Fight for Her#3 (2 page)

I know that they don’t. Parker has kept very quiet about me because of Lily. If they drum up anybody, it will be that girl who made the video of Parker’s fights.

“So what are you going to do with her?” Blue Hair asks, an edge of panic in her voice.

Striker fiddles around with a bag on the floor and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. “Maybe I’ll keep her. See what she’s got that makes her so interesting to Power Play.”

This actually makes me breathe a little easier. Simple alpha-pack rules are at work here. Striker just claimed me, so he is the only one I have to worry with. And Blue Hair doesn’t like it, so I just have to work her jealousy.

If it comes to that. I still hope I can get out of this van before they arrive somewhere they can hide me. The more private our location, the less of a chance I have to make it out.

Chapter 3: Parker

It’s an eternity before Colt makes it with the car. I’ve dialed 911 a dozen times, but can’t bring myself to actually put the call through. I’ve been careful not to let anyone know publicly that Maddie and I are together. I’m grateful now that she was always a secret.

When the black Mercedes pulls up, I lunge for the door.

Colt and Jo are in the back, so I sit up next to the driver.

“Who have you told?” I ask.

“Nobody you know,” Colt says. His phone is pressed against his ear. “But we’ve got the Vegas Syndicate on the alert.”

“Syndicate?” What the hell is he talking about?

Jo leans forward and passes me a warm, damp towel. “I thought you might need a cleanup.”

I swipe it across my face. I don’t really care about the blood, but if we’re meeting with cops, or whatever Colt’s got working, I probably should be halfway presentable.

“We’re on it,” Colt says. “They already know who we’re dealing with.”

I point out the windshield. “The black van went that way.”

The driver eases the car away from the curb in that direction.

Once we’re down a few blocks, however, I don’t have a clue where to go. The driver takes us along the back streets. Cheesy condos line the roads. The businesses all seem oriented toward gambling winners and losers. Money brokers. Short-term loans.

Colt sets the phone beside him on the seat. “We have only a half-dozen places they are likely to go.”

“Where’s the first?” I ask.

“Let’s not go in without some backup,” Colt says.

“I don’t need any damn backup. I just need to get to Maddie.” I feel bitter. Every second that ticks by feels like a lifetime.

“There’s no evidence that Striker and his crew are interested in something that will get them hard time,” he says. “They’re just toying with you. Striker has always been all about feeding his ego, getting even. He’s not going to take it too far.”

“Oh, unlike when they had you and Jo shot in an alley.”

He sighs. “He hired the wrong guys. It wasn’t his intention.”

“I don’t give a shit about his intention,” I say.

“The most likely scenario is they will take her back to her hotel and act like it was part of the plan,” Colt says. “I’ve got Killjoy at your room in case that happens.”

I don’t buy it. “They could have let her go, but they didn’t. Striker’s gone off the deep end. I don’t think you can guess what he’ll do now. He could do anything.”

“He might feel like he’s got nothing left to lose,” Jo says.

“Thank you,” I say. I can’t believe Colt is being so casual about this. The man hired thugs who shot him in cold blood. Now he’s moved on to kidnapping.

“What did Striker say this was about?” Colt asks. “If I know him, he’ll have given some sort of monologue right out of a comic book.”

“That it wasn’t right that they got cut out of league play, but I didn’t.”

Colt nods. “I can believe it. Same old victim stance.” He sits back in his seat. “Jax is going to text me the addresses to visit. They’re monitoring them all for any unusual activity. They don’t want a police APB on the black van, as Striker might get tipped off.”

“So you called the cops, then? Or someone on the inside?” I feel some relief that I don’t have to be the one to do it.

“Something like that,” Colt says. “My dad knows every cop, thug, and hired strong arm that hangs a shingle in Vegas. Striker is part of an underground group of fighters. It’s like what you saw in LA when you took Lani and Annie to fight Jo.”

Lani. I bang my hands against the dash. “Lani came to see me last week, right after the fight was announced,” I say. “She told me to watch my back.”

“Obviously she knew Striker was up to something,” Colt says. “Interesting that she warned you.”

“It pissed me off at the time, but yeah, I guess she was doing the right thing.” I picture her laughing in the hoodie. “But she definitely didn’t seem to care about me. It was more like she wanted to be the first to see my reaction.”

Colt glances at his phone, then leans forward to talk to the driver. “Kent, take us to 590 Loyola. It’s an abandoned skating rink.”

“What’s there?” I ask.

“One of the underground cage-fight venues that Striker frequents. There’s several. He might have gone there. He’ll be surrounded by his buddies. He’ll have all his backup.”

“How do we make this end with Striker?” Jo says. “Hasn’t he done enough?”

Colt puts his arm around Jo. “We’ve all succeeded despite his attempts to bring us down,” he says. “So it’s never going to be over.”

I stare out at the night, lights rushing past us. Colt is wrong.

I am absolutely going to end this.

Chapter 4: Maddie

The duct tape is off my wrists.

I get a lucky break when Striker throws up blood. I’m happy to see it, and the very thought that his predicament makes me glad is horrifying. How far I’ve fallen in fifteen minutes.

But I’ve been threatened. I’m not going to sympathize with the man who started the whole thing.

Blue Hair rushes to his aid, confirming my suspicion that she’s either his girlfriend or has some other reason to call him hers.

The guy who attacked us starts cursing. The driver yells back at us, asking if he should pull over, or go to a hospital or something.

Personally, I hope his guts are falling out. I hang on to the duct tape in case I need to fake still being bound. I shrug my shoulders to bump the last strip of tape off my face, and the T-shirt falls to the floor of the van.

Two of the men move forward to talk to the driver. The two girls try to mop up the mess and deal with a groaning Striker. They sort through gym bags, digging out towels.

“We’re going to have to take him somewhere,” Blue Hair calls out. “This is bad.”

Good, I think. If we get to a hospital, I will make a break for it. I’ll jump on Striker myself if I have to. Being arrested right now would be bliss. I would relish a ride in a cop car.

Striker waves his hand. “I’m fine. Just swallowed too much blood. We’ll get Steve to take a look at me. He’s as good as any doc.”

The others nod. “So to the cage matches?” the driver asks.

“Yeah,” Striker says and looks over at me. “Besides, we can’t let the kitten get away.”

Blue Hair scowls.

One of the guys turns around. “Nearly there.”

“What are we going to do with her?” Blue Hair asks.

“I’m going to do lots of things to her,” Striker says.

I think about how I can work this. Maybe if I piss off Blue Hair enough, she’ll want me gone. Before I can even think if it’s a good idea, I say, “Can’t wait to compare you to Parker. I have a feeling you’ll come up…short.”

Blue Hair’s retaliation is swift and unexpected. She lunges for me and cracks a hard punch to the side of my face. I forget I’m supposed to be hiding that my hands are free and instinctively reach around to protect myself.

A couple of the guys laugh. “Some tie-up job you did there,” one says. “Why don’t you just hand her a weapon while you’re at it?”

Blue Hair grabs my hands and pinches them tight together. “Give me that damn tape,” she says to the other girl.

She wraps my wrists again, circling them over and over until my hands turn red. “I hope your fucking fingers fall off,” she says, and pushes me back against the wall of the van.

When I fall back, my legs fly in the air. The dress rides up to my waist, revealing a pair of sheer green panties that were meant to surprise Parker.

The boys roar with approval. “She wears his fight colors all the way down,” one shouts.

“Get them off her,” Striker says. “I don’t want to see that asshole’s colors in my van. In fact, strip it all off her. She can sit around naked for me to look at.”

I draw my knees up, panicked. I should have kept my damn mouth shut.

“I’ll volunteer,” the guy who attacked us says. The blood on his forehead has dried to a crusty brown. He reaches for the strap of my panties.

I kick at him and get in a nice blow to the chin.

He stumbles back. “Somebody hold the bitch’s knees. I’m going to fuck her up.”

The van is tense as everyone watches him. But nobody comes forward.

“It ain’t like that,” one of the other guys finally says. “If you’re going to do shit to her, do it on your own time. I’m not getting fingered for it.”

My breathing starts to slow down as I realize nobody’s going to jump in. I shift sideways, and my dress flops down enough that it covers the panties. The guy I kicked sits back down against the wall of the van, glaring at me.

“We’re here,” the driver says. “How do you want to work this?”

“Drive into the bay,” Striker says. “I’ll go see the doc. One of you stay with Parker’s bitch.”

He seems to have lost interest in me. I’m seriously grateful to the guy who spoke up. We drive up to a building with only a single floodlight aiming down at the drive. The van stops, and a couple guys jump out to lift a loading-bay door. Then we drive in.

My surge of attitude that caused me to insult Striker is long gone, replaced with what I am now, sniveling, frightened, and pathetic. I want the strong version of myself back, but I can’t reach her. Not after that one guy came after me.

I can’t believe any of this is actually happening.

The back of the van opens and most of the people pile out. Striker scoots to the door in obvious pain. Blue Hair jumps next to him and helps him out.

I’m left alone, and I’m hoping they’ll just close the doors and forget me for a while. I crave the silence, to have a little time where I’m not afraid.

But Striker turns and waves at one of the guys, the one who refused to hold me down.

“Stay with her,” he says.

The guy sits back down opposite me. I guess if I’m going to have someone guard me, he’s the least horrible choice. Maybe I can convince him to let me go.

“I’ll stay too,” the other girl says. Her eyes on the boy tell me she’s his girlfriend or wants to be. Or maybe she doesn’t trust him alone with me.

I lift my hands and look at the fat wad of duct tape locking my wrists together. My fingers are swelling, but I know my hands aren’t in danger, no matter what Blue Hair says. I’ve done enough bondage with Parker to recognize that.

Even a little blood flow is fine. It will hurt, but it won’t cause any damage. There’s no way I can get free, though. It will take scissors to cut this mass of tape off me.

The girl sits next to the guy. The others take off through a vast empty warehouse space. I watch them through the front windshield until they’re out of view.

“So Striker really went off the deep end this time,” the girl says. “Taking this chick.”

“I know,” the boy says. He looks at me. “What’s your name?”

I look down at my hands. I’m not telling them anything.

“I wouldn’t say either,” says the girl. “So how much trouble we gonna be in when she gets free and rats us out?”

“A lot,” he says.

“You gonna let her go so you aren’t busted?” the girl asks.

My heart speeds up. Would they do that?

“I’m more afraid of Striker than I am of the cops,” the boy says. “That man is bat-shit crazy.”

The girl edges up a little closer to him. “That’s what everybody likes about him. We want to live on the edge.” She turns and bites him on the ear. “So you going to make her watch?”

“The thought of that getting you off already?” he asks.

“It kind of is,” she says.

He reaches for the short stretchy skirt she’s wearing over thin leggings. “Then I say we go for it.”

Great. I turn my head back to the windshield to look out, see if I can get any clue to where I am. Not that it would help. I don’t have a phone or any way to contact anyone. But I might get a chance. These people probably have phones on them. And by the way they’re already moaning and groaning just a few feet away, they’re not paying any attention.

Chapter 5: Parker

I’m losing faith in whatever information Colt’s been getting.

We’ve been to three of the addresses on his list, and all were busts. Nobody there. No fights. Nothing.

“Who are these people again?” I ask.

“Nobody we need to know anything about,” he says.

“I think it’s time to call the cops,” I say. I can send someone to New York to fetch Lily and keep her safe. Hell, even that old bat Delores can come.

“I’m starting to agree,” Jo says.

“They’re getting more people involved now,” Colt says. “We’re going to have them any minute.”

I’m ready to smash something. It’s been a half hour now. “You really think Striker will just take her back to the hotel?”

“Yeah, but not until you’ve had to sweat it out a while.” Colt taps on his phone. “If you want to finish this, though, we’ll have to go to him anyway.”

I clasp my hands on my head. I can’t take all this driving around, talking, doing nothing. “I want Striker behind bars,” I say. “Preferably without much left of his face.”

“I hear ya,” Colt says. “I spent months of my life recovering from his actions.”

His phone chimes. “They’ve got ’em,” he says. “The black van is in the loading dock of a warehouse. There’s a fight club going on downstairs, the no-rules kind.”

“Can we get in?”

“Yep. We have an insider who will ask us the code. We’ll say ‘lobotomy’ and watch the fight.” He glances over at Jo. “I’m advised not to bring you. Women don’t go.”