Better When He's Bad (Welcome to the Point #1)(27)

I made it a point to kick it with Roxie and tell her I would be back later that night. What I didn’t do one single time was think of Dovie or what could have happened to send her running like I had personally done her wrong. I wasn’t a good guy, but I hadn’t done anything bad to her and I didn’t like her treating me like the enemy, even if that was what she ultimately had determined that I was.

I was frustrated and short with everyone I ran across the rest of the week. It was starting to grate on my last nerve that no one—and I mean no one—had any information on Race. I had heard from three other people that he had been asking around about some rich guy when he came back, but no one had a name or anything helpful to use, and everywhere I turned I ran into either a wall or Benny. I was about done with his sense of smug satisfaction that I wasn’t getting any further than he had with finding my buddy. When he asked how Dovie liked the remodel of her place, it literally took every ounce of self-control I had not to break all his teeth in. But if nothing else, prison had taught me how to be patient, how to bide my time, and how sweet retribution was when it was delivered unexpectedly. I just ignored him and made sure he could see the storm brewing in my eyes every time I walked away from him.

I sent Dovie a text in the middle of the week to let her know I hadn’t made any progress, but considering she now thought I was out to harm her brother, I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t hear anything back. I was pissed at myself that her snub poked under my normally thick skin like a splinter. It wasn’t my way to try and convince her that I needed Race to explain what he had done to me before deciding how to feel about it. I wasn’t the explaining or justifying-my-actions type, plus the guy had always had my back, no questions asked. There had to be an explanation as to why he had set me up, an explanation behind the bitterest betrayal I had ever experienced in my fairly young life, and it needed to come from him and be delivered man to man. I might very well have to murder him if his answer wasn’t up to par, but I knew Race. He spent so much time trying to save me, there was no way he would have just watched me burn.

Before I knew it, it was Friday and I had to show up at Nassir’s club for the fight. I hadn’t been in a knock-down, drag-out, blood-splattering, dirty-as-hell fight since the first year I was locked up. Once you put down all the guys who were bigger than you out of sheer desperation, they stopped trying to take you down a peg. In fact, they stopped trying to mess with you at all. There were always scuffles and dustups, that was going to happen with a bunch of violent men locked up together, but fighting for my life or my pride wasn’t something I’d had to do in a long time. Fighting for a paycheck wasn’t something I had done since I was a teenager. I hoped I could still take a beating and bounce back enough to function the next day.

I was smoking like a chimney. Full of nervous energy I would never admit to. Nassir’s had turned from an electric house party to a hollowed-out fight club. Instead of trendy kids filtering in from the Hill and the university looking for a good time, it was now packed to the rafters with men and women looking for an animalistic and gory show. I didn’t want to know what the odds were. I had caught just a glimpse of the other guy when he rolled in with his entourage, and there was no denying he was a monster. He probably had a good inch on me, but was leaner and more cut. I had a thick, bulky build that came from cheap prison equipment. This guy looked like he had a trainer and a team of people whose sole purpose was to make him a fighting machine.

“Nervous?” Nassir’s smooth voice scraped across my already frayed nerves as I looked down at the bare circle someone had drawn on the center of the factory floor with red spray paint. No ring. No pads. Nothing but fists and blood. It was a brutal way to make a buck.

“No.”

I looked over my shoulder at him. He was holding a tumbler of Scotch that was older than me and watching me with unfathomable eyes.

“I’m surprised you agreed to do it. Seventy-five hundred is a fair chunk of change and I know you squirreled away most of what Novak paid you. You can’t be hurting for cash. I thought maybe it was to save face in front of the redhead, but then you showed alone.”

“I don’t have to save face for anyone.”

“Ahhh . . . but she was different. I’ve been around a long time, Bax. My primary job is to instantly read and judge people. There was something more to her than one of your typical tramps.”

I gave him a dark look and opened and flexed my hands mechanically. I had never been much of a drinker because of my mom, but right now I was wishing I had a bottle of tequila and a dark room all to myself to get myself psyched up in. I wrapped my hands around the linked chain railing and watched the crowd below mill about. More than half wanted my head cracked open, and the rest didn’t care who won as long as they got their payout at the end of the night. It made my stomach hurt. I didn’t want this scene to be what my life looked like anymore, but I doubted I would ever fully be rid of it.

“She’s important to someone who’s important to me. That makes her different.”

“It’s more than that. A man like you—put him in a cage for long enough, and he either becomes domesticated or regresses to all wild animal. You went in wild, so that means all there was for you to do was be tamed. Your edge is gone, Baxter. I can see it, and if I can see it, that means Novak is going to see it and exploit it. You need to be careful.”