“That was lucky,” Rosalie commented.
“Why do you think I asked you to hang back to wait for them to go ahead of us?” I ask her with a chuckle.
She adjusts her purse on her shoulder. “Sure, sure. What I don’t understand is why we even need to count on some nobodies to tell us the passcode for the club anyway.”
I motion my sister to walk alongside me toward the stairs leading down to the left as I reply, “The club is unaffiliated, so none of us have control over it, but the owner of the club… Well, Uncle Eivor pissed him off a couple months ago, so we haven’t been able to get the code like we normally could.”
“It must’ve been something good then,” she tells me.
I shake my head. “It’ s always over some petty bullshit with these older guys.” I shove a hand in my pocket. “But we’re in, that’s all that matters.”
As we descend down the stairs, they get more and more narrow; I have to walk in front of Rosalie before we can continue.
When I open the door, there’s another guard standing there watching us, eyeing us from head to toe. To make sure we aren’t there to cause trouble.
“We’re here to keep an eye on Carmine, right? To see if he’s up to any business?” Rose asks.
I look around the second hallway, where it stops at one corner with no other doors but one on the right-hand side. As we pass the door, it’ s closed but saysbosson it.
“Right,” I say simply. “You’re here to talk to people. Butter them up, see if you can get any inside information on the Carvels.”
“I thought talking to them was your job. You haven’t yet?” She looks at me with narrowed eyes.
The closer we get to the end of the hallway, the louder the sound of cheering and grunting becomes. Loud rock music blares over the muffled smacks of punches and cheers of the audience. The crowd that so eagerly waited for bloodshed.
“Don’t worry about it.”
I don’t look at her again until we enter the arena together. A massive underground room, four solid walls of concrete, dirty and bloodstained. The lack of soundproofing makes the four dozen voices a drone that bounces and echoes off them from all corners. The grungy music that blares from the crispy speakers doesn’t quite drown out the sound that came from the middle of the room.
Arguing.
From behind the chain link fences that were built up from ceiling to floor in a five-foot-by-five-foot circle in the center of the room, was the angry booming of the owner’s voice. The boss.
“Go mingle,” I urge Rosalie. She nods and then puts on her best, most flirtatious smile. It makes me uncomfortable, so I look away before she does. I watch her leave my side out of thecorner of my eye, and then look straight forward at the arena circle.
I see him there.
Carmine.
He’s standing inside of the chain room where blood is spilled and death rains down so heavy each night that it’s a surprise to absolutely no one. In fact, Carmine Dresvanni is standing right next to a drain on the floor where the red-tinged water goes when they rinse the arena out.
“Motherfucker,” I hiss under my breath.
I make my way through the crowd, ignoring the cursing of drunken and arrogant assholes as I push past them to get to the one who’s putting himself in danger.
As always.
I grab a hold of the chain link wall when I get to the front.
“Carmine!” I shout over the noise. I don’t care who hears me.
He doesn’t look in my direction, but I watch his body tense at the sound of my voice. I glare at him.
“I know you can hear me!” I growl. “Get your ass outta there!”
“Hey, shut up! We wanna watch him fight!” a guy to the left of me complains.
I look over at him so quickly the back of my neck cracks. “Maybe I wanna watch you fight. Huh, did you think about that? Want your scrawny ass in there?” I threaten him.
