure people are protected who paid their dues, and keep our own businesses running better than good. We’re making more money with the businesses I have invested in than the family made in years prior to me taking over. All in a year.

  But I doubt Alonzo would approve of that. Sometimes the Boss is too into being white that he forgets that we are both light and dark as people.

  I know he loves Priest though, he’s loved her, the idea of her for so long. He won’t be able to see anything other than light when looking at her, even though she’s capable of it all, just like the rest of us.

  The ten minutes pass quickly, and as it does, I take note of the people in the space, as a good guard does. Most of the faces are familiar, but I do take note of a few new faces among the crowd, like the leggie brunette on the arm of Mr. Tourillo, whose wife had recently died in questionable circumstances, and the red head guy, nearly my height and but not nearly as in good a shape on the arm of the Mr. Gregorio’s daughter, Lucy or Lily or something like that. She got in because Mr. Gregorio is a very good patron and had added her to the list when he’d discovered she had a thing for MMA.

  This isn’t MMA. This isn’t artful techniques and tap outs. This is street fighting, raw, and until a person is unconscious. There are no tap outs.

  But I’m surprised to see a boy on her arm. I could have sworn that she usually brings girl friends here to scope out the victors of the fights. She has a think for fucking men she knows are capable of hurting her, nearly killing her, if they decided.

  Who am I to judge, everyone has a kink right?

  I note it all, and I’ll ask Max for the names to pull the background checks he runs on every person in this room before they are ever able to step foot into this room.

  When Frank steps up beside me I put my water on the bar, and stand up, releasing some of the fabricated calm I had woven around myself while sitting at the bar.

  I’d already texted my bet to Kyrian, our house bookie, and put a hefty chunk of change down on me. I want everyone who looks at me while sitting at that bar to bet against me.

  Just more money in my pocket.

  Frank walks me to the fighting ring, though it’s not a clearly defined area. Instead it’s a loose square that people avoid naturally. Franks already walked my opponent to his side before getting me, and I have to say, he looks mean.

  But he doesn’t know that I am meaner.

  He’s half a foot shorter than me, so he’ll have the advantage if he tries to avoid me, but he’s stalky, so he’s not going to have speed. He bounces around on his feet like they show in television shows, but anyone who’s fought for real knows that’s just wasted energy and a scare tactic.

  One that doesn’t do shit to scare me.

  I stand there and just look at him, and a hush starts to fall around the crowd. They can tell this is going to be different than what they are used to seeing.

  “For those who don’t know, on the right is Thomas, three-time winner in this ring. On the left is his challenger, Alex. If you haven’t already placed your bets with your bookies, you’ve missed out,” Frank says in a loud voice so no one can claim they didn’t hear. Then he looks at us.

  “Fight,” is all I need to hear before I release the shitty paper mâché damn I’d managed to erect. The moment the wall comes down, all I can hear is that single word echoing in the abyss of my mind.

  Fight.Fight.Fight.

  As he tries to reach on me, I take a step into him, throwing him complete off his mental game. I’m sure he’s not used to someone just barreling in, seemingly unprepared. I always love teaching a fighter a new fucking life lesson. Don’t expect every opponent to fight the same way.

  That seems obvious, but to most fighters, they get used to the typical reactions people give them in fights, like a man knows to be guarding his boys while in a fight with a woman, a fighter learns how others perceive their body and judge their weaknesses.

  He thought I would back up, out of his reach, because I’m expected to move slower being taller than him.

  Instead here I am, in his face, sending my fist into the side of his face. He stumbles, but keeps his feet, not a lost cause like some might have been, and he quickly double jabs me in the ribs, but I keep pursuing, knowing just how much damage I can take, and this isn’t even a drop in the bucket. He isnt expecting me to keep my forward movement causing him to trip over his own feet.

  But I don’t need to get him while he’s down, I don’t want a victory like that. It wouldn’t stave off my need for violence in this moment.

  So, I let him get back to his feet. Some probably think it honorable, but if this were a fight to the death, I’d have beaten his face in while he was down. Dying isn’t honorable.

  Once he’s back on his feet, I don’t rush him, like he’s expecting now, instead I stalk him, again throwing him off of his expectations. I can fight in many different styles, and many different mindsets. So, I stalk him, until he throws out an arm, recklessly but with some power and socks me in the left eye.

  I grin.

  The more he’s reckless, the more fun tearing him down will be.

  I punch him high on his shoulder, and while not an elegant or even initially painful move, it limits his own strength, and this is my long game. I chip away at my opponent’s strength and stamina, mentally exhausting them as well as physically.

  He tries to go back for the same ribs he already hit, and I let him, because once I get him close, I snarl him up in my arm, holding him for a moment before slamming my fist to his face.

  I feel my knuckles split once they hit his teeth, and I relish that pain. This is why I am here.

  Blood spills from his nose, and I hear that crunch and I know it’s broken. Hopefully he has a woman at home who can patch him up. Maybe that’s why he’s taking these fights in the first place, to buy her a dream house or a wedding ring.

  The thought of a ring brings Gio and Alonzo’s plan back to the for front of my mind, so the next punch is even harder, the poor idiot in the fighting ring with me paying for all the trouble they’ve stirred up.

  I’m raging at the fact that I like her. I didn’t expect to like her. Didn’t expect a sassy Bajan woman, ready and willing to throw down to protect her own. I didn’t expect to find a woman with every curve I have ever dreamed about in every right place, with an attitude, that I would have never seen coming from the daughter of a stripper.

  I never got to meet Lene, but if she was anything like her daughter there’s no wonder as to why Alonzo had to marry her, defying his father.

  I would have done the same.

  But what really has me going is that unlike any girl I have ever had, she didn’t seem to care about all the dicks in the room. Almost didn’t even seem to notice the difference in gender while dealing with us, and that was refreshing. Growing up in the mansion with the other boys, we always had the wives hitting on us, fawning over us. What else do lonely woman have to do other than fanaticize about being a cougar, especially when leaving your husband usual meant a death sentence. I don’t blame them, but holy shit was it amazing to be looked at as anything other than a hunk of meat.

  It probably has something to do with being around Bones and Cobra and a male dominated crew. After a while I’m sure she got tired of all the male posturing and just saw us as people and not the dicks in our pants.

  Something about those slightly up-tilted eyes looking at me in the DJ booth stares, and deciding I was worthy of trust…it was hard to keep my dick from saluting its new boss.

  I keep pounding my fist into his face, as he tries to get a hand under my arm to try to pry himself free. It’s another stream of blood that assists him to slip my hold, primarily because the blood slicked over my arm from
the new cut on his eyebrow.

  He stumbles away trying to gain distance, wiping at his face to try to clear the blood form his vision. I allow him to do so, even as I pursue him again, pushing him further and further towards the edge of the ring.

  He must see an opening as he decides to rush forward, hooking an arm under mine, preventing my defense with my left arm. He strikes me with his left into my right cheekbone, and blood fills my mouth as my teeth cut the fleshy inside, but I swallow it down.

  The next blow he lands is a liver shot that just glances, but that desperate move let’s me know just how badly he wants this fight over, just how tired he is.

  When his hold begins to slip, I pull free, his blood aiding my own escape, and I hit him in the side of the face with my right fist, right above his left temple.

  And he falls, no stumbling no stammering, just falls.

  Lights out, you poor fool.

  Slowly sound started to register, I can hear the agitation in the crowd that bet against me, and a few murmurs of triumph from those who sided with me.

  Frank claps me on the back, and it takes every strength I have to prevent myself from decking him as my instincts tell me to.

  He guides me over to the bar, and hands me a shot of whiskey, customary for the winners of these fights. And I sit down and let my pain sink into my bones. I feel every blow he landed, and revel in it as I sip on my whiskey, slowly taking note of the buzz of people around me but stay locked into my own thoughts.

  I know I shouldn’t want to get to know Priest better. It’s not a good idea, getting personal in that way with the person who holds the purse strings, but something about her draws me in, and I know that I will spend the rest of my life pissed at Alonzo and Giovani if she ends up with Gio. The thought of it makes me sick.

  “They really found Alonzo’s daughter?”

  The sound of Lucy or Lily’s voice draws me out of my head.

  No one should be talking about Priest here. There are too many unknown entities here. I want to tell her to shut her trap, but she’s not talking to me, and me saying anything will draw more attention.

  But I do pay attention. She’s looking at Frank, and when he just shrugs, neither confirming or denying it, her eyes flash with something, almost like desperation, but I can’t pin it down before she has wiped her face clear of the emotion and continued on to chat about some deal her dad was making.

  I hear my name whispered among the crowed, most people knowing who I am and how I am connected with Alonzo, but no one bothers me as I finish the shot and head to the locker room.

  Kyrian texts me to tell me the amount of money he’s electronically deposited into my bank account, and I slip my phone into my sweatpants pocket and pull the gray hoodie from my locker and keep the hood up.

  When I exit the employees only door, I find Max there, smiling, and I’m sure he’s made a ton of cash off that fight.

  “I already called a cab for you, Boss,” he says.

  I nod my head and head out the door, to find the cab already out front.

  I have the cab drop me off three blocks away again, and I take my time walking, mostly because I’m now tired. It’s been a long fucking day, that doesn’t seem to have an end in sight as far as I can see. And while we could get lucky, I highly doubt Bones is going to let Priest out of his sight after everything that’s gone down.

  Tony is standing outside of the SUV looking like he’s ready to snap, until he sees me. Then he takes a deep breath and climbs back into the SUV.

  I take my time walking around the SUV, preparing for the next battle, and while I am physically drained, I am prepared for this mental battle because I’ve made a decision.

  I’m not going to back down.

  GIOVANI

  A lot can happen in three days, and yet so little.

  We still haven’t been able to collect Priest as we’ve been instructed, which is leaving Alonzo on edge and has him breathing down my neck every hour for updates.

  For once I don’t have much to tell him at all, what do you say to your boss when looking out for his daughter…who hasn’t surfaced from a man’s penthouse in three days.

  Sure Bones has come out plenty, taken Rosary out for walks, done work for the crew, even stopped by Priest’s apartment complex to check on the women there, all under the secret eye of one of Luca’s informants, well paid enough to only have little issue with following a founding member of Phoenix around.

  So, in the job of getting Priest to Alonzo’s home, we’ve been at a standstill.

  I haven’t been able to pin it down to Cobra’s doing or Bones’ over protectiveness, but whatever the reason we haven’t seen her since Friday morning. I’d be concerned that Bones has her locked up if Alonzo hadn’t gotten a hold of Cobra and from there had actually spoken to Priest on the phone.

  Of course, he didn’t say anything that inspired her to leave Bones’ house, he didn’t want to tip her off to his ultimate goal of collecting her without the unnecessary guards at her back.

  So, he’s been breathing down my neck but that hasn’t even paled in comparison to the tension in the SUV that us enforcers are all confined to.

  I knew I shouldn’t have said anything about Alonzo’s hope of a partnership between Priest and I, though I didn’t think that information would lead to a tension like this.

  After sucker punching me Alex had taken off to god knows where. He was obviously leaving to blow off some steam and came back battered up a bit, but nothing too out of the ordinary for him and his line of work.

  I’d expected he’d just blow off his steam and come back and be the normal good second in command to the group, but instead I got something I could have never anticipated

  “You ready to listen, Alex?” I ask him as he takes his position in the SUV. He’s got his hood up, so I can’t get a read on his expression, and I’m having a hard time pealing my eyes away from the dossier on Priest.

  I hate to admit it but Alex might have a point in the fact that maybe I shouldn’t have dug as deep as I did, because I’m having a hard time separating the events on the page and the knowledge that this woman will hopefully, if Alonzo’s dream comes true, be my wife.

  “The real question Gio, is are you ready to fight?” Alex says, and his voice is all molten lava in its heat. He’s still pissed, and maybe hasn’t blown off the steam he seemed to desperately need to.

  It still takes effort to look up from the words on the page; Miscarriage of pregnancy at 21 of Warwick O’Shaughnessy’s child at 16 weeks. I look Alex in the eyes as I close the file, having decided that some information is better left alone. His eyes aren’t angry per se, but they do hold a determination that is unmistakable.

  “Fight?” I ask, my voice light.

  “Just because Alonzo has given you his blessing doesn’t mean that you are who she is going to choose. She could pick a man or woman we don’t know, or an old lover. So, there is nothing stopping me from pursuing her. I…like her, and I think there could be something there. So, while you do whatever it is Alonzo has instructed, don’t be surprised when I attempt to date her.” He says, and I open my mouth to speak my mind, but Tony pipes in.

  “Hell, you’re not the only one interested Alex, so don’t you get your boxers in a bunch if I decide to win her over. She’s got so much spunk I don’t think I could just stand by and not see more about her.”

  Luca just smiles as he raises his hand.

  That causes Alex and I to bristle, but I’m guessing for different reasons.

  “She’s not a conquest, Luca,” Alex growls.

  “This is fucking ridiculous. Alonzo’s already given me his blessing,” I start because I have no idea how they think this is going to work. Even if by some miracle she picked one of them, Alonzo won’t have it.

  “Which is bullshit, but we’re gonna let that whole fucked situation go,” Alex says, eyes narrowed as he looks at me.

  “Not everything with me is about sex, ya know,” Luca says, cockily.
>
  At that all three of us look at him. The man is a fucking man-whore. One of the reasons he’s so good at gathering information is because of his ability to sell himself as the most desirable man in a room, and he takes that to his advantage. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t have to have bimonthly STI checks with the amount of women that come and go from his favored hotel room.

  When we do nothing but stare, Luca loses his cocky air and is now pissed.

  “Fuck all of you assholes, you don’t know everything about me,” he says before getting out of the SUV in a huff.

  The tension has been like a violin string strung too tightly but hasn’t snapped yet. I keep reading through all the information I have but find myself back to the same page.

  Miscarriage.

  Is that why she surrounded herself in the slums, protecting women and their children because she could have been forced to live that same type of life of barely getting by, or doing things that many frown on to make a life for themselves and their children?

  I want to know more about the man she almost had a baby with, about where he is, did she love him? Did he abandon her?

  I’ll fucking gut him myself if that’s the case.

  But I also find myself a little pissed off at her. She should have been smarter than that to nearly end up in that situation. She should have never put herself in that position.

  “I have eyes on her!” Luca whisper yells from his position in the back.

  All of us scramble to get our own eyes on her, and the moment my eyes fall to her I take a breath that seems to release some of the tension I’d been holding.

  She’s walking Rosary, her blond hair hitting just below her shoulder blade in a curly mane, the top covered by a backward turned flat billed baseball cap, a graffiti image of a black and gold phoenix flying on the front. She’s not wearing the same clothes, and I idly wonder if she’s wearing Angel DeMarco’s clothes or if she has a stash of her own clothes at Bones’.