Takedown Teague (Caged #1)(12)

There wasn’t shit to watch on television, and I wondered why I even bothered to steal cable from Krazy Katie. Not that it was really stealing from her; we just kind of…shared it. I brought her smokes when she ran out, and she didn’t respond when I asked her if she minded if I strung another line through our windows. She let me in to do it, so I figured it was okay with her, at least.

Boredom set in, and I was starting to sweat just a little. I ran my hand over my face. My fingers were trembling, and I glanced down at the aging marks on my arm. Boredom was a dangerous mindset, and I had to get myself moving before temptation became more than just an itch in the back of my head. As long as I kept moving, I wouldn’t go searching.

I grabbed my gym bag and headed to the bar early. Dordy and a kitchen chick named Stacy were there, serving a single customer whose name I couldn’t remember, but he was a regular and always hammered. Phil? Peter? Some “P” name, I thought. It was still too early for the after-work crowd to start showing up yet, so he was on his own, muttering bullshit about the upcoming presidential election.

“Hey, Teague!” Dordy called out as I walked in. He rubbed at the inside of a pint glass with a towel. “You’re early.”

“Bored,” I announced. “Figured talking to you was better than talking to myself.”

“You ordering?”

“If you’ll spot me from tonight’s take.”

“No problem,” he said.

Dordy didn’t carry anyone on credit—no f*cking way. He let me get by with it on the day of a fight, though, since he would see enough at the door to make it worth his while even if I didn’t show up and he had to jump in the cage himself. The day before a fight, I’d be shit out of luck, but fight days were okay with him.

“Scotch?” Dordy asked.

“Veggie Burger?” Stacy asked. The large, grandmotherly woman stocked them just for me.

“No scotch—just the burger and a beer. Thanks.” I sat down on one of the stools nearby while Dordy drew a Guinness from the tap. I hung out and had a couple drinks while people slowly began to trickle in. The early ones knew who I was and would come over to make small talk before the crowd arrived. A couple hours before the fight, Dordy’s bouncers, Gary and Wade, waltzed in. Gary was just freaking huge height-wise. He had long, grey whiskers hanging from his chin down to his collar and was shaved bald. Wade was a little older, also bald, and used to train for MMA. He wasn’t as physically intimidating, but he was definitely the more dangerous of the two. Gary couldn’t fight for shit, but he was big enough that he rarely ever had to do anything other than stand up straight to get a patron to behave.

“Takedown fights again!” Gary roared in greeting. I fist-bumped him, then went back to nursing my beer. A few minutes later, Wade cocked his head to one side to point at the door, and I followed him out for a smoke.

“Word on the street says you f*cked up some guys on your way home the other night.”

“Oh, yeah?” I said, raising my brow as I lit up. “Who said that?”

“One of the guys you f*cked up.”

I laughed and took a deep drag.

“He came in here last night saying Takedown Teague broke his nose,” Wade told me. “He thought that as his employer, Dordy ought to pay for it.”

“Oh, yeah?” I said again. “What did Dordy do?”

“Had me break one of his fingers.”

That had me nearly in tears.

“So what’s the deal?” Wade asked. He blew smoke out of his nose as he talked. “You don’t get enough fighting as it is?”

“They were f*cking with some girl,” I told him.

“You in the business of saving damsels in distress now?” He snickered.

“That shit ain’t right,” I said. “They didn’t need to be messing with her.”

“Who is she?”

“Just some girl,” I said with a shrug. “I hadn’t seen her before that night. Turns out she lives in my building, though.”

“No shit?”

“Yeah. Remember the couple I was always bitching about? The ones who would fight and scream all the time?”

“Yep.”

“They’re gone, and she’s in the apartment below me now.”

“That ought to help you sleep better,” Wade replied.

“Amen to that shit,” I agreed. I thought about the dude whose nose I had broken. “I wonder why Dordy didn’t mention that.”

“Because he wants to hold it over your head later,” Gary said as he stepped out from behind the front door and joined us for a smoke. “Did you f*ck her?”

“Who?”

“The bitch you saved.”

“No.” I scowled at him.

“Well, what’s the point, then?” Gary asked. He grinned a ridiculous grin and winked at me, but I didn’t find anything funny about his comment, and he caught on to that and tried to make a serious face. “Who is she?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “If you wanted the whole f*cking story, why didn’t you come out sooner?”

“Dordy had me hauling beer from the delivery truck,” Gary replied. “Are you going to see this girl again?”

“I don’t know,” I said again. “What’s with the f*cking twenty questions? It was some random chick who is obviously so f*cking stupid, she would walk through this neighborhood at night by herself. I beat the shit out of a couple drunks and then walked her home. I don’t know her. She lives in my building and works at that greasy spoon place with the big screen TVs. That’s all I know, bitches.”