Surviving Raine 02 Bastian's Storm (7 page)

Training.

I snorted to myself.

I’d learned how to kill and how to avoid being killed so I could fight and win in death-match battles to amuse the stupidly rich and powerful people of organized crime all over the world. I’d earned an insane amount of money for taking the lives of others in the most brutal ways possible. It had never bothered me in the slightest.

Why should it have? It wasn’t like those who came up against me didn’t know what they were getting into. At the level I played, all of them had been in tournaments, and none of them came out with clean fingernails. There was blood on the hands of everyone I killed.

If I hadn’t done it, one of the other fighters would have. It was only a matter of time. Very few tournament players ever actually retired—most of them just got beat. John Paul and I were two of the very few who actually gave it up and went on to something else, though the circumstances made it more of a necessity than a choice.

You didn’t testify against the mega-super crime boss for torture and murder without having to go into hiding. It wasn’t like Franks was going to offer me my job back after that. Landon had to cut his losses, give me a new identity, and send me on my way with John Paul looking out for me as I dived further and further into a perpetual bottle of vodka.

Thinking about training with Landon made me realize I wasn’t exactly following what I had been told to do—watch my surroundings and always know what dangers might be lurking. In a neighborhood like this one, I needed to pay attention. I straightened up and took a good look around me, wondering which of the idiots around here might have thought I was a good target for pickpocketing.

The idea of someone coming after me and stealing my wallet was kind of intriguing. Maybe that was exactly what I needed—a good fight in a shitty neighborhood where the police wouldn’t show up until I was long, long gone.

I tossed my leg over the bike and started meandering down the street. A few dodgy people walked by, but I must not have looked like a viable target to them. After walking up and down a few alleys, I came across a hole-in-the-wall bar with a decent amount of noise coming from it.

There was a guy standing by the door, giving everyone who approached the bouncer-vibe. He checked IDs, turned a few people away, and then leaned back against the frame of the entrance to smoke. When I approached, his eyes lit up.

“
Hey, are you the dude they’re waiting for?”

Slightly startled, I debated lying to him and saying yes, but lying in this kind of circumstance was a little too risky. For all I knew, he was waiting for the boss-man’s boyfriend.

“
Don’t think so,” I replied. “Why?”

“
Oh,” he said as his forehead crinkled a bit, “that’s a shame. You look like a good match.”

“
Match for what?” I asked.

He crooked his thumb and motioned inside.

“
Just a little friendly competition,” he said with a sly smile. “You wanna watch? They’ve been letting anyone stupid enough to give it a try into the cage tonight since the other dude hasn’t shown up.”

I shrugged but couldn’t help feeling a little excited. I brushed passed the dude to get a look inside and found myself in a warehouse with a makeshift bar off to one side, a bunch of tall tables and chairs around, and hundreds of people yelping and hollering at the center of the place. Surrounded by a ring of chain link, a large platform housed two guys in shorts who danced around each other, punching and kicking as everyone cheered and handed wads of cash back and forth.

Cage fighting.

This place obviously wasn’t UFC regulated or anything. The referee was a chick in a black-and-white striped bikini, for Christ’s sake. There was one dude in orange trunks who obviously had some MMA experience and was decently big and another one who was obviously a drunken college idiot who knew what the inside of a gym smelled like, but that was about it. The green trunks he was wearing didn’t even fit him right and were probably borrowed from the bar.

College-boy was getting hammered.

I handed the cover charge over to the bouncer and made my way to the side of the cage to watch the beating. My fingers twitched as I ran them over the edge of the chain-link fencing, and I felt my heart rate increase. I’d never been in a cage fight, but this was similar enough to the street fighting I did as a kid. Everything around me felt familiar.

A couple of hard lefts to the face and a quick kick to the side made college-boy drop to his knees. Orange-trunks jumped on his back and immediately began slamming the kid’s head against the mat. Stunned, the poor guy could barely smack his hand against the other dude’s shoulder to tap out.

The winner began to jump around the cage, smacking his hands on the chain-link and yelling at the audience. I watched him closely—the way he moved, where his eyes went, and how his feet touched the floor—while college-boy was handed over to his buddies and another dude walked into the cage and looked out at the patrons.

“
Who’s next?” he shouted.

I had to bite down on my lip to keep from volunteering.

There was no fucking way Raine would approve of any of this shit. She wouldn’t like it, not at all. She wouldn’t like the idea of me fighting, getting hit, or hitting another guy. It was entirely possible she would give me shit just for walking into the damn bar, and she would probably be right, but knowing how Raine would react to the whole situation wasn’t what made me stop.

I was going to do this shit—no doubt. I just wanted to see the dude fight again before I made myself known.

My interest was piqued. At least for now, I was going to watch.

The announcer called the dude in the orange shorts “Brutal Brutus,” which I thought sounded absolutely ridiculous, but it did seem to fit. He didn’t waste any time going after the next guy who walked into the cage with him. This one was a little older than college-boy, who was nursing a bloody and probably broken nose over by the bar. The new opponent was a muscular guy with biceps about as big as mine, but he also sported a lot of gut and very little hair.

Brutal Brutus wasn’t impressed with Muscles. He avoided the guy’s lame attempts at a left hook with ease. As big as he was, Muscles obviously didn’t have much fighting experience, and he went down quickly. The short fight still gave me enough opportunity to observe Brutus’s fighting style.

He favored his right way too much, and it left him unbalanced. He also stuck to very basic patterns that left little to the imagination. Right-right-left, right-right-left. He was predictable, which made him vulnerable.

“
Does anyone else dare to face Brutal Brutus?” The MC-slash-announcer walked around the ring, pointing his finger at the audience. “There’s a hundred dollars to anyone who can stay up for three minutes, five hundred if you can take him down!”

I didn’t give a shit about the money, but I approached the edge of the ring and caught the MC’s eye.

“
Looks like we have a challenge!” he announced, and the crowd began to cheer.

One of the bouncers led me back to a small room that served as a locker room but looked like it was supposed to be a large custodial closet. The smell was nearly enough to make me gag, but I breathed through my mouth and went inside. The bouncer dude pointed out a shelf with a few pairs of shorts on it, and I grabbed blue ones. He politely stood facing the door and away from me as I removed my shirt, dropped my jeans, and pulled on the trunks.

“
Ya ready?” he asked.

“
Just about,” I said. I rolled each shoulder around, stretched my arms and chest a bit, and then nodded to him.

The bouncer brought me back out to the edge of the cage and opened the chain door. As I stepped into it, the MC leaned toward me.

“
What are ya?” he asked. “Six-three? Six-four?”

“
Six-three,” I replied.

“
Weight?”

“
About two-twenty.”

“
What’s your name?”

I paused for a moment.

“
Daniel,” I said.

“
Got it!” The announcer cracked his knuckles as he looked me over a bit more.

“
Here we go again, everyone!” he called out. “Next into the cage is Dangerous Daniel!”

I rolled my eyes. The chick in the referee bikini took my hand by the wrist and held it over her head as the MC went over my stats.

“
He’s six feet three inches tall, and weighs in at two hundred and twenty pounds of solid muscle! Ladies, keep your eyes on this one!”

I glanced out over the audience and listened to the hollering coming from the women in the bar. A warm tingle went up my spine as the familiarity of the situation relaxed me and I focused my attention on what was to come.

Looking over at Brutus, I gripped my hands into fists and took a deep breath as the chick referee pushed a mouthguard between my teeth.

This was where I belonged.

Brutus walked up, danced on the balls of his feet, and waited patiently for me to make the first move. Knowing he would start with his right, I moved into his space to give him what would appear to be a clear shot. The slight grin on his face told me he had fallen for it before he took his first swing.

I dodged to the right, ducking and slamming my fist into his kidney as I went past him. He grabbed at his side for a second but recovered quickly and came at me again, his eyes narrowed. He swung again, missed again, and lost his footing briefly.

When he regained his composure, he took a step back and watched me carefully. He had realized I wasn’t going down easily and was going to take his time now. Assuming he thought I would go with another ploy, I went straight at him, diving against his body and punching him rapidly in the gut and side.

He returned the favor though his blows weren’t very hard from that angle. His arm twisted around mine, and he brought his free hand up high before slamming it into my temple.

The blow sent me down and backward, but I didn’t fall. In fact, it just pissed me off. I leapt forward, diving at his body and sending us both to the ground. We rolled, both of us punching at each other’s sides until we hit the edge of the cage. My head bounced against the chain link, and Brutus pushed away from me, standing again.

I followed suit, jumped up, and readied myself. I watched him closely as he danced from left to right, then came at me with his predictable pattern. I dodged right, turned swiftly, and locked one of my legs behind his. I grabbed his shoulder and pulled his back to my chest.

With one leg wrapped around his torso, I threw him to the mat. I tightened my arm around his neck, wrapped my other arm around his head, and slammed his face into the ground twice. I pulled one arm back and elbowed him in the shoulder as hard as I could. He continued to struggle under me, trying to get his arms under him enough to push me off, but his efforts were wasted.

I turned my head to the side and spit out the mouth guard.

“
You gonna tap out, or should I go ahead and kill you?” I snarled.

I felt the pressure of his Adam’s apple under my forearm, but he couldn’t actually swallow as I flexed against his throat. His hand flew out, and he slammed it three times against the mat.

I paused just a little longer than I needed to before tossing him to the ground. He lay there gasping as everyone in the bar started to cheer, and the post-violence high swept over me.

I was elated. With wide eyes and what probably looked like a crazed smile, I looked over the crowd and felt my heart pounding in my chest. I could feel blood—hot and sticky—on my knuckles. The crowd continued to scream as the chick in the referee-styled bikini held my arm up as high as she could. She looked up at me with raised eyebrows.

“
Nice job,” she said with a smile and a wink. “I don’t think Brutus is going to forget that anytime soon.”

“
He better fucking not,” I replied, wriggling my eyebrows at her, “or I might have to come back and remind him.”

She laughed. As she released my wrist, she ran her hand up to my shoulder and squeezed it a little before she wrapped her arm through mine.