Totally ignoring his hand along with his efforts, I grunted, grabbed my smokes and a lighter, and headed through the sliding glass door. I closed it with a slam behind me.
Out on the balcony, I tried to find it in myself to feel bad about blowing the guy off, but I just couldn’t. Every time I looked at him, I heard the whirling blades of the helicopter as it landed on the beach and destroyed my world. I knew Raine and Lindsay wanted us to get along, and Nick certainly tried, but I was an asshole about it all.
I fired up the grill and laid the steaks out on the attached tray. They were nice and thick, so I knew they were going to take a while to cook, which meant more time for talking with Raine’s friends.
Fucking fabulous.
I finished my smoke and slid the balcony door open.
“Seriously, Lindsay, what were you thinking?”
Lindsay and Raine were on the near side of the kitchen island with their backs to me, and Lindsay was holding a couple of wine glasses while Nick uncorked a bottle of Merlot at the counter by the sink.
“It’s just a bottle of wine,” Lindsay was saying. “It’s been months. I didn’t think it would be a big deal. I want to celebrate my promotion, dammit!”
“He’s going to act like a jerk whether we have a drink or not,” Nick muttered.
“Stop that!” Lindsay smacked his arm and then turned back to Raine. She placed her hand on Raine’s shoulder and leaned closer. “You know he’s going to have to learn to be around it, sweetheart. I’m not trying to be insensitive, but you both have to know other people are going to indulge occasionally, and-”
“It’s all right,” I snapped as I walked in from the living room. “Drink the fucking wine. I don’t give a shit.”
They all turned toward me with big eyes and fidgety feet.
“Bastian,” Raine sighed, “this is your home-”
I barked out a laugh and then shook my head. My home was a long way from here, and I didn’t really think a fucking bottle of wine was going to make this place that much worse. With a deep breath, I tried to calm my voice.
“It’s all right, babe,” I said. I walked up behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist, kissing her neck gently just to prove a point. I wasn’t sure what the point was, but I was sure it needed to be proven to someone. “She wants to celebrate or whatever. I’ll cope.”
And cope I did—hanging on to my fucking iced tea glass like it was a life preserver—for all of about forty minutes.
“Sounds like Raine’s doing well in school,” Nick said as he slid the balcony door shut and joined me outside.
“Humph,” I replied through my nose. I kept my eyes on the grill, hoping he’d get the hint and go back inside. He didn’t. Fucker.
“So what are you doing during the day when she’s at class?” he asked.
“Jerking off,” I replied.
He laughed, but the sound trailed away when I moved my eyes to his.
“I guess it gets pretty boring, huh?” Nick shuffled back and forth on his feet and then leaned against the balcony railing. He took a sip from his wine glass and kept that stupid grin plastered on his face. “So where are you from, Bastian?”
“Chicago.”
“The windy city!” he exclaimed, like it was something I didn’t already know. “I was there once with my parents and sister when I was a kid. Loved all the museums. We rode that big Ferris wheel at Navy Pier and went to the top of the Sears Tower.”
It wasn’t worth the effort to correct him and say it wasn’t called that anymore, so I didn’t say anything. What was it about people’s need to tell you about their visits to a place you lived? He wasn’t the first to babble about Chicago, but I had seen a lot more of the alleys on the south side of the city than I ever did of the fucking museums.
“I’m from Pennsylvania,” he continued. “Pittsburgh, actually. My dad worked for a big container company.”
I ignored him.
“Mom was mostly a housewife, but she did a lot in the schools, too. She tutored kids and worked with the PTO—you know, bake sales and all that stuff.”
I could feel tension rippling up my back and into my shoulders with every word he spoke. My brain felt as if it were spinning in circles, trying to conjure up an image of a life like the one he had or of the woman who birthed me, but there was nothing to find.
“Do you still have family in Chicago?”
“No.” I clenched my teeth and hoped he wouldn’t go there.
“So where does your family live now?”
Of course he did.
Fucker.
“I don’t have any family,” I said.
“Oh, shit…sorry.” He scratched at his head and took another drink. “What happened to them?”
“Don’t know; don’t care,” I snapped. I jammed the tongs underneath one of the steaks and tossed it on its other side. “Change the fucking topic.”
After a little silence, I hoped he’d go back inside, but my luck just didn’t run that way.
“Are you going to get another boat?”
“I never had a boat,” I said.
“Oh, uh, I thought that sailboat was yours.”
“It was a three-masted schooner,” I said, “a ship, not a boat.”
“Sorry, I don’t know much about boats.”
Fuck me.
“So, are you going to get another one?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
I let out a long breath and turned to glare at him.
“Because I fucking live here now!” I snarled before I focused my attention on the sizzling meat.
I guess I knew he was only trying to be nice and make conversation or whatever, but I wasn’t interested. I didn’t have anything to say to him, and I sure as hell wasn’t planning to open up and give the fucker my life story. It would only get him killed.
Now there’s an idea.
I shook my head a little to clear the violent thoughts parading around in it. With my attention on the food, I made it all the way through Nick’s attempts at conversation while I flipped steaks. When we went back inside, I made it all the way through Lindsay’s incessant babbling about shoes and Raine’s sideways glances at me every time someone took a sip of wine.
Raine had completely ignored the glass Lindsay had poured for her and drank water.
That just pissed me off more. I didn’t want her to deny herself just because I had a fucking drinking problem. It was my issue, not hers.
“How about a toast to the new customer service manager?” Nick said as he held up his glass.
Lindsay squealed a bit. She grabbed the glass Raine was avoiding and placed it her hand. Raine looked at me sideways again, and I rolled my eyes dramatically.
“Just drink the fucking drink, will you?” I snarled. “I really don’t give a shit.”
Raine cringed a bit and nodded at Lindsay. Nick held up his glass and said something about how proud he was of little Lindsay hitting the big-time of middle management. I sat on one of the stools in the kitchen and fiddled with my lighter.
“Come on, Bastian,” Lindsay said, “you have to hold up your glass!”
“It’s tea, for fuck’s sake,” I reminded her.
“You can still toast,” Lindsay argued.
I stared at her blankly for a moment, trying to keep all the nasty shit I wanted to say from flying out of my mouth like a swarm of bees from a disturbed hive. All the tension was moving up my legs and into my gut, and I had to swallow to keep the words inside.
“Drop it, baby,” Nick said quietly.
“But he can!” Lindsay insisted as she turned toward her boyfriend.
“Please,” Raine said as I felt her hand grip my knee as she stepped closer to me, “let’s go ahead and eat, okay?”
Awkward silence ensued.
It was better than what happened afterwards.
We all sat around the kitchen island with plates of steak, baked potatoes with little broccoli florets on top of them, and on
e of those salads with green stuff in it you couldn’t actually identify. My fingers tapped repeatedly against my leg as I tried to keep my mouth too full to join in any discussions.
Not that I had anything to add to them.
“So proud of my girl,” Nick said with a wide smile. He tossed his arm over Lindsay’s shoulders and gave her a stupid-ass grin.
Every word that came out of his mouth I wanted to pound back into his face. It wasn’t the words themselves; it was the way he said them. It was the way he beamed at her like she was the center of the fucking universe. She was eating it up, too.
I kind of wanted to puke.
Raine smiled at both of them before tilting her head to look at me. Her smile faltered immediately as she watched me tear into another bite with my fingers clenching the knife so tightly, it probably looked like I was trying to brutalize the cow.
“Only two years at the store, too,” he continued.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I muttered, no longer able to keep it inside. “It’s a customer service job. She’s not on the board of directors.”
Half a second of silence before Nick sat up taller and glared at me.
“What the fuck is your problem?” Nick finally snapped.
I glared right back.
“Let’s see where to start.” I tapped my finger on my chin. “Oh yeah—you’re a dickhead.”
“Bastian!”
I slammed my hand down on the table and stood up.
“This is fucking pointless!” I yelled. “I can’t sit around here and pretend all this is just fine and dandy, Raine! It’s bullshit!”
I wasn’t really sure exactly what was bullshit, but I was pretty confident that there was bullshit about the room. I didn’t like it. In fact, I couldn’t fucking tolerate it another second.
“Jesus, Bastian…” Lindsay’s face crinkled up as if she’d just seen some poor girl on the beach in Wal-Mart flip-flops. “Calm down already.”
I curled my fingers into a fist, my nails digging into my palms. I wasn’t going to hit her—I wouldn’t actually do that—but the desire was certainly there. I was pretty sure if I did, Nick would come to her rescue at that point. Pummeling him was a very attractive idea, and I found myself actually considering making a move on her just to get the opportunity to hit him.
I glanced in Raine’s direction, and all those thoughts left my head. She’d never fucking forgive me if I did something like that, and the only thing that could possibly relieve some of the tension I felt was knowing once these two idiots were gone, I’d take Raine to bed and forget about this whole evening.
It occurred to me that I might have already blown that opportunity.
“Fuck this,” I muttered as I stood up and grabbed my jacket from the hook on the wall.
“Bastian, where are you going?” Raine asked.
“Getting the fuck out of here.”
Raine pushed away from the table and started to walk over to me, but Nick, who was closer to the door, beat her to it. He stepped around me and blocked me from getting from the doorway to the elevator.
“Come on, man,” he said with his hands up in some kind of stupid-ass surrender motion. “It’s all good. No reason for you to go.”
“Get the fuck out of my way!” I yelled. I shoved Nick aside and grabbed the handle of the door. I wasn’t about to wait around for the elevator, so I slammed both hands onto the metal bar on the door to the stairs and started down them, skipping two steps at a time until I reached the bottom. About halfway down, the sound of Raine yelling after me had diminished enough to be forgotten.
Every muscle in my body was painfully tight. I tried to keep my mental focus on getting the fuck out of the general area and not on going back upstairs to punch that asshole in the face. If Raine hadn’t been there, there was no doubt in my mind that I would have beaten the shit out of him, and it was only her presence that kept me from going back up there.
I needed a major distraction, and thankfully, there was something on the lower level that was good at capturing my attention.
Inside the underground parking garage were two spaces for our vehicles. One contained Raine’s Subaru, which she had driven from Ohio prior to going on the cruise that landed us both on a life raft. Next to it was the only thing I had bought since we arrived in Miami—a Honda CBR600RR.
My motorcycle.
I flipped my leg over it, started it up, and threw it into gear. A few moments later, I was doing ninety on the MacArthur Causeway, heading to I-95. I didn’t know where I was going, just that I wanted to get as far away from that condo as quickly as I could. Driving as if there were a bunch of fast-moving zombies from World War Z on my tail, I slipped between cars and trucks as I headed west, reached the interstate, and sped northward.
The wind on my face drew water from my eyes, but I reveled in the feeling, the unhindered freedom the bike gave me. It wasn’t as good as the schooner on the sea because of the traffic I had to buzz around, but it was a decent substitute. The air still smelled like salt this close to the ocean, and I could nearly taste the sea on my tongue.
I didn’t keep track of the time I spent just speeding up the highway. At some point I took an exit, turned around, and headed back toward Miami Beach. I didn’t get that far though, choosing instead to get off the interstate and head through some back streets. I zipped through some neighborhoods with unkempt lawns and boarded-up windows then past some strip malls with half the stores closed up. There weren’t a lot of people around, and those that were looked like they’d rather be somewhere else.
I finally pulled the bike over, dropped the kickstand, and put my head in my hands. I leaned over the handlebars and took several deep breaths before I sat back and looked around.
I hadn’t been to this area of town before, and it looked shady, to say the least. It definitely looked like the kind of area tourists avoided because they were more likely to get mugged than offered a drink with an umbrella in it. It immediately reminded me of living on the streets of Chicago before Landon found me and hauled me out to Seattle to start training.
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 mea
ndering 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.