Page 88 of Darkness

Why? Because I know Yang, and he's waiting to make another move the minute he knows I'm awake. For once I need to be ahead of his game, because at the moment he’s winning, and I need to catch up.

I have to say though, I feel like shit. My body is hurting, my head is pounding, and I think I might have pulled one of my bullet wounds open a little. Fuck.

Walking through the doors to his office, I look around the room. First thing, always look around the room to see how many men are there? If a fight breaks out we are ready, there are five of us. Knowing Yang, he'll have a lot more, the man is good at what he does. You can’t take over the whole of New York, if you don’t plan ahead.

Hands in my pants pocket, I stare at Yang as he stares at me.

“Mr. Cain, how are you feeling today?” he asks, as if he has nothing to do with my situation.

Never show weakness.

“Amazing.” I reply, and I look over at Yang's friend. “How are you doing without your hand?” I ask him. The prick thought he could come into my office and try to attack me. I don’t think so, but I’m not the one who cut his hand off, it was his friend. Yang always taught me, if someone tries to kill you, make sure you kill them before they can attack again. The only reason I didn't kill him was because I wanted to show Mr. Yang that I can have the upper hand if I want it.

He takes a step closer to me, and I smile. Does he really think he's got a chance against me? Even with me injured I would hurt him. He turns to Mason and Hayden. “Pretty boys, sure I can take one of these idiots.” His comment makes both of them laugh, even makes my lips curl a little.

Mason pushes him to take a step back. “I'll be happy to cut off your other hand, and your dick, then place your dick into your hand, so you can see what it looks like every day.” Hayden laughs like a full on laugh, and Lincoln to the left of me chuckles to himself. Maybe Mason wasn't the best one to bring.

Yang finally stands up, he’s annoyed with me asking his friend about his hand, and getting pissed off that my family don’t fear him either. He steps forward, standing in front of his desk. “You’ve taught them well.” He looks at Mason and Hayden, before turning back to me. “How is Miss White today? I know my friend is counting down the days until he gets to meet her again.”

I chuckle to myself, even though, on the inside, I have no idea what Yang's move is or how he sees this game ending. I keep my face straight. A poker face is going to be everybody's best friend. Do not let him know if he affects you or not.

“We can go around in circles all you want, Yang. You want your son, you know the rules. So, what are you thinking?” My question makes Yang laugh like a full on dangerous laugh, because he’s got me where he wants me.

He played his game, and he played it very well. Yang has been one step in front of me this whole time, and I knew it was going to come one day. I just didn't think it would be like this.

Yang takes a step closer to me. “The ghost has a weakness and to protect her, he will do anything I want. Anything,” he says again, because he might be right about it, but I will also not bow down to him without a fight. “Fight, keep the rules of The Pit. No one helps you. You're on your own, the weapon of your choice, until death.”

With laughter in my head because The Pit is the only way I know how to fight. But there is something else he wants to tell me.

“This is what I want. You fight, not one person, but two.”

He knows he's got the upper hand here. Keeping Autumn safe is all I care about. If I don't agree. Autumn will still be in danger.

“So my friend Mr. Rowan wants to fight for his girl, and I've given a bullet point of what The Pit is, and I told him, yes I would discuss it with Mr. Cain. He wants to fight you for his girl.”

Now that makes me think I've never looked into Rowan being a fighter. So this could be an easy fight, or it can be one hell of a hard fight. I need to look into him to see what training he has.

“And the fights would be right after each other, no time for a break.” Yang adds.

I spend a moment just thinking everything over, but not for too long, because I know him well enough to know he is watching every muscle in my face for a tell on how really feel about it.

“There's something else.”

He laughs, shaking his head, at my comment. “You know me too well. Mr. Cain or shall I say, Crawford, it's nice to see you have finally let your family into your life.”

“What else is it you want?” I demand from him.

“Oh, yes, Miss White, will be there to witness the figh-”

“No,” I answer before he can even finish his sentence, there's no fucking way Autumn is going down there.

“I like how you think you have an option here. You do not. She comes to The Pit for the fight. If you come to the fight without Miss White, she'll be looking over her shoulders all the time, every day. And I will make sure she's scared of her life every single day.” Yang takes a step closer to me, leaving very little space between us. “Now, you can't spend all day with her, can you Cain?” Fucking asshole.

“Time?” I ask.

“I think you need to recover Mr. Crawford, so I'll give you two weeks.” Bastard. He knows I won't fully recover within two weeks. He also knows I’m weak from the poison that the bastard put into the bullets.

“Who's the other person I'm fighting? You mentioned Rowan.” Which is fine, I can do a big, deep background check on him to see how good he is at fighting. But the other one, it's got to be someone he trusts, someone he knows can fight for a long time. He’s seen me fight in The Pit, he knows what I can do, so it has to be someone he knows can win.

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