Page 20 of Fight

“Jesus,” Tommy whispers. “Let’s get her inside. What the fuck kind of shit did this girl get into? We don’t deal with the auctions.”

“You better believe we don’t,” I growl as I stalk after my boss. He unlocks the back door, pulling off his shirt as he goes to attempt to cover the girl in my arms as we walk inside. I shift her in my grasp to untie her limbs, grunting in thanks when Tommy turns to help me, so I won’t drop her. He even rubs her arms a bit before placing them in front of her to help with circulation before glancing away in embarrassment.

My boss is a hard man, but I’ve known him a long damn time. I met him while I was fighting in the illegal fighting circuits, as a punk kid for extra money as I supported my siblings, and he was learning the ropes to take over for his father.

The glimpses of the man who is underneath the hardened criminal only tend to shine through when I’m around, because he’s seen me at my worst, while I was looking for my sister.

Ever since I lost her to the sex trafficking industry, I can’t imagine being any part of that business. Now that I have her back in my life and know some of the horror she faced, I still refuse to go near it. Tommy won’t touch it either for his own reasons, though I know not everyone is happy with that decision.

Too damn bad. What the fuck are we going to do with her?

“She’s obviously an omega since she mentioned the auctions, I can’t smell anything but the scent of garbage on her,” Tommy muses. “Let’s close up here and see if we can get her cleaned up, and then we’ll figure out what kind of shit may be coming our way.”

“She looks like hell,” I mutter unhelpfully. “There’s dried blood and other shit on her. You don’t think…”

“Someone raped her?” Tommy asks, anger filling his eyes as he forwards any calls to the gym to his cell phone before locking up his office. “The way she reacted when you touched her, it’s not out of the question. She looks like she was in an accident, too. I can see the glass still in her skin, scratches, and dried blood from here. I’m going to call my sister to help us with her, since she’s a nurse. Let’s get her to my place, while we figure out what the fuck is happening and who I’m adding to my kill list.”

“Marie is going to love that,” I sigh, ignoring my boss and friend’s bloodthirsty words. I don’t blame him, though, and want in on that action. “Can you imagine if we weren’t working late tonight?”

“Nope, we aren’t going to go there,” he says, shaking his head as we walk through the darkened gym to head out to one of our cars. “I’m already going to have nightmares about rats eating her body. The bastards who did this to her better sleep with one eye open. I don’t know her or her story, but I feel responsible somehow. My dumpster, my problem now.”

Nodding as he opens the door for me so he can lock up behind us, I sigh as I stare down at her matted dark blue hair. I can’t tell if she’s pretty or not because her face is puffy, and her eye is swelling shut, but the small glimpse I got of her body spoke volumes.

Tommy is right, but I feel this inexplicable pull toward her that I don’t understand. There’s a puzzle to untangle, and lucky for her, I’m great at those. I’m tenacious as fuck, and something inside of me is screaming ‘mine’.

“Since we’re leaving the scene of a crime because we’re assholes like that, we wouldn’t be above kidnapping too, right?” I ask hopefully as we stride quickly across the parking lot.

I’m not ready to let her go back to whatever life she was leading before she found her way here.

Tommy gives me a sidelong glance as he opens up his truck, allowing me to get into the back seat with the troublemaking omega in my arms. My boss is quiet as he closes the door behind me and gets in the front seat.

“I’d prefer the phrase mafia ward,” he says with a snort, knowing how ridiculous that is when I snicker. “Fuck, yeah, I guess we’re kidnapping the girl. Screw it. I don’t want the person who tried to kill her trying again. She’s officially under our protection and house arrest.”

Quickly whooping to the self-suffering sigh of my boss, I get comfortable in the vehicle as Tommy starts it up. Sighing, he rubs at his tawny beard as he stares down at the steering wheel, his once perfectly groomed man bun now coming apart from the tussle with the dumpster.

“There’s something about this girl,” he mutters as he shifts the truck into drive. “Am I fucking crazy here?”

“Nope,” I say, looking down at the chick in my arms. Tommy is still shirtless since he gave it to her to cover her up, his bright tattoos in stark contrast to his tan skin. “I feel it too, which confuses me even more. There’s too much we don’t know about her. It’s smarter if we just keep her.”

Beginning to drive, Tommy meets my gaze in the mirror as if he’s fighting his own instincts before he nods.

“Well, if it’s the smart thing to do, I guess we just gained ourselves an omega. No one has ever accused me of being dumb, after all. We’ll figure shit out as we go,” he says with a calculating smile as his eyes move back to the road.

My fingers trace over the bruises on the girl’s skin as I swallow hard, and I realize I may be making a lot of dumb decisions and calling them the smarter choice for her.

I don’t fucking care though.

Chapter Five

AUGUSTINE

I’m losing my fucking mind. My chest is heaving as I stand in front of Tommy Madden, supposed leader of the mafia outfit here in Chicago. His dispassionate eyes move over me in disdain as he crosses his tattooed arms over his chest. I don’t understand why he’s looking at me as if I’m the bug underneath his combat boot right now.

He fucking knows who my girl is. Why is he playing games right now?

“I haven’t seen a girl that fits that description and I haven’t seen Arthur since he came in yelling that some titty bar owner beat the shit out of him for touching one of the girls,” Tommy says with a shrug.

The second I got into Chicago, I met Gabriel at the gym he trains at to meet the mob boss, but I can’t say I’m very impressed with him at the moment. I haven’t had a lot of interaction with Tommy previous to this, since I mostly worked with Jasper Rivers during a fundraiser fight event over the summer.

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