SWNOVELS Crooked Crows: Chapter 23
“How is it?” Grey asked, finishing the wrap on my right hand. I flexed my fingers, making sure there was enough movement, but not so much that I’d easily break bones. I mean, I didn’t mind a few breaks, but like Corvus and Grey liked to keep reminding me, if I broke the bones in my hands any more than I already had over the years I wouldn’t be able to use them for shit when I got older.
Not to hold a gun.
Not to take a piss.
Not to jerk it when I woke from fever dreams of Ava Jade.
I hadn’t dreamt a goddamned thing in years until now. I’d almost forgotten what it was like.
“Hey,” Grey pressed. “You good?”
“Is he ready?” Corvus asked, storming back into our private area with a sour look on his face.
I lifted the dregs of my whiskey from the stool next to me and swallowed them down. Fight nights were the one time I let Corv regulate that shit. I’d had exactly four ounces of whiskey since we arrived an hour ago, and I wasn’t allowed a drop more until after the fight. Something about not wanting to kill the other guy.
Personally? I thought it would make for an exceptional show.
“Yeah,” Grey answered for me, and I knocked my glass back down onto the stool, glancing up through the dark hair covering my forehead to the clock.
Two minutes.
Heat swelled in my core, pouring steam into my muscles. I rolled my shoulders and twisted on my stool, stretching out my back muscles. I’d already gone through the rest of the stretching and pre-fight bullshit earlier, but my lower back was tight as fuck and I didn’t want to risk it locking up in the ring.
“How’s it looking?” I asked, shaking my head at Grey’s offer of water.
“Better than we hoped. Conor Jones talked a big game. Won his last five consecutive fights. The bets are stacked against you, but not by much. A last-minute bet pushed it closer to even.”
Which meant that when I won, the payout would be greater for our proxies, and therefore, for us.
“Just put on a good show,” Grey said, clapping me on the shoulder and giving a squeeze as he fixed me with a pointed stare.
“Don’t I always?”
He snorted. “And don’t kill him.”
“No promises,” I muttered, getting to my feet as the crowd outside began to grow louder than the thudding music. After I killed that one guy back in April, they were hesitant to let me fight again at all.
If the roar of the crowd out there was an indication, I’d say it helped.
Deep down, people were more fucked up than they liked to believe. Even the investment bankers and the mortgage brokers and the lawyers. They came here tonight not just because there was a fight and they could make some coin. They came because those dark parts of themselves craved chaos. Blood. The possibility of death.
The only difference between them and us was that they wouldn’t admit it. They choked it down and snuffed it out. Pretended it wasn’t there. Trauma hadn’t destroyed the barriers their darkness hid behind, but it’d shattered ours. Setting us free.
Corvus gripped the thick black curtain, and I grimaced.
This was the part I didn’t care for. Growling quietly to myself, I waited, bouncing from foot to foot, letting that unnamable thing inside of me slither to the surface. The rawest, most primal parts of myself awakening as a spark of adrenaline ignited them.
I shook my head, opening my mouth to allow Grey to shove the guard in. He gave my cheek a hard slap, and I let it ricochet in warm waves through my body, stoking the fire.
Fuck yeah.
I grinned over the mouthguard as the music changed, shifting to the entry song Grey chose for me. The distant echo of cheers accompanied the synth sounds as Fire blared over the speakers, and I stepped out.
I kept my head down as I stalked toward the ring, bristling as shouts and jeers assaulted my ears. As unfamiliar hands attempted to clap on to my back and arms, reaching, keeping me hemmed in on both sides. Stopped only by the look on my face and the weak half fence holding them back. I envisioned cutting each hand clean off at the wrist as I passed, which made it all bearable.
This was part of the show.
A part I endured as a means to an end, but when a meaty hand slapped against my cheek, my lid popped and I whirled, striking him once in the jaw. He stumbled and fell, making the surrounding crowd have to catch him.
Silence fell for an instant before the cheers erupted anew, louder and more wild than before as the unconscious man was forgotten, left to fall unceremoniously to the floor.
“Back the fuck up from the fence,” Corvus snarled as he and Grey moved to form a protective barrier on either side of me. “I said move assholes.”
Funny how these pissants thought my brothers were protecting me from the crowd and not the other way around. A smirk curled my lips as I stepped up the three short stairs and bent to slip through the two red ropes.
The spotlights always took some getting used to. So fucking obnoxiously bright. I squinted into the crowd of shouting, animated faces. Finding Diesel at the edge of the room, just next to the bar, his arms crossed. He nodded to me, and I grinned maniacally.
His fingers slyly came up to tap his jaw. Three times.
He wanted me to go at least three rounds before putting Conor down.
I nodded back. I’d try, but Diesel knew just as well as my brothers that I couldn’t always control what happened once that bell rang.
The music shifted and Conor Jones entered from the other curtained off section of the wide, black-painted space. He pounded his fists together and lifted his chin, slapping the hands of the crowd on his way down to the ring. A swagger in his step. A showman.
Unlike me, Jones’ body was entirely devoid of ink. A blank canvas. Unblemished. He looked like a baby. If babies had eight packs and a sick fade. Something in his clean-shaven face only heightened the illusion. The guy could’ve been sixteen or twenty-six. It was anybody’s guess. Corvus would know, but I didn’t care to ask.
He’d be prettier covered in purple and red. When I was finished.
Jones stepped into the ring and raised his arms, shouting into the crowd as they cheered for him.
A chant of Con-or Jones, Con-or Jones, Co-nor Jones began, and I held in a snicker. He brought some fans. Cute. I wondered if he spotted them the minimum bet, too. I knew his type. I wouldn’t doubt it if he had. He’d be expecting a cut of his winnings, which he clearly thought he had in the bag.
We squared off, and I hesitated before bumping fists, letting him question the look in my eyes. His cocky grin faltered, recognizing that I was a predator. Or maybe that he was the prey.
Pinky positioned himself between us, getting ready to signal the start of the fight. That was basically all we had a ref for down here. There weren’t really rules in the basement of Sanctum.
I glanced up one last time, looking for Grey and Corv. I found them in my corner, waiting for the end of the first round. Kit and water already in hand.
My lips parted. Breath catching as a sharp set of brown eyes met mine from the edge of the room. I’d know those eyes anywhere, even if they were tinted with false color. They’d been haunting my dreams for days.
It didn’t matter that she was wearing a short black wig and heavy-handed makeup, there was no mistaking her. She shuffled uncomfortably, turning slightly and breaking eye contact.
Yeah.
It was her.
I’d know that ass anywhere.
Ava Jade had come to Sanctum. Ava Jade was going to watch my fight. I didn’t know why I was surprised. I had no reason to be. Of course she could get in. Of course she could get the money for the minimum bet. I didn’t think there was much she couldn’t do.
The animal within preened like a motherfucking peacock, and I licked my lips, my focus back on my target. Blood buzzing in my ears.
Oh, I was going to make this good.
“Fight!” Pinky roared, dropping his hand swiftly between us before rushing to back up out of the crossfire. It was time for the beast to play. I lunged.