Caged (24 page)

“You gonna be okay?” he asked as his sad eyes held me for the last time.

“Yeah,” I whispered as I reached up and kissed his cheek. “Yeah.”

And somehow, deep down, with or without Anderson, I knew I would be.

I’d sat in the car outside Anderson’s for over two hours. I didn’t have the code for his gates and he wasn’t answering my calls or the intercom.

What I hadn’t expected was Robbie pulling up to the gates. He frowned, his face squinting at me from the dark interior of his car before he waved me through after him.

“He’s not here,” he said as soon as we both climbed from our cars.

“Right.” I sighed disappointedly. “I wasn’t sure if he was just ignoring me.”

Robbie looked uncomfortable, his eyes diverting from mine. “He’s at a fight.”

“I need to see him. It’s important.”

“Kloe…”

“This… this isn’t about me and him. But I have to talk to him. Please, Robbie.”

He looked to the floor, sighing. “I know I’m gonna regret this. But I like you, and even though Anderson can be a pain in the ass, I care about him and I want to see him happy. Somehow, I know that’s only gonna be your job.”

I wasn’t as sure as he was but I blew out a relieved breath. “Thank you.”

A look of concern crossed his face and he grimaced. “Are you sure you wanna do this? These fights aren’t like they are on the telly, Kloe. It’s dark shit.”

“I’ll be fine,” I lied. I needed to see Anderson so it would have to be something I sucked up. “Also, I need another favour.”

Quirking an eyebrow, he nodded for me to go on.

“I need a gun.”

Robbie held my hand so tightly I thought he was going to break my fingers as he led me through the upper level of the club. It appeared to be much like any other club with a bar and a dancefloor. However, Robbie didn’t stop at the bar, or to ask me for a dance. He guided me through the throng of people and through a door at the rear that indicated to the toilets. The toilets passed us on the right and we pushed through a door on the left marked ‘staff only’.

I tensed when Robbie continued down the corridor and came to a stop in front of a huge bulk of a man. He wore an earpiece and stood menacingly, his huge arms crossed across his massive chest.

“Robbie,” he greeted with a smile.

“Good to see you, Sherbet.”

Sherbet? He didn’t look at all sweet.

Sherbet’s eyes slid over to me and he grinned wider. “Sugar.” His greeting came with a polite nod of his head. “Enjoy the fight.” He pushed open the door behind him and signalled for us to go through.

As soon as I stepped foot inside the next corridor, the atmosphere shifted dramatically. The air stank of sweat, blood and anticipation. Excited murmuring floated from where we headed. My gut bubbled with nerves and sensing the shift in my mood, Robbie stopped and turned to me.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I don’t have a choice.”

“You always have a choice, Kloe.”

Shaking my head, I straightened my shoulders. “Yeah, and this time I need to make the right one.”

Shrugging and holding out his hands, he blew out a breath and then led me through the last door.

The area was huge, the high ceilings and tall walls somehow making me think of Mary Poppins’ bag, the hidden space beneath the club feeling illusory. Masses of people stood around a large square cage in the centre of the room and a few sat in seats adjacent to the four sides. VIP balconies overlooking the fight ring were suspended on steel poles. But it was the atmosphere in the large space that made my throat dry. An anticipation of death lingered in the air, excitement for bloodshed and slaughter heavy in the whispers of the crowd.

“Do they fight to the death?”

Robbie halted when he caught my question. Turning to me, a glint of fear trickled into his eyes. “Yes.”

Pain slithered into me and I had to catch my breath with the agony in my chest. “Why does he do this?”

He gave me a soft smile and squeezed my hand. “Because he has to, Kloe. Don’t try to understand him because you’ll forever fail.”

“And what happens if he fails?”

Unable to answer my question he shook his head and headed towards the back of the room. Just before we pushed through a door, the crowd around us roared and electricity sizzled in the atmosphere.

“Shit!” Robbie growled. “We’re too late. We’ll have to wait!”

“What?” Panic sliced through my heartbeat, sending it crazy when Robbie turned us back around and guided us into a quiet corner spot away from the throng of chanting people.

Music blared out through some speakers, deafening me before a voice cut in to introduce ‘Killstreak’. A huge man jogged into the room from one of the doorways, his hands high in the air and his smile as vicious as his eyes. Women went crazy around him, fighting to get just one touch of him, their hands tearing at his gold robe.

‘Killstreak’ grabbed hold of his groin and roared into the crowd of women. Nausea curdled my stomach as they all went crazy and I rolled my eyes.

Climbing into the cage, he jumped up and down, enticing the audience and bigging himself up.

The volume of screams and shouts amplified and for a moment I wondered why. It was then that I saw Anderson enter the cage and the majority of the women screamed louder when the compere introduced ‘Anderson Cain’ to the cage. Anderson’s attitude was the total opposite of Killstreak’s. Not once did he address the crowd or even look out. He was entirely in his own zone, his eyes down to the floor as he took plentiful deep breaths. He was so concentrated on himself that I wasn’t sure he even knew anyone else was there – apart from Killstreak.

“I don’t think I can do this.”

Robbie didn’t hear me over the noise in the room. Fighting with the vomit that was climbing for freedom, I closed my eyes, held on to Robbie and prayed. I prayed for the first time in my life. I prayed for a man I had reluctantly found myself in love with. I prayed for my heart to still be in one piece after this horrific, reckless act was over.

Starting to hyperventilate, I concentrated on my breathing, blowing out the overwhelming urge to puke as the crowd screamed and chanted around me.

Grunts, cries and thumps ricocheted around the air, the infrequent crash of the bars making me flinch and screw my eyes together tighter.

And then, just as my legs started to wobble, silence fell over everything. The oxygen in the room disappeared as every single person sucked in a large gasp. Blood rushed in my ears, pounding in my head and causing my whole body to vibrate with dread.

I daren’t breathe. I daren’t open my eyes. I daren’t move.

But when the silence broke with a roar of cheers, I took a breath.

“It’s okay, Kloe. Open your eyes,” Robbie urged.

Only then did I have the courage to look. A broken sob tore from me when I saw Anderson stood quiet and subdued, looking down to a mutilated Killstreak. Blood coated every surface and the scent of it caused me to turn to the wall behind us and expel the contents of my stomach.

“See.” Robbie grinned at me.

How the fuck could he stand there and smile? How the fuck could he stand there and watch something so fucking gruesome?

“Now we can go see him.”

I stood silent and in shock as a man came over to talk to Robbie. I didn’t hear anything they said, I didn’t hear anything as I stared at the mashed up carcass of Killstreak. His dead eyes stared straight at me as his tongue hung limply from the side of his mouth.

A loud burst of laughter ripped up my throat and out of my mouth. I couldn’t stop. Hysterics took me over and tears streamed down my face as Killstreak’s stupid bloated face watched me. My stomach gained a cramp and I bent over, holding on to my legs as hysteria ran through me.

“It’s okay, Kloe. Shh.”

Robbie’s arms around me were the only physical thing I felt. He held me so tightly that I thought I might snap, his soft pleading for me to close my eyes finally registering in my head and bidding me to shut my eyes and block it all out.

I buried my face into his chest as he directed me through the mass of still screaming people and through a door we had been heading for earlier.

The bang of the door behind me made me jump, and I relished in the muted quiet of the long thin corridor.

“You okay now?”

The concern on Robbie’s face made me warm to the usually cold man. There was another layer to Robbie I hadn’t witnessed before, and for the first time, I understood the relationship between him and Anderson.

Nodding, hating that I had worried him, I managed a smile. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to freak out.”

“Don’t be silly,” he said with a firm shake of his head. “It’s not everyone’s cup of tea.”

That was an understatement.

“Come on.”

Pulling on my hand, Robbie escorted me through a couple of doors, people greeting him with a friendly ‘hi’ or a handshake every now and again. I felt safe with him. All these people were as rough as they came, some towering above me, some with inhumanely huge muscles, some with their whole faces covered in tats. But every single one gave me a friendly smile and a quick wink.

“This is Anderson’s room,” Robbie said. “You need me to come in with you?”

Shaking my head, I told him thanks.

And opened the door.

Luckily Robbie was still behind me.

He caught me when the air rushed from my lungs and I stumbled backwards.

“Shit!”

It was all I caught. Robbie’s
‘shit’
. The soft hiss of his angry murmur the only sound that registered.

Anderson’s face shot to mine. But I didn’t see him. I couldn’t.

All I saw was Sarah, Ben’s ex, on her knees with Anderson’s cock in her mouth, and the cruel glint in her eye aimed directly at me.

Present day

S
OMETHING LEFT ME.

Something died within me.

Something started to grow deep inside me.

I think I had given in then, at the very moment I had stood before the man I had given myself to wholly, dejected and dazed while Sarah laughed. And Anderson smirked. And grief settled in my cold bones.

Hope and promise, it all died, crumbled beneath me. And I allowed it. I gave the hatred permission to fester, to bubble, burn and feast beneath my skin. Until the only shred of sanity I had left oozed from my pores and every drop of rage in my heart slid into my veins.

They all took. They all wounded. They all made me suffer.

And now it was my turn.