On The Ropes (Tapped Out 3)

My spine braced, the muscles coiling beneath my black pants and red button-down shirt. I usually tried to match their style of dress, especially when we were meeting as we were tonight, but I’d just come from a fight and it was expected I not be in a suit. Tonight, in particular. I had no idea what awaited me, and a jacket-and-tie just wouldn’t get the job done.

Fighters got to make their own rules. But only the successful ones.

“Depends what kind of rumors we’re talking about.” I kept my smile easy as I took stock of the men who were present out of the corner of my eye.

There weren’t as many as I’d originally assumed. Evidently, I’d brought the bulk of the party with me. My friends and the guys from the gym were still clustered around the doorway, enjoying the access to free-flowing alcohol and all the willing eye candy they could ever want, but they weren’t moving farther into the room. In fact, while I watched, several of them were turned away by one of the other associates.

I didn’t get it. Usually, these parties were for everyone who wanted to play. The crowds typically thinned pretty quickly, as couples paired up and the guys without much flash or cash were turned away from the primest pussy. But that was a sort of natural selection.

Not this.

Z smiled and stroked his tie. “Just saying, why settle for secondhand info when we can get a firsthand demonstration?”

Christ, Z must’ve soaked in smarmy tonight. He was always too slick, though that wasn’t saying much in this bunch. What was being said always had two meanings—what it sounded like on the surface, and the truth.

But I was used to giving them back as good as I got, so my own smile never faltered. “That so? You want to watch me get a lapdance, amico mio?” I laughed in spite of the pit forming in my stomach. Something about the gleam in his eyes wasn’t right.

That was proven when he didn’t reply, just cast a quick glance toward the back of the room and nodded.

Whatever they had planned for me tonight was going in a direction I absolutely did not want.

Not that I wanted to knock off a jewelry store or jump an innocent kid as other soldiers who were being inducted had been forced to do, but even those things were preferable to including a woman in the scenario. I’d gladly risk jail time before I risked another girl.

Hell, after Brenda, and what had happened to her because of my thoughtless actions, even death—mine—was preferable than another woman being harmed because of me.

I already had two on my conscience. I couldn’t stand three.

“Or perhaps you had something different in mind?” I gestured toward my dick and raised an eyebrow, deliberately baiting him.

His smile turned into laughter. “You wish, gumba.”

I didn’t wish. The rest of the crew I’d arrived with was rapidly dispersing, each of them being sent away with sharp bursts of Italian too low for me to make out. I glanced toward the back of the room and tried to resist rolling my shoulders as I did when the ropes of the cage seemed like they were closing in around me. Fighting was my survival mechanism, and it wouldn’t take much of a threat to force me into the mode that had now become second nature.

I might not make it out of this room in one piece, but I’d take a couple of these fuckers with me.

“So what’s the plan for tonight?” I crossed my arms and let some of my pseudo friendliness drop. They knew damn well that I understood I’d be asked to prove my loyalty in whatever way they deemed suitable, and I’d been prepared to do just that to get to the next level. Avenging Emilia’s death was worth anything I might face.

Unless they’d found the one button to push I would never tolerate.

Hearing myself, I wanted to slam my fist into my own skull. Of course they had. They were experts at exploiting what they saw as a weakness, and I wore mine on my sleeve. Emilia’s death was no secret. All along, I’d tried to convince them the reason I’d turned to my father’s rival was due to my certainty that my father had ordered a hit on the woman I loved.

So to prove my loyalty to them, naturally they would select another woman, most likely one I cared about. That was a damn short list. Or else they’d do something particularly awful to one I didn’t—or worse, force me to.

Maybe they’d do a combination of the three.

“The plan will be revealed in due time.” Z smiled and clapped my back as the door slammed shut, enclosing us in the dimly lit room. The sconces high on the walls might as well have been flashlights in a forest. “Well, imagine that. Looks like that time is now.”

“Giovanni, my brother,” Marco said in a booming voice, coming up beside us and clapping my other shoulder. With all this goodwill floating around, why was I concerned?

Oh, yeah, because it was fucking fake bullshit.

“Salzano,” I said in a clipped voice, my patience waning. Marco was one of the men I liked least, and that was a competition to the bottom.

“You looked incredible out there tonight. Really impressive. Lorenzo sends his congratulations.”

“Sends it? Where is he?” I tried to scan past Marco’s beefy shoulder, but unless I craned my neck, his bulk made that almost impossible. Though we were evenly matched when it came to height and close to the same weight, he was as broad as a barn. “I thought he’d be here tonight.”

“He was unavoidably detained elsewhere. But don’t worry. You’re in good hands with us.” His deep laughter grated on every last nerve.