Page 47 of Red Boar's Baby

CHAPTER16

The problemwith having kissed Costa earlier—well, one of the problems—was that Diana kept finding herself distracted with his mouth (the soft flex of his lips, the light dusting of red-gold stubble around them), or the grace of his hands as he passed the card to her.

“Shifter fighting rings?” she asked, looking up from studying the card and trying very hard to convince herself that the warmth lingering on it was because it had been in Vic’s pocket and not a slight vestige of Costa’s touch.

“Yeah, I know about them, but I didn’t realize they operated in my jurisdiction,” Costa said. His hazel-gold eyes were fixed on Vic, laser intent. “What do you mean, it’syourcard?”

“Just what I said,” Vic said. “I was in that world for a while.”

Diana had passed the card to Cat Delgado, and now Vic reached out and took it back, holding it between two long, capable fingers. If Diana hadn’t already been gone for Costa’s hands, she might have been captivated by Vic’s; he had slim, graceful fingers and hands that she would have associated with a pianist or artist. But now that she thought about it, there were also scars, so faint that they barely caught the light against his tan skin.

“This is how fighters are identified,” Vic explained. He held up the card to show them the front with the blue outline again. “My shift form is a crocodile, so that’s how I’m identified in the underground. We didn’t use names.”

“Oh, that’s a crocodile,” Costa said. “I thought it was an alligator.”

“I thought it was a dinosaur,” Delgado said.

Vic rolled his eyes and grinned. He flipped the card over. “Contact info. Mine was a burner phone. Some people use email or various messaging apps. But it’s always anonymous and easy to ditch and get a new one in case law enforcement comes knocking—or if you want to get out.”

“What about those?” Diana said, pointing to the number at the corner.

“Win-loss record. It determines what kind of odds you get and how much money you make.” Another lopsided grin. “As you can see, I was pretty good.”

No kidding, if that was 36 wins to four losses. Costa clearly thought so too. “You won thirty-six fights? How often did you fight?”

Vic lifted a shoulder in a brief shrug. “Variable. At the bottom end of things, it’s loosely organized. A lot like bare-knuckle boxing rings or underground martial arts. Lots of guys, and more than a few women, who’ve slipped through the cracks in various ways, got out of prison or gangs, or just tough fighter types looking to pick up some extra cash.”

“So it’s not lethal?” Costa asked. “I’ve heard a few different things.”

“I’ve never heard of it at all,” Delgado said quietly.

Vic flipped the card around, palmed it, and laid it down on the coffee table. “Generally, no. Not lethal. Not on that level. But things change as you get deeper in.”

“Ah,” Costa said under his breath.

“If that’s all it was,” Vic said seriously, meeting each of their eyes in turn, “it’d be fine. Just some guys picking up beer money on the weekends. I wouldn’t have had the issues with it that I eventually ended up having.” He glanced swiftly toward the doorway to the kitchen, where Molly’s high-pitched voice could be heard cheerfully chatting with Costa’s aunts. “I hope that eventually I would have got out forher. But there was something else, something specific. What made me leave the rings was finding out that not everyone is there voluntarily.”

“Ah.” Costa’s tone was different. Darker.

“You don’t really get exposed to this until you get deeper in,” Vic explained. “But once you start getting past the minor leagues, you get into the high-roller levels. There’s a lot of money floating around. Plenty of it trickles down to the players; once you start making your way to the big-league fights, you can earn a lot. But that’s also when you get into the level where rich assholes, often human ones, get their kicks making shifters fight for them and betting on it. And atthatlevel, rare shifters start to be in great demand.”

“Like crocodiles?” Costa said.

“It’s a living. Or at least it was for a while.” Vic shrugged and flashed Costa a quick grin. “You’re a boar shifter, right? Honestly, you’d be perfect for it. Unusual shift type, formidable and tough, but easy to underestimate until they see you in action. You could’ve gone far.”

“Let’s get back to how some people aren’t there by choice.”

Vic lost his grin. “Yeah. That. I’d heard of it. People drugged, kidnapped. But I don’t think I really believed it until the first time I came up against a fighter in the ring who was being forced. Huge guy, turned into a grizzly bear. I figured I’d have a real fight on my hands. But he was desperate, making stupid mistakes.” His voice lowered, and he looked down at his hands, the card held between two fingers. One of those scars on the back of his hand, Diana realized, was a white crescent, a half moon of human teeth in a bite mark.

Taking a breath, Vic went on. “I could tell he was scared, and by that point I’d been in enough fights to have a good read on when people are willing to give up. One of the reasons I got as far as I did was because I always gave them an out, and lots of people will take it. But he wouldn’t. And wouldn’t. I started to realize I was going to have to really hurt him to get him to stop coming. And I ended up throwing the fight because of that, because I couldn’t figure out what was going on and I was starting to get scared that this was going to bethe oneeveryone talked about, the one where you killed or really hurt someone. So I lost, and took a big hit in the game rankings because of it. A lot of people had bet on me heavily and weren’t happy. I think there’s a distinct chance some of them are still looking for me.”

“What did turn out to be going on with him?” Diana asked gently. “Did you ever find out?” Costa said nothing, but his body language was tense. Waiting. Delgado looked much the same.

“Blackmail.” Vic’s gaze was still on his hands. “They had his wife. I—I didn’t help. I never actually found out what happened to him, or her, and that still keeps me up some nights. I just got out.”

Costa said, “You gotta put on your own oxygen mask first. Sometimes that’s all you can do.”

“Yeah, well, I turned my back on it and never looked back. I think part of why I joined the SCB later was so I could do some good to make up for what I didn’t do then.”

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