Page 58 of Hat Trick

By the time I pull off at the Brockton exit, I’m torn between wanting to nail Dave in the face at my first opportunity and worrying that this time he really screwed up. Sometimes, there’s only so much money cando.

I flick on my high beams as I pull onto a back road. Dave’s been on this track for a while—but he’s been coming to the same place for years now and I know exactly where to direct my truck. When he first started, I’d been in middle school and still filled with hope that my big brother wanted to watch out forme.

I squirreled away money for months, doing odd and end jobs until I could afford the cab ride down here from Southie. That night, I watched from the blacked-out bleachers as my brother pummeled opponent afteropponent.

He’d been dead-ass drunk on his feet, and it’s a miracle no one popped him in such a way that his neck didn’t snap. I’d sat there idolizing Dave like an idiot, but it wasn’t until he’d stepped off the makeshift stage and traded in his winnings for a baggie of coke that I realized Dave only looked out forhimself.

Jail or not, criminal or not, Dave Hunt was abastard.

I pull in next to a Ford-150, my eyes already locked onto the warehouse before me. Without looking away, I pop open the center console for my checkbook—because I sure as hell don’t have plans to carry cash into a place like that. I don’t make a point of carrying thousands of dollars on me. When I left the house, I also brought my gun. I hesitate over itnow.

The guys Dave fights aren’t exactly Boston’s classiest men. What they want is money. What Dave wants is money. And money I’ll givehim.

I slam the center console shut and climb out of mytruck.

As I close the distance to the warehouse’s side door—the one the fighters enter through—I decide no more. If Dave fucks up after this? He’s on his own. I refuse to be strung along by my dick of a brother for the rest of my life just because our mother gave birth to usboth.

My teammates—guys like Beaumont and Harrison and Henri Bordeaux—those men are my brothers. Sometimes, blood literally meansshit.

Since this is the side entrance, there’s no bouncer at the door collecting covers. I try the handle, half-expecting it to be locked, and then pull it wide. Duck my head as I enter thewarehouse.

Come to a dead halt when I realize that there isn’t any music playing or announcers talking smack. I swing my gaze to the left and then to the right but come up blank. The warehouse isempty.

Fingers itching for the gun I left in my truck, I focus on keeping my body loose. Nothing Dave does is ever an accident, and if he called me here . . . well, the worst thing I can do is whirl around and beat feet back to thedoor.

Time to go for casual, laid-back MarshallHunt.

Despite the tension tightening my muscles, I call out, “You guys jacking off back there orsomething?”

There’s no response, not that I expected there tobe.

I stroll toward the corded-off fighting ring. “People always say that hockey is a gay-ass sport, but wrestling? Boxing? You guys are way worse. I bet you all get hard-ons the minute you nail someone’s ass to theground.”

Growing up, I had no one to watch over me. Southie was brutal back then—brutal and deadly. I learned to watch my own six, just as I learned how to use a gun at the age of eleven. It was partly due to survival . . . and a little bit because I refused to be the only kid who didn’t know how to protecthimself.

Mark James taught me differently. He convinced me that street hockey would get me nowhere, and each time I jammed up the sewers and cracked the fire hydrants open in the middle of winter, I was striking up another point toward landing my ass injail.

“Take these, kid,” he’d muttered when I first met him, throwing me a pair of hockey gloves. “I’m running practice for the high schoolers today. Get your ass there and I might let you collect their towelsafterward.”

No matter how many years it’s been since my Southie days, it’s hard to forget the need for survival. I pull it on now like a cloak, waiting for Dave to pop up, preparing for theworst.

Seconds bleed into the next, minutes seeping together, until I accept the fact that Daveghosted.

At least my wallet won’t be going on a diettonight.

I move back toward the side entrance, full-on ready to get back to Gwen, and yank on thedoor.

It doesn’tbudge.

The fuckers locked it from the outside and there’s not even a deadbolt to flickopen.

Dammit.

“Stay fucking calm,” I order myself, trying to pull on my memory for another exit. It’s been years since I took the cab here, and I don’t know the warehouse well enough to get myselfout.

I twist around, searching the dark space for a red, blinking exit sign. It occurs to me that operators of an illegal fighting ring wouldn’t be concerned with proper safetyprecautions.

When I find Dave, I’m going to pummel his face in so hard, he’s not going to be able to eat right formonths.

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