Unbeloved (Undeniable #4)(12)
“Shit’s real,” Hammer answered. “Seen ’im with my own two eyes. He’s lined up now, got two boys ahead of ’im. Coulda put ’bout fifty holes in ’im by now.”
Hammer’s expression hardened. “Wanted to. Man’s gotta pay the price for what he’s done.”
Hawk wished he had, wished the deed was already done, and done by anyone but him. But ZZ had been one of Deuce’s top boys. Because of that, it had to be one of his own that put him to ground. It was the rules of the road and a code they’d all sworn to live by.
Pulling his smokes out of his leather jacket, Hawk lit one up and surveyed the warehouse. “How many exits?” he asked.
“The whole f*ckin’ place is full of f*ckin’ holes and ready to crumble.”
“Fuck,” Hawk muttered.
“Yeah. I got three of my boys with me, each of ’em hangin’ by an exit. But this f*cker’s a slippery bastard. How many times he been spotted and got away clean?”
“Too many,” Hawk said grimly. An intense wave of exhaustion washed over him, settling deep into his muscles. He took another drag off his cigarette, hoping the nicotine would shake him awake some. After all day on the road, he was more than tired. He was damn near comatose.
Blowing out a breath of smoke, Hawk flicked his cigarette away. “Let’s do this,” he said, and together he and Hammer headed toward the front of the building. As they grew closer, the din of noise that could be heard from outside grew louder, more discernable as excited shouting.
Stepping past the broken and bent steel door, he found the large room empty, other than a few pieces of rusted-out machinery and scattered garbage that could just barely be seen. As he’d suspected, the noise was coming from beneath their feet, from the basement of the building, making him all the more wary of what was to come.
Silently, the two men continued slowly toward the stairway, the noise growing louder and louder with every step they took, until they’d reached the bottom, where it had become damn near deafening.
After exchanging a look with Hammer, judging by the man’s expression he was more than ready to put ZZ six feet under, Hawk gripped the edge of the already partially open door and pulled it open. The dimly lit, smoke-filled storage room was filled with wall-to-wall bodies, both men and women, pressed up against one another, all shouting at the top of their lungs.
This wasn’t the first bare-knuckle cage fight Hawk had been to. The underground fighting circuit was infamous in Vegas, and in his youth he’d taken part in his fair share of illegal betting in abandoned warehouses very similar to this one.
But as Hawk shoved his way through the spectators, his hearing began to adjust, the screams of the crowd beginning to sound less like excitement and a lot more like bloodthirsty war cries.
“Kill! Kill! Kill!” They chanted the lone word over and over again, in and out of unison.
Realization slammed into him like a runaway freight train. This wasn’t any ordinary cage fight, this was a f*cking death match. All around him, bodies were straining against one another, their arms raised in the air, holding up their money as they continued to trample one another, attempting to get a better glimpse of the gory entertainment.
His apprehension mounting, Hawk glanced over his shoulder, looking over top of the crowd seeking out Hammer. Due to the sheer volume of people packed inside the room, the man had fallen a ways behind him. Only because of Hammer’s size could Hawk find him, violently shoving people out of his way as he made his way toward him.
Hammer having reached him, the two of them stood side by side and charged forward. The size of their combined statures created a human battering ram that allowed them to slam easily through the remaining people, clearing a path to the front of the crowd.
A wall-to-floor steel cage had been erected in the center of the room, the floor within stained brown with the blood of past fights, and currently slick with the fresh blood of the battle presently raging inside it.
“There he is!” Hammer shouted, jerking his chin in ZZ’s direction.
At least it looked like ZZ—if ZZ and the Terminator had a f*ck fest that had produced a love child named “Warmonger” who had been kept on a steady diet solely consisting of raw eggs and steroids.
The man was all deadly muscle, furrowed brows, and fists flying with a single-minded focus. To kill.
One, two, left, right, left. Hawk watched as ZZ hammered his bloody, swollen fists into his opponent’s stomach, chest, and face in that precise order, sending blood and teeth flying with every bone-crunching punch.
Like a machine, ZZ never once paused to catch his breath, never once missed a beat. On and on it went, him beating the other man senseless while deftly avoiding all punches aimed at him.
Watching him, Hawk felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand to attention. Hawk wasn’t looking at ZZ; this was not ZZ, this wasn’t even a man. Hawk was looking at a slab of meat covered in skin, a walking, talking, still-breathing carcass.
But he didn’t have time to dwell on it. ZZ had just cornered his opponent against the cage wall and in a quick maneuver, grabbed a fistful of the other man’s hair, forcing his head down and his body to fold over. Then bringing up his own knee, ZZ slammed it into the man’s face, snapping his head backward and breaking his neck.
As the man slumped to the ground, his lifeless eyes wide open, the crowd erupted in an explosion of exhilarated cries and shouts. Only Hawk and Hammer remained still, frozen in the midst of the chaos.