I turned and walked away, leaving him in a pool of blood. I feltsated. And I’d done what I’d gone there to do—there was no way Lowell could hurt Sylvie now.
But, as the adrenaline faded, I knew the scumbag was right: Rick would retaliate. I hadn’t had a choice, but I’d just made things worse.
Minutes later, I found out how much worse.
47
AEDAN
I didn’t even makeit home. Rick’s goons picked me up on the street, halfway back to my apartment, and bundled me into a car. I knew it was pointless to resist. Better that Rick took it out on me than on Sylvie.
Back when I’d been fighting for him, Rick had operated out of a fancy apartment downtown. These days, he’d moved up in the world. The goons pushed me up the gangplank of a gleaming white yacht in the harbor. Inside, it was all antique-effect wood paneling and polished marble—expensive, but gaudy.
Rick was sitting on the edge of an ornate desk, waiting for me, tapping his cane against his leg. His goons let me go and took up positions by the doors.
“Aedan.” he said, spitting my name out, and immediately I knew it was bad. He didn’t move—he barely even looked at me. But his cane wenttap tap tapeven faster.
Well, fine. I was plenty mad myself. “You bastard. What were you thinking? Even back when I knew you, you wouldn’t have donethis.”
Rick gave me a toothy grin. “I hung out with the right people. People who have enough money that they don’t have to worry about right and wrong. They just want to be entertained. And I had Sylvieall set up to wow them. Ten thousand dollarseach,I was going to charge. I had over eighty of them on the guest list. You do the fucking math.”
He lazily unscrewed the fat crystal at the top of his cane. When it came loose, he lifted it off. On the underside, hidden inside the cane, was a long, test-tube-shaped vial of white powder. I’d seen coke vials before, but they’d been tiny, enough for a few lines. This was the size of a fat man’s finger. Of course— with Rick, everything had to be bigger and better. I watched as he tapped out a long line on the desktop and then bent to snort it. Jesus, he must be putting a thousand dollars a day up his nose.
I glanced around at the yacht, feeling sick. I’d known that he’d gotten worse, since I knew him, but I’d underestimated how much worse. The money had made him hungry for more money and now he was in a downward spiral. He’d do anything if it kept the rich going to his fights. “Lowell isn’t going to be hurting anyone,” I told him. “I broke his arm.”
Rick stood up, his eyes wide, his pupils huge. “You think that changes anything? You think I can’t find another guy like Lowell,tonight?”He walked towards me. “Jesus, Aedan, think about what I’m offering: the guy gets to beat up a woman and then fuck her, with a guarantee that she won’t go to the police.Heshould be payingme.”
I gauged the distance between us, trying to estimate whether I could break his neck before his goons got to me. He was just a few feet too far away, and he knew it. And he was right: beating up Lowell hadn’t done anything. Except to make him mad.
“You need to learn a fucking lesson,” spat Rick. “You don’t want to see her get fucked? Fine. You can see her die, instead. You know the only thing better than sex and violence? A Roman fucking circus. A fight to the death. People’ll sure as hell pay to seethat.”
I stared at him. “You won’t find a fighter to do it. Notto the death.” A body meant far too much heat, even for some of the scumbags in the underground circuit.
Rick just grinned at me. And the true horror of it slowly dawned.
“No,” I said quickly.
“You and Sylvie walk into the pit,” he said. “And only one of you comes out.”
I shook my head.
“Refuse to fight,” said Rick, “and I kill both of you.”
“No! Jesus!”
“Run, and I hunt you down and kill both of youandher brother.”
I stared at him, breathless. My heart felt like it was trying to break through my ribcage. I was terrified. I was raging. I know I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. “You can’t do this!” I yelled.
He just smirked at me. He knew he had me in the perfect trap. Al and Carl were there to stop me killing him, so that wasn’t a way out. If I refused to do it, he’d just kill Sylvie himself.
“I can’t do it,” I croaked. “I can’t kill her.”
“I didn’t think so,” said Rick, leaning forward on his cane. “So you’ll just have to convince her to kill you.”
48
SYLVIE
