Uppercut Princess (The Heights Crew #1)(20)

Behind him, Cherry groans. He’s forgotten all about her though. I straighten my spine when his gaze doesn’t leave mine. “Sorry about your girl.”

Though he’s not acting like he cares now, that was his girl who’s currently trying to get to her feet without anyone’s help. Her face is bloodied, and her nose is definitely broken. She’s just fallen so far no one dare tries to step in. She let the “Princess” beat her. She didn’t stick up for Rawley Heights.

Then again, they’re all wondering about me now. If I can fight like that, I must be one of them. How quick the tide changes.

“I only have one girl,” Johnny says, his smooth voice like aged bourbon. “And she’s standing right in front of me.”

Brawler’s grip around me tightens for a split second before letting me go. His absence leaves a cold shiver running up my arms. Johnny’s girl? That’s not the plan.

I stutter for a moment, not sure how to react. The plan was to get into the gang through fighting. Work my way into their trust by winning them lots of money. If Johnny does this, that’s not fucking happening anymore.

My stomach clenches. The enemy’s DNA runs through him. If I have to gain their trust by sleeping with the enemy…

“Brawler,” Johnny finally says after he waits for a response I never give. “Get someone to clean Kyla up, will you? Then bring her to me.”

Brawler only grunts in response. Not that Johnny waits for any at all. He turns on his heel and steps around Cherry, still avoiding her like she’s invisible to him. She gazes up, hopeful, like he’s coming to help her, but he doesn’t even give her a second glance.

I blink at her, expecting her to turn her rage on me after being cast aside so quickly, but she doesn’t. Instead, she looks broken. Her head drops between her shoulder blades, and my heart grows heavy.

Brawler gives me a gentle tug as he wraps his fingers around me once again. He scoops down to pick up my shirt as we go, and before I know it, I’m in a back room that’s much nicer than the industrial look of the warehouse proper in the center. It takes me a moment to realize it’s a locker room. Fighters stretch and warm up. A row of lockers fill one wall.

“Get out,” Brawler orders as soon as we walk in.

The fighters stop to look at him, but they don’t move.

“I said, get the fuck out!” he roars.

They all jump. The few guys and women in the room pick up their towels and water bottles as they make their way to the exit.

When the door closes and I’m stuck here with him, he turns toward me. “What the fuck was that?”

“What the fuck was what?”

“You can fight,” he accuses, as if he’s just confronted me about something terribly illegal.

“Yeah,” I tell him.

He shakes his head. “You never said a word.” The disappointment lacing his voice unnerves me.

I don’t have an excuse. I purposefully didn’t tell him, but no way in hell am I admitting to that. “What? Do you want me to say sorry for not getting my ass kicked?”

“You can’t just fight, Princess,” he spits, still using the name I fucking hate. “You beat Cherry. She’s not the best, no, but Johnny only puts her up against people he knows she can beat.”

“I guess everyone should stop judging people they don’t really know,” I tell him, motioning toward my baggy shirt. It’s evidence of their prejudice. Just because I don’t look like them doesn’t mean I’m not like them. I’m as angry as they are. I’m as lost as they are. And I’m as stuck as they are. Except, I’m stuck in a mind prison I can’t escape from. One that shows me my dead parents every day.

He throws my shirt on the floor, knuckles turning white. When he glances up, he studies my best features. At least, what I think my best features are: my muscles. They show me I’m strong. They show me I can handle myself. When I feel like I can’t, like everything’s getting too big, I go work out. When I feel like I’m just an imposter, I look in a mirror. The muscles, the bruises that usually highlight my light skin from training, all tell me I can do this.

I glance down. Splattered blood paints my skin as I breathe in deep. Like war paint, it fills me with the thrill of victory and a power I never knew I carried before fighting.

Like Johnny just did, Brawler reaches for my hands. Instead of squeezing them like Rocket, though, he brings them to his face, inspecting them. “I’m fine,” I say, trying to pull away.

He tightens his grip. He’s looking for evidence of how much I fight. If I was just a novice, I probably would’ve broken a knuckle or two, but I’m not and I didn’t. I spend a lot of time in gyms, and I can’t fucking wait to get back into it now that I don’t have to hide.

“I see that,” he says, finally dropping my hand.

I bend down to pick up my shirt and use it to wipe Cherry’s blood off me.

Brawler snickers. “That’s not going to be good enough. Johnny wants you back with him, which means you’re going to have to take a shower and pretty yourself up.”

“Pretty myself up?”

“Didn’t you hear him?” he sneers. “You’re his now.”

“I’m no one’s.”

“Hate to break it to you, but you don’t have a choice.”