Papa palmed the back of my head, scratching at my scalp. I pressed against him and crawled up his body an extra inch or two. When his forehead touched mine, I felt almost human again.
“Would you still like me if I was an arsonist?”
“Baby.” He laughed and then pressed his lips to mine. “Tell me what you want to burn, and I’ll hand you the fucking matches.”
ChapterEleven
Ivan
The blood I wore on my hands was just a badge that said I’d been to Hell a time or two. It carried a flame that burned through my morality until it seized into smoke I could no longer feel.
Apathy.
Brutality.
Obscurity.
They were all just scars trailing toward each other. Just patterns beneath my skin—ones that only existed because they had to.
Ilivedin darkness.
So that’s what I became.
Ben found me through the fog of it all, in a basement somewhere in Boston, surrounded by money and men too eager to gamble it away.
Covert exclusivity was the type of shit that lured those men into darkness. The kind of darkness that fucking swallowed you.
It was my favorite, and beneath it, I’d built a hustle that kept me alive.
It was never supposed to be a fight ring—just a place for a couple of jackasses to beat the shit out of each other for money.
The buy-in I charged kept my pockets heavy, but eventually, every motherfucker with something to prove showed up at my ring, primed with aggression and so goddamn sure they’d win.
Guarantee there was still blood on that floor, still teeth in the ring, and echoes of cracked bones if you listened hard enough.
It was ruthless. Merciless.
No man with half a brain would step foot between those ropes a second time, but every once in a while, an over-confident, greedy asshole would walk through the doors and decide his dick was just a little bit bigger than everyone else’s.
Men like that always challenged the same opponent.
Me.
The choice alone was a signature on their death warrant, but they never stopped showing up.
Never stopped losing, either.
“You look like shit.”
Cigarette pinched between my fingers, I inhaled through a chuckle, tilting my head to blow over my shoulder. “Damn.”
“You’ve lost weight.”
“I lost a quart of blood and a fucking kidney.”
Ben’s blink was slow, face blank. “Were you expecting a fucking thank you card?”
I laughed again, biting down on my cigarette and shoving a hand through my hair. “No, sir.”