Page 17 of Road to Ruin
CHAPTER FIVE
TOMMY
I can’t believe I’m here. Of all the places in New Orleans David could have brought me, Champion Ultime seems like the stupidest place possible. The vast space underneath the Bastien vault is crawling with security. Alex runs a huge gambling ring out of the place, after all, not to mention a bar and female entertainment, so it goes without saying that the place is heavily guarded.
“This is fucking crazy,” I hiss under my breath. “We might as well have gone directly to the mansion and knocked on the front fucking door. We’re gonna die down here, David.”
My brother, reckless as ever, shrugs his shoulders in a blasé fashion. “Maybe. The fights are the only time Alex lets Gen out of the house, though. And coming here is so blatantly insane. Alex will never expect us to show our faces, ergo he won’t be looking for us.”
“I hope for both our sakes you’re right.”
“If I’m not, you can kick my ass,” he says mildly.
“If you’re not, I won’t have to. Alex will kick it for me, and then he’ll kick mine and probably remove a bunch of our fingers while he’s at it.”
“Damn. You got so negative in California. With all that sunshine, I’d have thought you’d be optimistic as hell by now.”
I duck around a half-naked cocktail waitress carrying a tray of drinks, sequined silver stars covering her nipples, her full, perfect breasts bouncing slightly as she struts through the crowd. “I’m not being negative. I’m being a realist. Alex took Genevieve to force me back here. He broke your ribs, man. Honestly, what do you think is going to happen when he realizes I’m here, right where he wants me? There’s one way in and out of this place, David. Once he has the place on lockdown…”
“Just keep your hood up and everything will be fine.”
I’m about five inches taller than the majority of the crowd. The hood is probably only making me more conspicuous but I do as he says and I keep it up, hoping that my features are thrown into shadow. “Are you sure she’s going to be here?”
“Yes,” David grunts. “He brings her here to show her off. To make sure everyone else sees her, so they’ll know…”
A knot of steel and iron forms in the pit of my stomach. “Know what?”
“What will happen if you fuck with him. He’ll fuck your sister, and turn her into his whore.”
If Genevieve wasn’t his sister too, I’d probably king-hit him in the back of the head right now for even saying such a thing. I know he’s angry, though. He’s upset, and he has every right to be. He’s never said the words out loud, but I know he blames me for all of this. If I hadn’t gotten involved with Alex in the first place, if I hadn’t taken that fight, if I hadn’t taken my eyes off Serena all those years ago, then Gen would never have had to flee New Orleans like a thief in the night. I wouldn’t have had to go live in California, and David wouldn’t have ended up rootless, floating from one place to the next without a purpose.
I’ll accept responsibility for all of this bullshit. I’ll wear the cape of blame, and I’ll carry the burden that comes with it. What I won’t do is hear my sister being called a fucking whore. I shove David in the back, growling under my breath. “Careful, motherfucker.”
He grins nastily over his shoulder. “You realize that’s your dead mother you’re talking about too, right?”
“Just don’t,” I snap.
“All right, all right. Fuck. All that sun zapped the sense of humor right out of you, too, huh?”
I find nothing about this situation funny. I don’t think he does really, either, but it’s always been my brother’s way to crack jokes and try to make light of dire, shitty circumstances. Conversely, I like breaking people’s necks and permanently paralyzing them. I did back in the day, at least. Back when everyone around here called me Havoc. I earned that name. I shudder every time I think about the things I did…
“Good evening, gentlemen! Welcome to tonight’s Champion Ultime fight. Our one thousand and eighteenth ticket is literally one of the biggest fights ever hosted here beneath the Bastien vaults, so check out the boards and calculate those odds before calling in your bets. There’s big money to be won here this evening, gentlemen! And some major takedowns on the horizon. Forget Bellator. Forget the UFC. Their fighters look like candy stripers next to our savage gladiators. Reigning champion, Devon Rathbone, is heading up the main ticket—”
Over a crackly PA system, the announcer continues to speak but his words are drowned out by the roar that spreads like wildfire through the crowd at the name of Devon Rathbone. I remember him. I never fought the guy. He had just started training at one of Alex’s gyms when I was the reigning champ of the Champion Ultime fights. As far as I can recall, he was sloppy and careless with his footwork, but he had both a powerful right and left hook. And his ego was unmatched, even by me.
People bet like crazy all around us, waving stacks of money in the air as David and I push through the frantic sea of men. It feels so normal to be back here in some ways. Absolutely nothing has changed. Nothing. The crunch of grit and dirt on concrete under the soles of my feet is the same. The smell of sweat and dried blood. The excitement that snaps and pops in the air, infecting people with the same, recognizable mania that grips hold of men by the balls and squeezes when the promise of violence is on the horizon. I can feel it seeping into me, trying to catch at my soul, to light me on fire the way it used to five years ago, and it turns my stomach.
I try not to look at the octagon. For years, that arena was the center of my life. I trained six hours a day in order to dominate inside its chain-link walls. I stamped my feet on the boards. I howled with wrath and almighty vengeance as I broke bones and spilled blood. There was a fury deep inside me that I embraced wholeheartedly, giving it free rein to do with me as it pleased, and the result was like an addiction. I loved to win. I loved to feel powerful and strong. I especially loved watching the spirit inside other men break the moment they realized they were going to lose to me. I ate that shit up. I lived off it, fueled by the idea that I was a god amongst mere mortals.
The truth was, I was angry and hurting and I couldn’t even see it. The truth was, I was never winning, even when I was taking home twenty or thirty grand a night to spend on hookers and blow. I was lost, and no matter how hard I hit, or how many people I put down, I could never satisfy the demon inside me. His appetite for chaos was limitless.
There’s electricity in the air tonight. My skin is prickling all over with anticipation. I’m only here to watch, to observe, to find my sister and get the fuck out of here, but try telling that to my body. My heart thinks I’m about to step inside the cage and it’s slamming around inside my rib cage accordingly. My nerves think I’m about to fight, so they’re jumping. And my fists…my fists think I’m about to draw blood. They’re tensed and ready. The hundreds of men in the crowd are sensitive to a fighter’s stance. They’re professional gamblers. Bloodthirsty spectators who show up every fight night without fail. They’re trained to study a man’s stance and the slope of his shoulders, to read the lines of bone and muscle in a body in order to assess how well they think a fighter is going to fair against another inside the cage. I need to be careful. Right now, it would be easy for someone to take one look at me and recognize me for what I am: a man, primed and prepped for battle. And once people are paying attention to me, it’s only a matter of time before someone recognizes me and says my name. It’ll be all over once that happens.
“There she is,” David hisses.
My head snaps up. David flicks a brief sideways glance at a raised dais off to the left of us, an addition to the room that was never there before, back when I used to fight. Four overstuffed armchairs sit on the dais, and Alex’s twin brothers, West and Vaughn are already sitting side by side in two of them. Behind the dais, a door is yawning open, and my sister is walking out onto the raised platform, holding the door open for the man himself, Alexander Bastien.
My breath catches in my throat when Genevieve turns around. I don’t know what I was expecting. Bruises? Black eyes? Heavy makeup to conceal the abuse she’s been suffering under Alex’s hands? I don’t expect her to look, well, glorious. She’s practically fucking glowing. Her hair is arranged into an intricate mass of braids and curls, with tiny little white flowers woven into the style here and there. I know for a fact my sister didn’t do that herself. She must have had someone style it for her. She’s wearing a floor-length sheer blue dress that looks like silk, and her skin is a bronzed golden color. She looks healthy. When she locks eyes with Alex, she smiles and my stomach backflips. Fuck. She looks…she looks happy.
