“No way we’re getting a seat in here,” I mutter as I follow Ellen down the steps between rows. “I can stand, no problem, but—”
“Stop worrying, dear.” She turns to me, links her arm with mine, and leans in as if to confess a secret. “Everything will be all right.”
Not so sure about that, but her confidence gives my frail hope a boost and I nod.
A woman clad in a dress so tight I wonder how she can breathe accosts us and smiles brightly at Ellen.
“Mrs. Morris. Welcome to the Hellfire Fight Club.” Her accent is foreign, a little musical. “We were not expecting you.”
“Of course not. I have never come before, have I? Not since Sergei died.”
The woman’s smile falters. She has huge blue eyes and her blond hair is in a ponytail so long it reaches her ass. “Your seats are right this way. If you’ll follow me.” She turns and walks down on her sky-high stilettos, her ponytail swaying hypnotically, and we follow. “Should I alert—”
“Only when I tell you, girl,” Ellen says in a tone so icy I flinch. “Your name?”
“Natasha, Mrs. Morris.”
“You stay close, Natasha. There’s a few things I may need.”
“I am honored,” she says as she leads us onto one of the raised platforms, and I can’t tell from her tone if she’s being sarcastic or not. “I will be right here.”
“Very well.” Ellen takes a seat on the white leather couch and sighs. “Come sit, Pax. We have a few things to talk about before the match begins.”
My mind reeling, I sit beside her. Natasha leans over to pour us both a narrow, tall glass of amber liquid, then retreats to the side like before.
“I’m all ears,” I say, my voice raw. I lift the glass, take a sip, and warm sweetness glides down my throat.
“Riot left the fight club two years ago, right after his friend Markus died.”
“Was killed,” I correct softly.
“Killed,” she concedes with an incline of her head. “Since then he has been working at Bad Boy Escorts and sending all his profits to a single-mother family. Markus’s family. Now the club has found an opportunity to have him fight again, because the Crusher is back in town.”
“Why didn’t the Crusher come back these past two years, then?”
Her blue eyes flash. “Killing people isn’t acceptable in the club, not if everyone agrees it was done on purpose.”
“He killed Markus on purpose?” I put down my glass, my hand trembling. “Why would he?”
“Because the Crusher is an angry young man and violence is his only outlet. His father wasn’t like him at all.”
“His father?”
“Sergei Baran, or the Enforcer as he was known in the underground scene.”
“Russian?”
“Yes. All this,” she waves a hand with a flashing diamond ring, “is the Russian mob’s business.”
“What’s your role in this?” I narrow my eyes at her. “How do you know so much about the fight club and the mob?”
“Long story.” She lifts her glass, takes a dainty sip. “We’re not here to talk about me, but about Riot.”
“The reason I called you in the first place was to ask if you could spare him this. If you know people in the scene, maybe you could ask them to cancel the match, let him go.”
“I cannot do that.” She turns the glass in her long, thin fingers. “They wouldn’t agree. You see, this is an honor debt. Riot stepped down, forfeiting the match, and if the boss hadn’t replaced him with Markus, the club would have been the ridicule of the scene. You don’t just walk away from a fight. From a club. This is the mob.”
“But why—?”