Prologue
Peter Gaffin
January 2002
Trev bumpedhis shoulder against mine as we walked through the snow-dusted field from where we’d parked our cars toward a sleek steel building that reminded me of an airplane hangar. A large door standing open in the middle of the side faced us, and some men went in. Snow squeaked under my Tims, and Trev snickered at the noise.
“It wasn’t me.”
“Sure.” He rolled his eyes.
“It wasn’t!”
He brushed his fingers against the back of my hand, and I almost swallowed my tongue. I’d ridden with Trev, and the other guys had followed us. He’d asked me, personally, if I wanted to ride with him, and I’d had to be careful to play it cool when I said yes. Didn’t want to seemdesperate.
My chest went warm and light as he flashed a wide smile at me. I eyed his black leather coat, jealous as hell over it. Mom and Dad would never have the cash to buy me anything better than a Walmart knockoff, and they’d wonder where it came from if I got one on my own out of my stash of money. The leather made him look good enough to touch, and I wanted one… along with other things. There was a small golden patch on the shoulder with a redASembroidered on it. Every time I asked about the insignia, he kept telling me I’d find out soon.
I loved that; we had a little secret between us, he used to tease me. My fingers twitched in the cold and I shoved my hands in the pockets of my jean jacket.
In the last, long rosy beams of the sunset reflecting off the snow, Trev’s eyes sparkled. They weren’t blue or gray but some too-amazing color in between I had trouble looking away from. He tipped his head back to gaze at the darkening sky, neck long and strong, and I wanted to stare up at him forever. I liked him enough that I was willing to forgive him for being about a foot taller than me, unlike that fuck Casey Uhlig at school. For a second, my jaw tightened and I fought down a dizzying wave of anger. He and his asshole friends always got in my way.
Trev startled me back to the here and now as he ran his hand through his short brown hair and nudged me again. “You excited?”
“Um, what is this? You really haven’t said, except it’s a fight. I like fights, though, so that’s fine,” I finished in a rush, because the last thing I wanted Trev to think was that I didn’t want to be here with him, even if we had the boys along with us, too. I’d been excited since last Wednesday when he’d invited me out. He was older than me, could buy beer and Jack, and I was worried he might start thinking I was boring. He liked fights, though, and as long as I kept swinging my fists in the back-alley circuit of New Gothenburg, I figured he’d keep talking to me.
As we approached the door of the building, shouting and yelling spilled out into the quiet evening, the typical shit that always happened at a boxing match or MMA fight, legal or otherwise. My blood began to race and tingles prickled over my skin. I grinned at Trev, and he nudged me again. His beautiful eyes, the ones I thought of at night when I was alone, gleamed with the good kind of trouble. Somethingfunwas coming.
My stomach went warm with his attention, and I sucked in a deep breath. I’d been wondering if him asking me along tonight meant something. I elbowed him back, and he laughed. Yeah, it had to mean something. I straightened up when we were almost to the open doors. Through the threshold there was a wall of backs facing us, and on the far side of the space was a stage set up like a fight ring, and in the center, a man stood on a step stool, talking into a microphone. His words got lost as the wind picked up and swirled snow until it stung my eyes. I put up my hand to block the side of my face and turned toward Trev.
“Where are the money handlers?” I asked, frowning at the doors. If this was a legal fight, someone should be selling tickets, and if it was illegal, the bookies should be here in droves.
“This isn’t exactly a normal match.” Trev slung his arm around me, and I nearly stopped breathing. “It is a battle, and you’re going to be auditioning to be a soldier.”
His words didn’t make much sense, but I swallowed hard and leaned in against his warm side. Occasionally when we got drunk together, he would do this, put his arm around me and stare into my eyes while he talked about things I didn’t understand. Philosophy and shit. He was smart. But this was the first time he’d ever held me sober. I rested more of my weight against him than I probably should’ve and closed my eyes for a second.Fuck yes!This invite had meant something.
“Uh, wait. Soldier?” I asked as we came to a stop a few feet away from the cheering men in front of us. They were directing their excitement toward the stage. It was a sea of people in the building, spreading out into the darkness on all sides, and I immediately began to feel hemmed in even though we were near the door.
Trev gave me a friendly jostle. “You’re going to fit in here real good, Mr. Right Hook.” He turned and planted a kiss on the top of my head, and I nearly floated away.
“Yeah, okay,” I murmured back, not sure he heard me over another round of hooting and yelling from the crowd in reply to something the man on the stage had shouted. There were industrial lights lit over his head, but somehow it was still gloomy, not to mention cold as penguin balls, even with all the bodies packed in here. New York winter didn’t fuck around, and we’d been having a doozy.
Jason and Nicky Q. stopped on my left side, giving me wide eyes and raised eyebrows. Jason was lean and ran drugs around our neighborhood for people—literally. He put them in his backpack and delivered. He was also on the basketball team. Nicky Q. was stout and played football. I frowned at them. They’d stayed back to give me and Trev space to talk, exactly the way I’d asked them to before he’d shown up at my house earlier. “What?”
Jason was also obscenely tall like Trev, and I thought maybe he’d seen something I couldn’t over everyone’s heads. He shoved Nicky Q. out of the way and leaned down to whisper, “Do you know who the fuck these guys are?”
I glanced at Trev. He gave me another sweet smile, then focused on the stage.
“No?” I muttered to Jason. “Trev says there’s going to be a fight.” I frowned and glanced backward out the open door to the darkening night, but we were at the very rear of the crowd, with no one behind us. “Where’s JR and Cody?”
Jason scowled. “They left, man. They fucking left before they stepped foot inside. Aren’t you listening to this? They’re talking about Nazi shit. I didn’t think this crap existed in real life.”
Confused, I glanced toward the stage, but the man was done speaking and jumped down, holding his microphone high to more applause and catcalls. He folded up his step stool and handed it to someone I couldn’t see down in the crowd. The man was scary-huge, wrestler-huge—Olympics, not that stupid shit on TV—and he could probably destroy someone. He had a marble block for a jaw, shaved head, mean smile that twisted his face, and was naked to his jeans despite the freezing air. Behind him on the walls were huge flags with AS on them like Trev’s patch on his coat. I glanced at him, baffled.
“Trev, what’s going on?”
“That’s Tatum Black,” he said, with the reverence I would have reserved for meeting Joe Louis—if he hadn’t died before I was born. He gave me a squeeze. “Fuck. Wish we hadn’t been late. You should have heard the introduction. You’d have really enjoyed it.”
My stomach turned. I talked a lot of shit because I got into fights a bunch—mostly because I was bored—but I didn’t mean most of the crap I said. Stirring people up to get them to punch was one thing, but I wasn’t… I wasn’t a hater, exactly. Even if I did get called a bully a lot.
