Ringside (13 page)

Sloane

“So you’re telling
me that the next fight he’s got to lose?”

Nitro shrugged.
“He doesn’t
have
to. I’m just telling
you what happened to the guy before me for
not
throwing it. They killed him. I don’t want that to happen to Angel. He’s a good
guy, or so everyone says.”

“He is,” I said,
ready to jump to his defense.

Nitro and the
driver had brought me to a warehouse downtown. Though it was abandoned for the
night, there were wooden crates of boxed up dog food piled high in every
direction. The doors had been unlocked though, so I assumed that whoever owned
the place knew Nitro would be using it tonight.

Nitro nodded. “I
figured as much. Look, I’m out. I stepped back from retirement so that your
boyfriend could look good and knock me out. I got paid. I’m done, and I’m okay
with that. But I’m not sure that he saw it for what it was, and that’s
dangerous.”

I bit my lip. “The
Carellos?”

“Everything comes
back to them. One day soon, maybe only a couple of minutes before his next
fight, they’ll tap him on the shoulder and tell him what round to lose in. If
he agrees, life could go okay. If he
listens
,
actually does what he’s told, maybe it’ll even get better for you and him for a
while.”

I shook my head.
“There’s no way that’s ever going to happen. Angel’s not that kind of guy. He’d
never agree to that.” I saw the hurt look on Nitro’s face and my heart sank. He
had, after all, agreed to do exactly what I’d just said Angel was too good a
man to contemplate. “Sorry… I didn’t mean…”

He held up a big,
scarred hand.
The hand of a fighter
,
I told myself. “It’s okay. I get it. You’re right, I suppose. I just need you
to know that if he gets it into his head that he can ignore them, the Carellos
are ready and waiting to hurt him. If he gets bullheaded about the whole thing,
remind him about a guy named Kellerman. Angel will know what I’m talking
about.”

“Okay.”

“And I’m sorry for
the whole van thing. These aren’t guys you take chances with, and if you and I
were seen together, word would get back to them. I don’t want to find out what
happens
then
, you know?”

I nodded.

“I called you a
cab,” Nitro said. “It’s paid for and waiting outside.”

“What happens to
you now?”

He shrugged. “I
retire like I meant to a couple of weeks ago. Someplace far away.”

“Good luck to you,
then,” I said, wanting to hug him for helping but reaching out to shake his
hand instead. “Thanks for caring.”

He shook my hand
and grinned. “It’ll be the death of me, most likely.”

I turned in the
direction he’d brought me through the front doors and stepped outside. The cab
was there, just like he’d said, and I got in. My head was spinning. I guess I’d
already known how dark this street fighting world could be, but every time I
thought I’d found the bottom it turned out I was wrong.

The driver started
driving without being told where to go. I guess he’d been well enough informed,
because he took me straight to the Ritz. I looked out the window for the first
few minutes, wary that this was all some sort of trick, that I’d be taken to
some secret location or something, but once I worked out we were going the
right way I stopped worrying.

Nitro was a good
guy in a bad world, just like Angel. And the world had a way of making sure
that good guys finished last.

Once we pulled up
to the hotel I thanked the driver and he pulled away as soon as my feet hit the
concrete.

Marcus was there,
beaming. “Miss Sloane! I was worried. Did you get yourself lost?”

“No,” I said,
trying to force happiness and failing miserably.

“But you’ve been
gone for far too long, and that cab came from the wrong direction…”

I shrugged, and
Marcus got the hint. I didn’t know what I was going to tell Angel about the
conversation I’d just had, let alone the doorman.

“Your man is
upstairs,” he said. “Just got back a couple of minutes ago to grab a shower.
Better catch him. He’s planning on scouring the streets of New York for his
long lost love, right about now,” he said with a smile.

“I’ll tell him
she’s already arrived,” I answered, hurrying upstairs to find him.

He was in danger,
but I guess that was nothing new for him. He was a player in a rough world, and
I was still trying to learn to handle myself in it too.

Angel

Afterwards, I put
my arms around her. There was a strange moment where it didn’t matter that she
was naked, that her hot flesh against mine melted against me.

I loved her for
more than just her body. She was becoming everything to me, and where the
thought of relying on someone had terrified me up until now, suddenly I
welcomed it.

Sloane snuggled up
against me, and I felt her lips against my neck.

“I was worried
about you, tonight,” I said. “You even had the doorman wondering where you’d
gone…”

She still hadn’t
fessed up with where she’d been, but I wasn’t going to start ruining things
already by doubting her or second guessing.

“Yeah,” she said.
“Sorry about that.”

“Everything okay?”
Even though I didn’t want to push, the words came out on their own.

“Nitro found me
when I was walking to the store tonight,” she said.

I tried to sit up,
but Sloane was a lot stronger than she looked. Those dancer muscles served her
well as she leaned across my chest and pinned me to the bed.

“Listen, before
you get angry. He was trying to help us!”

It took an
enormous force of will, but I did my best to do as she’d asked. I sucked in a
deep breath and unclenched my hands. I hadn’t even been aware that I’d folded
them up into fists, but once I put my palms flat on Sloane’s back and held her
to me, I was able to calm down. “Okay,” I said at last. “Tell me what happened
and I’ll try not to interrupt.”

I felt her nod in
the darkness. “He was worried the Carellos, which meant he had to basically
yank me up off the street and drag me off to some dog food warehouse. Whatever,
it doesn’t matter. What
does
matter
is that he wanted to warn me. I was right about the fight being thrown. He got
paid a lot of money to come back out of retirement and let you win, and now
that he has he’s worried that they’re going to try the same thing with you.”

Sloane fell silent
and I didn’t interject. I’d told her I wasn’t going to interrupt and I was
trying to honor my promise.

“Doesn’t that
worry you?” she asked.

“It does. I got a
phone call from a man named Kellerman today-”

“That’s the guy!”
Sloane pretty much shouted in my ear. “Nitro told me to tell you that the same
thing that happened to Kellerman could happen to you.”

I reached and
found her shoulders, putting my hands on them and holding her steady.
“Kellerman used to be in the fighting business too. He crossed the Carellos and
they put his friend into the ground for it.” I paused, wondering how to start.
“He actually called me today.”

“Who? Kellerman?”

“Yeah. He’s old,
but he’s still got a fire in him. He’s been waiting for a chance to knock the
Carellos over, and he seems to think I’m it.”

“What does he want
from us?”

Us.
It was a beautiful word. A perfect word,
and for the first time I enjoyed the fact that I could willingly hear it from
someone and not cringe. Whatever happened in the end, I’d found Sloane and
she’d found me. We could take the world on, even if it was just the two of us
against it.

“He wants me to
win. He’s spent a long time planning this, biding his time. I imagine he’s got
a big network working on this. You know, people working for him who don’t even
know
they’re working for him. He’s going
to get the Carellos to bet against me and bet
big
. It shouldn’t be too hard. I just have to sell the fact that
I’m in on the fix to the Carellos and then knock out whoever they put into the
ring against me.”

She lay her head
against my chest. I felt the gentle tickle of her eyelashes as she blinked,
followed by the warmth of her tears. “It’s so dangerous. Nitro said that they
killed the guy you were supposed to fight last time because they didn’t think
he’d play their game.”

“I heard the same
thing.”

“So what do we
do?”

I sat her up and
sat up beside her. “We do the only thing I know how to do. We fight. I move my
feet. I get out of the way of whatever he throws at me and get into the guard
of whoever they put into the ring with me. I knock them out.”

She didn’t ask the
obvious question, the one that the annoying voice of doubt in my head and been
asking over and over.

What if you can’t?

Sloane

I didn’t want to
watch. The last thing I wanted to see, now that Angel and I had come so far,
was him beaten to a pulp.

Of course, given
all of the options, that was probably one of the best things that could happen,
to be honest.

Even worse, what
if he won? The Carellos would know what he’d done, that he’d agreed to throw
the fight and then double-crossed them.

What then?

But I went to the
fight. How could I not?

This time, whoever
was promoting the fight was sparing no expense. The last one I’d witnessed may
have been in some dingy parking garage after hours, but the cab dropped me off
at a sporting arena in Brooklyn. Clearly, Angel was entering a whole new level
of fight, and I imagined that the payoff would be even greater, if he listened
to what the Carellos wanted him to do.

He wouldn’t, of
course. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to try and talk him into it, either,
even though it would have clearly been safer if he’d just give in and throw the
fight the way they’d asked.

I stepped out of
the cab, paid the driver, and got the ticket Angel had given me out of my
purse. It was crowded already, even though the fight wasn’t scheduled to start
for another half hour or so, and this time the crowd that surrounded me as the
guy at the door tore my ticket in half and handed me back the stub was far more
upscale.

I’d dressed up
again, even though I’d felt like a fish out of water before, and now I was glad
I did. Everywhere I looked there were dapper gentleman in three piece suits and
women in long, flowing dresses or tight, slinky ones that showed off their assets.

I looked around
for Jessie. Maybe if I could find him before he got to Angel, I could get some
hint as to whose side he was on. He was, after all, the one loose cannon in all
of this. I knew I couldn’t trust him, not after I’d seen him appear to be conspiring
with the Carellos at the end of the last fight, but maybe I was wrong about
that.

He had, after all,
known that Nitro was going to go down. Was there a chance he’d arranged it that
way so as to save Angel from further damage?

I doubted it.
Jessie was more than likely the same as just about everyone else; in it for
himself.

For a second, as I
walked through the doors and into the main room, I worried that there may be
some sort of security checkpoint. I didn’t see any metal detectors, though, and
those ahead of me simply walked into the arena and took their seats.

Angel had been
right. The venue may be bigger, the ring may be better lit, but we were still
on the verge of being part of an underground boxing match. Even though people
were dressed better than the last lot I’d witnessed, they still consisted of
primarily criminals.

Maybe everyone
around me had a gun.

I know I did…

One of the first
things I’d bought when I got to New York had been a handgun. I’d been put in
too many positions of fear in my life to go into this new stage without some
sort of protection, and the guy behind the counter had assured me that I was hardly
alone in my desire to protect myself and my home with a little extra firepower.

I’d bought it then
and there. Since the purchase, I’d shot it a handful of times at a shooting
range. Even though I wanted to keep some level of familiarity with the weapon,
the fact of the matter was that the damn thing scared the Hell out of me.

Now, I could feel
the weight of it in my purse like an anchor, weighing me down with the
responsibility of possibly having to use it.

And I would.

If I needed to…

My seat was
ringside, right behind Angel’s corner. I made my way there, dodging a few
‘accidental’ hands and more than one questioning glance. I may have been here
on my own, but that didn’t make me fair game. As I sat down the spotlights
above the ring got brighter, and I put my hand up to shield my eyes from their
glare to see if Angel was making his way down the aisle.

He wasn’t.

But I did see
Jessie waddle away from one of the back corners and head in the direction of
the dressing rooms. I bit my lip, and hoped that Angel would be okay.

I slipped my hand
into my purse as casually as I could and let my fingertips brush the cold metal
of the gun barrel.