Good Girl Gone Badd Page 18

  "Armed security guards?" I asked Zane. "At an illegal boxing match?"

  Baxter answered for Zane. "This fight in particular is a big deal. Lotta money on it, and some of the heaviest hitters in the game are here to watch it and bet on it. These guys are insurance that this shit ain't gonna get out of hand."

  "What would it look like, if things did get out of hand?"

  Baxter hesitated. "Nothing good. The kinda folks who go to underground fights in remote fields in the middle of the night ain't exactly the kinda folks who are all about sunshine and roses, y'know?" He nodded to one of the security guards. "Yo, Kevin. How are ya, buddy?"

  The guard, a massive black man with a stare like ice, nodded back. "Bash, my man. Y'boy Moss is in there, waitin' for you. Go on in."

  Baxter indicated me with a jerk of his head. "She's with me. Nobody gets within five feet of her, you get me?"

  Kevin tipped his head to one side. "And how many reasons am I getting to keep my eye on your girl?" Baxter unzipped his duffel bag, reached in, pulled out a tight roll of money and handed it to Kevin, who unrolled it and counted it. "That's about enough reasons, I figure. She can watch from one of the corner trucks."

  Which was how I found myself sitting alone in the bed of a pickup truck. I'd been given a folding beach chair, a red Solo cup of beer, and instructions to stay put, no matter what. Kevin had positioned himself at the tail of the truck, close enough to obviously be there to deter people from approaching me, but still in a position to keep an eye on the crowd.

  Zane had gone into the tent with Baxter, saying he'd be out to sit with me once the fights got started; apparently Baxter fighting Juarez was--like real, televised boxing or MMA matches--just the main event, and there would be a few other fights first, between lesser known fighters.

  I sipped beer, and when I ran out, Kevin gestured at me and someone else scurried over with a refill.

  The first fight was quick, two small, lithe men covered in tattoos bashing each other with fists and feet, one man clearly the superior fighter, making quick work of his opponent to win in a single round. The second fight lasted longer. After two minutes, someone rang a bell and the fighters separated, and a trio of bikini-clad women pranced around the ring, dancing provocatively to music blaring from speakers set up in one of the truck's beds. This went on for a couple minutes, and then the bell rang and the fighters approached each other, and started fighting again; if there was a referee, I never saw him. The second fight went through four rounds, and in between each round the dancing girls danced more and more provocatively, and after the fourth round, the girls started their dance by taking off their bikini tops, to the wild, howling approval of the gathered crowd, which was, obviously, predominantly men. The fight ended midway through the fifth round, with one man knocking the other out with a scything spin kick.

  The winner was declared, and the fighters left the ring, and the dancers came back out and resumed their dancing, now topless.

  I should have hated this. I should have been mortified, disgusted, and horrified. Not only at the brutality of the fighting, which had featured a lot of blood spraying, but also at the gratuitous nudity of the strippers, not to mention the fact that there clearly wasn't a permit for the alcohol being sold, much less the illegality of the drugs being sold so openly.

  The whole business was sordid in the extreme.

  And I loved it.

  I got a thrill when the fights turned intense, and found myself cheering for one fighter or the other. I even felt an electrifying jolt of morbid fascination when the third and penultimate fight resulted in both fighters getting so gorily bloody that they had to be rinsed off and wiped down between rounds, leaving shimmery, slick, red patches of blood in the trampled grass.

  When the third fight finally ended after six punishing, slogging rounds, the strippers/dancers made a lewd, gyrating, provocative show of removing their bikini bottoms--which meant they would be dancing completely nude between the rounds of Baxter's fight.

  Which, strangely, didn't bother me...until I began picturing them rubbing themselves all over him, at which point jealousy blasted hot and sudden through me. I stamped it out quickly, refusing to let it gain traction, but it stuck stubbornly in the pit of my belly.

  After their dance, the women exited the arena, only to return, as I feared, accompanying Baxter as he approached the ring through a wild, cheering, screaming path through the gathered crowd, which had doubled in size throughout the course of the previous three fights. He was a bona fide local celebrity, it seemed, at least in the underground fighting world, and these plastic-breasted, heavily made-up, spray-tanned strippers were hanging on his arms and bouncing along beside him at each step as he swaggered through the crowd.

  He had earbuds in, connected to his cell phone, clutched in his hand. His hoodie was off now, leaving his torso bare, rippling with muscle and gleaming with a sheen of sweat. His hands and forearms were wrapped in white tape from knuckles to mid forearm, and his face was closed down, hardened, focused. He was no longer Baxter, the sweet, confident, crude, thoughtful, attentive, and wildly sexy man I'd spent the last two days with; no, he was Basher now, the primal, brutal fighter, with fists like concrete blocks and abs of marble. His hair was tied back into a small bun, and he'd shaved the sides of his head.

  Despite the naked strippers hanging on him, he was utterly focused on his approach to the ring, not even seeming to notice the girls. And, when he got to the ropes, he shrugged them off brusquely, ripped his earbuds out of his ears and tossed them with the phone to Zane, who caught them and stuffed them into his pocket.

  Baxter ducked between the ropes and swaggered arrogantly into the center of the ring, raising his taped fists above his head as the crowd began chanting--Basher! Basher! Basher! His eyes raked around the crowd, settling on me, perched in my chair in the bed of the pickup truck, and he made a beeline straight for me, ducking back out from beneath the ropes and stomping across the grass to me.

  The milling crowd between us parted for him like the Red Sea for Moses, and he reached the side of the truck, palmed the edge of the bed, and vaulted in a single lithe bound into the truck, palmed my face in his big hands, rough and scratchy from the tape. His thumbs grazed my cheekbones, and his lips slanted across mine, claiming a quick, searing kiss from me before leaping back out of the truck as easily as he'd jumped in, returning through the crowd to the ring.

  Juarez was waiting for him by then, having entered to little fanfare, without the strippers and without the wild howling and chanting of the crowd, making Baxter easily the favorite.

  A man in a three-piece suit entered the ring and stood between the two fighters. "WELCOME TO THE MAIN EVENT!" he boomed in a voice that needed no amplification, silencing the wild audience as he prepared to introduce the fighters. "You all know the boys fighting tonight: Basher, the undefeated and unstoppable face-battering sensation, and Antonio Juarez, hardened veteran of the underground circuit and a tough, proven fighter." He turned to the fighters and addressed them. "We're fighting clean tonight, boys. No gouging, no biting, no bone-breaking, just good clean MMA brutality."

  He paused for effect, surveying the crowd, which was growing restless.

  "ARE YOU READY!" he bellowed.

  To which the crowd promptly went berserk, screaming, some chanting "Basher!", some chanting "Juarez!", most just howling crazily.

  The announcer pressed his palms to the chests of the two fighters, pushed them apart, then backed away and chopped his hand downward. "FIGHT!"

  And then he exited the ring entirely, and the fight began.

  I watched with my heart in my throat, my stomach twisting and fluttering, and excitement bubbling up inside me.

  At least, until I felt a ripple of uneasiness flitter through me, prompting me to turn around to glance at the entrance to the field, where I saw four black SUVs and a black limousine enter at a barreling pace.

  I didn't know for sure who was in that limousine, but the uneasiness in
my gut gave me plenty of reason to have my suspicions.

  Baxter saw them too, but Juarez was circling him by then, and he had to turn his focus to the fight.

  Abruptly, Zane was squatting in the bed of the truck beside me. "Those newcomers look like trouble."

  "I think it's my father. Although how they knew about this, or could even find this place I don't even want to know."

  "What's the play, here, Evangeline?" Zane eyed me carefully. "Your call."

  The crowd around the ring was manic and wild-eyed, pawing at the fighters whenever they inched too close to the ring's ropes. "The crowd looks...unpredictable."

  Zane nodded. "Things look like they could get out of hand."

  "You have to watch Baxter's back." I felt the heavy hand of loathing pressing in on me. "I always knew they would end up finding me. I have to go."

  "Really? Doesn't sound like you want to, though," Zane remarked, eyeing me sidelong.

  "I don't. But..." I shrugged.

  "It's your life, your choice, Evangeline. Don't let others choose for you."

  I sighed. "I wish it was that easy."

  He stood up in the truck bed, watching with hawklike eyes as the intensity of the crowd surged, until the air fairly shook with the energy and the volume. "I have to get over to the ring. Kevin's got your back while you're in the truck."

  I pushed at his meaty shoulder. "Go. He needs you. I'll be fine."

  He eyed me. "You're sure?"

  I wasn't, but I kept my doubts to myself. "I'm sure."

  Zane hopped down and leaned close to Kevin. "Watch her, man. This shit is getting nuts."

  Kevin nodded. "I got it."

  And then Zane was gone, vanishing into the crowd, and I was alone in the truck bed again, and now the SUVs, Mercedes-Benz G-Wagens like my father seemed to favor, were inching toward the back edge of the crowd in a line abreast, with the limousine behind them, pushing the milling, screaming crowd aside to approach me.

  Teddy was in the driver's seat of the limousine, and I felt my gut sink the moment his eyes met mine.

  My little escapade in Ketchikan, Alaska was over, it seemed.

  And I was discovering that my head, my heart, and my body all had very different things to say about that.

  9

  Baxter

  * * *

  Goddamn it. I knew exactly who was in that limo, and judging by the expression on Evangeline's face, so did she. I couldn't do shit about it, though. Juarez was no slouch in the ring, and it was going to take every last ounce of skill and focus I possessed to pull the win out. I'd seen Juarez fight before, and he was one of the few fighters I was even remotely nervous to face. Add in the distraction of Eva and the approaching limo...this could spell trouble.

  I had a lot of money riding on this fight, but I also had a lot of emotion invested in Eva. I'd known her, what...two days? Not even-- just about twenty-four hours. But the thought of her getting into that stupid, fancy fuckin' limo, possibly to go back to that fuckin' tool Thomas...? That shit burned a hole in my gut.

  I didn't want her to go.

  I wanted her to stay. I wanted to kiss her again. Make her scream again. I wanted to just...chill with her at the bar, shooting the shit with the gang.

  But her life was at Yale and her family was on the East Coast. She was way above my pay grade, destined to marry someone with a net worth I'd never make even if I fought in the big leagues with guys like McGregor, Silva, and Jones. She was destined to marry someone with an Ivy League pedigree, mansions in four states, and the attention of powerful people in Washington. She sure as fuck wasn't gonna spend any more of her time or attention slumming it with some no-name, no-neck brawler from a tiny cruise-ship town like Ketchikan.

  I used the angst and anger those thoughts brought boiling up inside me to force my focus onto Juarez, who was testing me with a series of lightning-fast jabs and an even faster left front kick. His footwork was solid, and his defense was tight, and even his test jabs connecting with my shoulder and chest felt like being tapped by an anvil.

  I couldn't spare another thought for Eva, not now.

  A jab caught me on the chin, sending me backward and making my eyes smart, prompting me to retaliate with my own series of jabs and kicks, most of which Juarez easily turned aside or absorbed without flinching. The first round passed quickly, neither of us winded or bloodied, still testing each other's skills.

  Zane was behind me as I rested in one corner, and I glared at him. "You're supposed to be with Eva, you fuckin' tool."

  "This crowd is wild, man. Shit could turn in a split second. You need me to watch your back. Juarez has plenty of his own rabid supporters."

  "Which is why you need to be with her, not me." I jerked my chin at the lights of the SUVs and the limo. "Especially with that shit about to go down."

  "She told me to let her handle it."

  "Meaning she's going back with 'em."

  He shrugged. "Yep. Her choice, though, man."

  I rolled my shoulders, ignoring the thudding bass of the music and the lewd show put on by the strippers. "I don't like it."

  "You don't have to."

  "I know. Fuck, man, I fuckin' know! But I still don't like it." I watched as the SUVs forced the crowd away so they could form a perimeter around the truck in which Eva was sitting, making way for the limo to approach. "It's bullshit."

  "Her family, her life, her choice. She wants to stay, she'll stay. She's a grown-ass woman." He clapped me on the shoulder. "And she's too fucking good for you anyway, bro, and we both know it."

  I glared at him. "Yeah, I fuckin' know, Zane, thanks for the reminder." The dancers exited the arena under the aggressive protection of the security team, and the bell rang. "I fuckin' know it, but that don't mean I have to fuckin' like it."

  "Win the fight," Zane said, "then bitch about it."

  I went out, and I fought Juarez. I forced my attention away from the scene unfolding beyond the crowd, and fended off Juarez's quick fists and quicker feet. He caught me with several lancing blows, making my cheek swell and splitting my lip, but I was the one to draw the first real blood, my left hook ripping open his cheek and a right cross bloodying his nose. He returned the favor almost immediately, though, with a scything, snakebite-fast sidekick I never saw coming, cracking my teeth together, followed by a wicked right jab to break my nose.

  It was on, then. We bruised each other through the second round, and then I retreated to my corner to get cleaned up by Moss. By this point, each of the SUVs had disgorged four beefy-looking private bodyguards, the types that wore matching black suits, earpieces, and were armed for sure. They formed a semicircle around the truck, hands crossed in front of them, positioned to watch the curious crowd, which was starting to take notice of the unusual proceedings, distracting some of them from the fight.

  "Stay focused, Bax," Moss rumbled to me as he dabbed at my nose. "That shit don't concern you."

  "Yes, it fuckin' does."

  "Ain't gonna get you your cut if you lose because you're distracted by pussy, even fancy-ass, high-class pussy like that."

  "Watch your--" I started to growl.

  He cut in impatiently. "Yeah, yeah, watch my fuckin' mouth, I get it. She's special, yada yada yada. Focus on the fight, Bax. Win the fight and then go chase the tail."

  I snarled, prepared to curse him out, but the bell rang and I had to go face Juarez for the third round. I wasn't focused, though. Part of my attention kept drifting to Eva, standing in the bed of the truck, a red Solo cup in hand, still dressed in that fine-ass skirt and top she'd put on this morning, which she'd stripped off for me mere hours ago. She was facing the limo, back straight, head up, shoulders squared. Waiting.

  Maybe I was reading things into her body language, but it seemed to me like she was preparing to face a firing squad, almost. Going into something she hated but had no control over. Which was fuckin' bullshit, if you asked me, but no one was asking.

  I caught a sharp jab off Juarez, which b
rought my attention back to the fight, and I had to duck and weave and fend off a sudden flurrying onslaught of fast fists, which drove me back against the ropes and put me on the defensive in a way no fighter ever had before. I let the ropes catch me and warded off the punches, watching for an opening. Saw one, a slight hitch in his step as his foot caught a slippery patch of grass, giving me a split second to cut in with a messy but effective jab-cross combo. It put Juarez back on his heels just enough to let me get away from the ropes and the grabbing, pushing hands of the crowd pressed up against the edge of the ring, but then my gaze slipped, just for a second, to Eva.

  A tall, stern, swarthy, black-haired man at the far end of middle age stood facing her in an expensive suit. He was speaking to her, and she was arguing back, gesturing angrily. Beside the older man was a younger version, blond hair swept backward, also wearing a full three-piece suit that probably cost more than the Silverado. The younger blond man stepped forward toward Eva, gesturing at the crowd, at the ring, at Juarez and me, and I could almost taste the derisive, bitter ridicule he was probably spouting, and Eva pivoted to face the blond guy--Thomas, I would bet any money--her hands gesturing even more angrily, waving, chopping.

  Good girl, Eva, stand up for yourself. Tell those fuckers who's boss.

  But then, in the split-second between my gaze flicking back to Juarez and his onrushing left foot and back to Eva, she was hopping down from the truck, refusing her father's hand or Thomas's.

  I caught Juarez's kick straight to my belly, knocking the wind out of me.

  Eva was walking, shoulders hunched, toward the limo.

  FUCK!--the sight of her walking away left me even more wounded than Juarez's kick.

  Rage blistered through me, and I gasped through the breathless agony of a cracked rib, twisted aside to dodge a follow-up kick and block a one-two punch combo, accepting a third shot to the cheek in return for an opening, which I took.

  One punch, the most brutal I'd ever thrown, with the full force of the red, seething rage boiling inside me.