Page 33 of Liberty
Jewel smiled at me. “No, it’s my fault. I was headed your way because I wanted to talk to you.”
I cocked my head at her. I knew Jewel through my sister even before I was brought here. “What can I do for you, Jewel?” I gave her a genuine smile. She had always been a good friend to Scarlet and from what I knew, she was a good person.
“Well, it’s about this fight.”
I blinked at her. Everyone was gossiping about this I suppose. “What about it?”
“Well, Talon and my man Prophet had one of these fights too.”
I stared at her. “Oh, ok.”
She looked around then nodded at me. “Can we talk privately?” she whispered.
I nodded. “Sure, um let’s move over to the refreshment table.”
We both walked over there and I set my plate down.
“When it happened,” Jewel launched right in. “I never knew they were gonna do that. Fight, I mean. I walked into that barn and could not believe what I was seeing. I was really mad at Prophet for doing it, but apparently he needed to work out his anger at the time. Deacon was holding his dad hostage and I was supposed to trade myself in to free him. It was a really tense time and I mean for everyone, but especially for poor Prophet.”
I stared at her as I had heard a little bit about this but I didn’t know the whole story. “Is Deacon really that evil?”
Biting her lip, she said, “He is Belle. He actually kidnapped Prophet’s father, so they would trade me for him.”
“But why?” I asked her.
“He wanted me to bear his children.”
Stunned, my mouth popped open.
Nodding, she went on, “I know it sounds insane. See, I knew he had been stalking me while he ran the Cotton Candy club, but I never knew he would take it that far. I mean what he did to one of his own men while I was captive there? It was an atrocity. So believe it.” Jewel visibly shivered. “He truly is pure, dark evil and don’t you ever believe he isn’t.”
I still couldn’t fathom it. The Deacon I met was nothing like that.
“So anyway,” Jewel continued. “I don’t know the details about why Liberty and Talon are fighting, but you need to watch Talon in that ring. At the last part of their fight, Talon gave Prophet this stun thing to the neck with his hand and that knocked him out. The man is dangerous.”
“Yeah, I’ve been hearing that he is,” I replied. “I tried to talk the men out of this but none of them will listen to me.”
“Well, I urge you to at least be there. Then when you see Talon attempting to use that move if he does…You need to jump into that ring and stop him. I read about it online later on andif it isn't done right, Liberty could be really hurt. It said that any blunt force to the neck can damage blood vessels, and if you restrict blood flow to the brain it can lead to serious neurological injuries.”
With a small gasp, I stared at her.
Grabbing my hand, Jewel went on, “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to scare you but I felt compelled to warn you.”
“But how can I stop Talon? He’s huge.”
“You get up in his face,” she said with a growl. “That’s what I did. He’s dangerous to men but he won’t hit a woman.” She shook her head. “And I know it’s none of my business, but I just had to tell you or it would have bothered me to no end.” Reaching out, she patted my shoulder. “You are Scar’s little sis.”
“Thank you, Jewel.” I leaned in to kiss her cheek.
With a nod and a smile, she moved away to head across the room to join Prophet.
I stared at him as he kissed her on the cheek then wrapped his huge arm around her shoulder. Wow, he was a big man, built like a tank. Talon beat this man up until he passed out?
“You okay?”
I jumped at Liberty’s voice. Turning around, I snapped, “No, I’m not okay.” I motioned to the couple I had been staring at. “That is Prophet, correct?”
Looking over at them, Liberty nodded. “Yeah, that’s our cousin.”
