Fight for Her#3 Read online

  “So you called the cops, then? Or someone on the inside?” I feel some relief that I don’t have to be the one to do it.

  “Something like that,” Colt says. “My dad knows every cop, thug, and hired strong arm that hangs a shingle in Vegas. Striker is part of an underground group of fighters. It’s like what you saw in LA when you took Lani and Annie to fight Jo.”

  Lani. I bang my hands against the dash. “Lani came to see me last week, right after the fight was announced,” I say. “She told me to watch my back.”

  “Obviously she knew Striker was up to something,” Colt says. “Interesting that she warned you.”

  “It pissed me off at the time, but yeah, I guess she was doing the right thing.” I picture her laughing in the hoodie. “But she definitely didn’t seem to care about me. It was more like she wanted to be the first to see my reaction.”

  Colt glances at his phone, then leans forward to talk to the driver. “Kent, take us to 590 Loyola. It’s an abandoned skating rink.”

  “What’s there?” I ask.

  “One of the underground cage-fight venues that Striker frequents. There’s several. He might have gone there. He’ll be surrounded by his buddies. He’ll have all his backup.”

  “How do we make this end with Striker?” Jo says. “Hasn’t he done enough?”

  Colt puts his arm around Jo. “We’ve all succeeded despite his attempts to bring us down,” he says. “So it’s never going to be over.”

  I stare out at the night, lights rushing past us. Colt is wrong.

  I am absolutely going to end this.

  Chapter 4: Maddie

  The duct tape is off my wrists.

  I get a lucky break when Striker throws up blood. I’m happy to see it, and the very thought that his predicament makes me glad is horrifying. How far I’ve fallen in fifteen minutes.

  But I’ve been threatened. I’m not going to sympathize with the man who started the whole thing.

  Blue Hair rushes to his aid, confirming my suspicion that she’s either his girlfriend or has some other reason to call him hers.

  The guy who attacked us starts cursing. The driver yells back at us, asking if he should pull over, or go to a hospital or something.

  Personally, I hope his guts are falling out. I hang on to the duct tape in case I need to fake still being bound. I shrug my shoulders to bump the last strip of tape off my face, and the T-shirt falls to the floor of the van.

  Two of the men move forward to talk to the driver. The two girls try to mop up the mess and deal with a groaning Striker. They sort through gym bags, digging out towels.

  “We’re going to have to take him somewhere,” Blue Hair calls out. “This is bad.”

  Good, I think. If we get to a hospital, I will make a break for it. I’ll jump on Striker myself if I have to. Being arrested right now would be bliss. I would relish a ride in a cop car.

  Striker waves his hand. “I’m fine. Just swallowed too much blood. We’ll get Steve to take a look at me. He’s as good as any doc.”

  The others nod. “So to the cage matches?” the driver asks.

  “Yeah,” Striker says and looks over at me. “Besides, we can’t let the kitten get away.”

  Blue Hair scowls.

  One of the guys turns around. “Nearly there.”

  “What are we going to do with her?” Blue Hair asks.

  “I’m going to do lots of things to her,” Striker says.

  I think about how I can work this. Maybe if I piss off Blue Hair enough, she’ll want me gone. Before I can even think if it’s a good idea, I say, “Can’t wait to compare you to Parker. I have a feeling you’ll come up…short.”

  Blue Hair’s retaliation is swift and unexpected. She lunges for me and cracks a hard punch to the side of my face. I forget I’m supposed to be hiding that my hands are free and instinctively reach around to protect myself.

  A couple of the guys laugh. “Some tie-up job you did there,” one says. “Why don’t you just hand her a weapon while you’re at it?”

  Blue Hair grabs my hands and pinches them tight together. “Give me that damn tape,” she says to the other girl.

  She wraps my wrists again, circling them over and over until my hands turn red. “I hope your fucking fingers fall off,” she says, and pushes me back against the wall of the van.

  When I fall back, my legs fly in the air. The dress rides up to my waist, revealing a pair of sheer green panties that were meant to surprise Parker.

  The boys roar with approval. “She wears his fight colors all the way down,” one shouts.

  “Get them off her,” Striker says. “I don’t want to see that asshole’s colors in my van. In fact, strip it all off her. She can sit around naked for me to look at.”

  I draw my knees up, panicked. I should have kept my damn mouth shut.

  “I’ll volunteer,” the guy who attacked us says. The blood on his forehead has dried to a crusty brown. He reaches for the strap of my panties.

  I kick at him and get in a nice blow to the chin.

  He stumbles back. “Somebody hold the bitch’s knees. I’m going to fuck her up.”

  The van is tense as everyone watches him. But nobody comes forward.

  “It ain’t like that,” one of the other guys finally says. “If you’re going to do shit to her, do it on your own time. I’m not getting fingered for it.”

  My breathing starts to slow down as I realize nobody’s going to jump in. I shift sideways, and my dress flops down enough that it covers the panties. The guy I kicked sits back down against the wall of the van, glaring at me.

  “We’re here,” the driver says. “How do you want to work this?”

  “Drive into the bay,” Striker says. “I’ll go see the doc. One of you stay with Parker’s bitch.”

  He seems to have lost interest in me. I’m seriously grateful to the guy who spoke up. We drive up to a building with only a single floodlight aiming down at the drive. The van stops, and a couple guys jump out to lift a loading-bay door. Then we drive in.

  My surge of attitude that caused me to insult Striker is long gone, replaced with what I am now, sniveling, frightened, and pathetic. I want the strong version of myself back, but I can’t reach her. Not after that one guy came after me.

  I can’t believe any of this is actually happening.

  The back of the van opens and most of the people pile out. Striker scoots to the door in obvious pain. Blue Hair jumps next to him and helps him out.

  I’m left alone, and I’m hoping they’ll just close the doors and forget me for a while. I crave the silence, to have a little time where I’m not afraid.

  But Striker turns and waves at one of the guys, the one who refused to hold me down.

  “Stay with her,” he says.

  The guy sits back down opposite me. I guess if I’m going to have someone guard me, he’s the least horrible choice. Maybe I can convince him to let me go.

  “I’ll stay too,” the other girl says. Her eyes on the boy tell me she’s his girlfriend or wants to be. Or maybe she doesn’t trust him alone with me.

  I lift my hands and look at the fat wad of duct tape locking my wrists together. My fingers are swelling, but I know my hands aren’t in danger, no matter what Blue Hair says. I’ve done enough bondage with Parker to recognize that.

  Even a little blood flow is fine. It will hurt, but it won’t cause any damage. There’s no way I can get free, though. It will take scissors to cut this mass of tape off me.

  The girl sits next to the guy. The others take off through a vast empty warehouse space. I watch them through the front windshield until they’re out of view.

  “So Striker really went off the deep end this time,” the girl says. “Taking this chick.”

  “I know,” the boy says. He looks at me. “What’s your name?”

  I look down at my hands. I’m not telling them anything.

  “I wouldn’t say either,” says the girl. “So how much trouble we gonna be in whe
n she gets free and rats us out?”

  “A lot,” he says.

  “You gonna let her go so you aren’t busted?” the girl asks.

  My heart speeds up. Would they do that?

  “I’m more afraid of Striker than I am of the cops,” the boy says. “That man is bat-shit crazy.”

  The girl edges up a little closer to him. “That’s what everybody likes about him. We want to live on the edge.” She turns and bites him on the ear. “So you going to make her watch?”

  “The thought of that getting you off already?” he asks.

  “It kind of is,” she says.

  He reaches for the short stretchy skirt she’s wearing over thin leggings. “Then I say we go for it.”

  Great. I turn my head back to the windshield to look out, see if I can get any clue to where I am. Not that it would help. I don’t have a phone or any way to contact anyone. But I might get a chance. These people probably have phones on them. And by the way they’re already moaning and groaning just a few feet away, they’re not paying any attention.

  Chapter 5: Parker

  I’m losing faith in whatever information Colt’s been getting.

  We’ve been to three of the addresses on his list, and all were busts. Nobody there. No fights. Nothing.

  “Who are these people again?” I ask.

  “Nobody we need to know anything about,” he says.

  “I think it’s time to call the cops,” I say. I can send someone to New York to fetch Lily and keep her safe. Hell, even that old bat Delores can come.

  “I’m starting to agree,” Jo says.

  “They’re getting more people involved now,” Colt says. “We’re going to have them any minute.”

  I’m ready to smash something. It’s been a half hour now. “You really think Striker will just take her back to the hotel?”

  “Yeah, but not until you’ve had to sweat it out a while.” Colt taps on his phone. “If you want to finish this, though, we’ll have to go to him anyway.”

  I clasp my hands on my head. I can’t take all this driving around, talking, doing nothing. “I want Striker behind bars,” I say. “Preferably without much left of his face.”

  “I hear ya,” Colt says. “I spent months of my life recovering from his actions.”

  His phone chimes. “They’ve got ’em,” he says. “The black van is in the loading dock of a warehouse. There’s a fight club going on downstairs, the no-rules kind.”

  “Can we get in?”

  “Yep. We have an insider who will ask us the code. We’ll say ‘lobotomy’ and watch the fight.” He glances over at Jo. “I’m advised not to bring you. Women don’t go.”

  Jo frowns. “You might need backup.”

  We pull up to a curb. A warehouse looms in the dark about two blocks down.

  “We don’t want to do anything to attract attention, and bringing you might do that. I’ve got Parker,” Colt says. “I’ve got an app on my phone that senses a hard fall. It will message you with my GPS coordinates if it goes off. You can jump in then if you want.”

  I’m amazed at his confidence in her. I know she’s been in fights, and there were all those rumors about almost killing her stepbrother when she was a teen, but still. She’s small. I could bench-press her when I was fifteen.

  “You ready?” he asks me.

  “Hell, yes.”

  He pulls his cap down low. “Let’s hit it.”

  Jo doesn’t even look anxious. I guess if you’ve already stared down death and beaten it, nothing fazes you. “We’ll see you in a few,” I say to her.

  “Be careful,” she says.

  I get out of the gleaming car. It sticks out here among the crumbling facades of old buildings.

  We take off down the sidewalk toward the warehouse. Adrenaline rushes through me, erasing the aches that began to creep up sitting useless in the car, my knuckles raw and bloody and my head ringing from the blows.

  We’re going to get her out of there. And Striker is going to pay.

  Chapter 6: Maddie

  Those two are definitely not paying attention to me.

  I glance at the couple now lying down on the other side of the van. He’s got her tights off, and he’s really going for it, his head up her skirt.

  This is really not the worst thing that has happened to me. When Parker lived with three other fighters, we walked in on various couples all the time. Hell, they walked in on us a time or two.

  That was worse.

  I’m trying to avert my eyes from anything I don’t want to see, while also looking for a phone. One is bound to slip out of somebody’s pocket. Or from a purse.

  The boy still has his pants on. There’s a promising bulge on his butt, sticking in the air, but I can’t be certain it’s his phone and not just a slender wallet.

  My hands are bound so tightly that I doubt I could grab it anyway. I need it to fall out, and for them to kick it close. I’m pretty sure I can dial 911 if I can just get it turned over.

  Of course, there could be a screen lock or a pass code.

  The view through the windshield is still clear. Wherever we are, there’s not a lot of people milling around. I wonder what has happened to Parker. He has got to be panicking. I don’t doubt that he was able to take down the other two fighters. They were just a delay tactic.

  But I don’t think I was part of their plan. Probably they’re all off somewhere arguing over what to do with me. Striker is unstable enough that I worry what he might decide. If something goes wrong, I believe he has it in him to dump me somewhere I might not survive.

  The couple keeps moaning like I’m not there. Or maybe because I am. I’m restless. I’m done with waiting for my fate. I’m ready to do something about it.

  A light outside the van catches my eye. It’s tiny, like one of those little squeeze lights you put on your key chain. Someone is in the corner of the warehouse, in the shadow of a pillar, and flashing the light at the windshield. It blinks on and off.

  I glance over at the busy couple. They won’t notice. I turn back to the light.

  A man steps forward, and it’s not anyone who was in the van. He’s older than us, dressed in a very sharp pair of black pants and a long-sleeved gray silk shirt. Classy. I recognize the cut of his pants from a competing fashion line. The shirt isn’t anything I recognize. A custom job.

  This isn’t any of Striker’s pals, for sure. Nor anyone I would expect to be throwing money at an illegal fight, although I don’t really know anything about that lifestyle.

  He moves with stealth and power, like a cheetah. He arrives at another pillar, hidden from the direction everyone went, but perfectly visible to me. He holds a finger to his lips. Then he drops low where I can’t see him anymore.

  I guess he’s here for me.

  But then a series of shouts break out. A bunch of the fighters come into the bay. Striker, the two guys who fought us, Blue Hair, and some others who weren’t here before. One is dripping blood out his nose, stumbling around but exuberant. Probably just came out of the cage.

  I hear a little tap just behind my head. Someone is outside the van on this side, out of view of the oncoming crowd. It’s a pattern, and I know this means he’s still out there, and not to worry.

  Someone knows I’m here. Maybe Parker’s sent him. Maybe he’s some sort of cop. But I’m not lost to the world.

  The back doors of the van pop open.

  “Aw, man, look at Chump Change, munching down on his girl,” Striker says. He’s got bandages on his face, and his arm is in a sling.

  The girl flips him off as the boy withdraws and wipes his mouth. I draw up tightly, keeping my knees together. Even if that sharp-dressed man is out there, he can’t take on this many fighters on his own.

  “You like watching that?” Striker asks me. “I can give you a show too.” He elbows the bloody fighter. “Crunch here just won a kick-ass fight and I promised him a gander at Power Play’s girl as a prize.”

  Crunch crawls into the
van space. The couple who were guarding me scoot aside to make room.

  He looks bad. One eye is seriously swollen, purple and weeping blood. His face is mottled and red from the hits, his jaw misshapen.

  “You might want to get looked at,” I say reflexively.

  “See there, she cares!” Striker calls out. “Chump Change, you and your girl come on out of there and leave these two lovebirds alone.”

  My heart hammers. I’ve misjudged Striker, or else Blue Hair pitched a fit about his interest in me. I have no idea what this Crunch guy is like or what he might do. Will the silk-shirt guy intervene if he thinks I’m in trouble?

  The doors close and it’s just the two of us.

  “You’re pretty,” Crunch says awkwardly.

  I hope this means he isn’t around a lot of girls, that he’s shy. If so, I can probably handle him.

  “Thank you,” I say. “So you won the fight?”

  He nods. A drip of blood comes from his nose and he wipes it away. “Sorry,” he says.

  “Isn’t there a medic to patch you guys up?”

  “He was busy with the loser,” Crunch says.

  “The guy you fought?” The more we talk, the more time I buy.

  “Yeah. He wouldn’t come to.”

  “Are they going to call an ambulance?” I look out the windshield, thinking maybe I would get a shot if someone arrived to help.

  “Nah.”

  “Someone will take him in, then?”

  Crunch shrugs. “Not my problem.” His shoulders gleam with sweat in the dim light filtering in from the lights in the loading bay. I have no idea what he normally looks like. His hair is trimmed, blondish brown. He’s not as built as Parker, which probably makes him a featherweight. I don’t know. I never knew all the classes.

  “How—how long did the fight last?” I try to keep the anxiety out of my voice, but it creeps in anyway. I frantically try to think of things to keep the conversation going.

  “Got into the third round.”

  “Do all fights have three rounds? Even these?”