“Not yet.” Another figure prowled forward, and there was no mistaking Barton’s presence and power.
Dave froze, and the tension in the room ratcheted up.
“One more,” Barton said. “You go down in this next fight, and you’ve paid your debt.”
Christian was staring at him. “You want me to throw the fight?”
“And you better make it look good.”
He turned and stalked away.
Christian shook his head, as if he was coming up from being underwater. “You want me to throw the fight?” he said to Tony. It was as if he’d heard the words but they made no sense.
“The audience is going to have you pegged as someone who can’t lose by now,” Tony said. Which meant, Dave knew, that they’d all bet on him winning. If he lost, someone would clean up very nicely indeed.
“No.”
“Excuse me?”
“No. I’m not doing it. I don’t go down foranyone.”Christian’s eyes were furious.
“I don’t think you understand, Taylor. You do this, you get to walk away, no bad feeling between you and this pack. If you don’t do it…” Tony’s eyes flicked straight to where Dave was standing. “Hell, be a real tragedy if your boyfriend had another accident up on those cliffs, wouldn’t it?”
One second Tony was smirking. The next, Christian had him by the throat.
“You don’teverthreaten Dave.” It was gritted into Tony’s ear, meant for him alone, but Dave heard every word.
Christian let go just as two of the others stepped forward, tension rippling through the room like a gun cocking. He’d made his point.
Tony slammed him back into the wall, fury in his face.
Christian glared at him. “I’ll fight again but I’m not going down.”
“You’ll do as you’re fucking told.” Tony’s voice was harsh. “You know what happens if you don’t.”
Christian tore his defiant glare from Tony and looked at Dave, who held his gaze. Dave didn’t want to be hurt. Hereallydidn’t want that. But he also knew Christian. Deliberately making himself vulnerable and weak was the one thing he could never do. It would destroy him.
Some selfish,scaredpart of him wanted Christian to throw the fight anyway. But even as the thought formed, he knew he couldn’t be part of making Christian do that to himself. He didn’t even know if Christiancoulddo it. So he just poured his love for Christian into his eyes and willed him to feel it. To know that, whatever happened, it wasn’t his fault.
Christian’s eyes grew dark and hollow, and he turned on his heel to head back to the fighters’ area. Dave was dragged back to his seat in the corner, and for God’s sake, he’d had enough of being treated like a sack of potatoes.
He kept his eyes fixed on that familiar, stocky figure, watched him drinking more water and eating a banana as he made the most of the thirty minutes he was allowed between fights. Dave was watching him so closely he didn’t notice the guy approaching until he spoke. “Raf, Dave.”
Raf grunted, while Dave looked up in surprise. “Justin,” he said, relief sweeping through him at the sight of a friendly face.
Relief was followed by doubt as he remembered Christian’s words in the motel room. He didn’t know if he could trust Justin.But then again, if Justinwaswilling to help, he was the only person in this whole place Dave could evenmaybetrust. And right now, they had nothing to lose.
“You want to take a break, Raf? I’ll stay with him,” Justin said.
Raf melted away into the crowd, leaving Dave able to breathe for the first time in hours. “They want Christian to throw this one,” he said. “He won’t. Hecan’t.”
Justin’s eyes were somber on his. “He’s gonna have to. People are pissed. We’ve been planning this for months, and he nearly screwed it all up on the first night of business.”
“But he was only asked thatdayif he wanted to be part of it,” Dave said, his voice raised in frustration. Christian had let them down, but the share of blame falling on him wasn’t fair. “How the hell is it all his fault?”
“You think we planned this in a week? This took work, Dave, and you don’t get a second shot at a first impression. And then Christian shows up and he’s good, he’s real good. So they flip everything to build around him. Then he vanishes,” Justin said, short and annoyed. “Yeah, we went back to Plan A and made it work, but he screwed us over. There’s no jobs here, no future.Thisis the pack’s chance to make a decent living for once, and he screwed us over.”
“So that makes what you’re doing right?”
