Page 7 of The Alpha: Part Two
“Get out of the car, Desir’ee,” Flores says in a flat tone.
I shake my head. “I can’t,” I whisper. “Please don’t make me do this. I can’t.”
He smiles at me. “You can get out of the car on your own and walk inside with us or I can make you do it. Either way, you are going inside and watching this fight.”
I close my eyes and swallow thickly. I have to walk in on my own. If Flores gives me an alpha command, he can make me walk in there with a smile and I don’t want to smile. I take Lopez’s hand and let him help me out of the car. He reaches back inside and picks up the wrap I forgot and drapes it over his arm, then he leads me into the building.
We enter through the back. I’ve never been to a place like this, but I guess this is where the VIP’s come in judging from all the sparkle that the women are wearing. The place smells like grime and sweat. I know either Ben or Michael are here somewhere and I spend a few breaths trying to catch their scent on the air, but there are too many other odors and I just ended up making myself sick. I follow Lopez down a hall and up a flight of stairs to what must have been an observation catwalk when this building was a warehouse or factory. Now I know why wedges were necessary. This is little more than a metal-grate bridge overlooking the floor and ring. There are no seats, just railing.
I pause before I step onto it, stopping Lopez from moving forward and causing James to run into me. “Will it hold us?” I don’t mean to sound as afraid as I do, but I don’t want this thing to collapse and leave me to die in a pile of metal and people I hate.
Lopez looks back, patience and concern evident on his face. “It will. I promise. I won’t let you fall.”
I hate that his reassurance makes me feel better. I hate it with every fiber of my being. But it does help and I step onto the metal gridding.
We have a perfect view of the ring and most of the floor from the center of the catwalk. The buzz of the crowd gets louder as the remainder of the seats are filled. I wonder if it’s always this packed, or if this is out of the ordinary. I’ve mostly been tuning out whatever Flores and the rest have been saying this whole time, but when Flores looks at his watch and says, “any minute now,” I start paying attention.
Music starts blaring from speakers that are hanging from the ceiling a few feet from us and the crowd erupts. I don’t know where to look, so I’m looking everywhere. This has to mean one of the twins is making an entrance. I hate the circumstance, but this will be the closest I’ve been to them since we were taken from the parking garage at the hospital. I don’t want to miss even a second of seeing them.
Lopez notices and points toward the side of the warehouse just in time for me to see a figure walk down the aisle between sections of seats. He’s wearing black shorts and has a towel draped over his head and shoulders, but I’d know that walk anywhere. It’s Michael. If I was blind, I’d still know he was near because my bond with him is practically throbbing. My breath hitches when he takes off the towel and sits on the overturned bucket in one corner of the ring.
“He looks good tonight, doesn’t he?” Flores asks. I don’t know if he’s asking me or if it’s rhetorical, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to entertain him if he intends to torture me about Michael. He chuckles when I don’t answer and I go back to tuning him out.
A few moments later, Lopez points to the other side of the warehouse as the song starts over after a brief pause for dramatization. For the second time tonight, my stomach falls to my feet and I really might throw up this time, right over the side of the railing and onto the screaming people below us. For the first time in weeks, I feel both of my boys, alive, along our bonds and I almost wish I didn’t. Almost.
Ben doesn’t have a towel draped over his head. He’s wearing red shorts and nothing else. I watch his gate falter as his gaze zeroes in on Michael. I watch as Michael slowly stands up and watches Ben’s journey to the ring.
Ben climbs the stairs and steps between the ropes as the music stops. The crowd is wild. Completely and utterly belligerent. The referee steps into the ring and holds up his hand. The crowd slowly hushes, and everyone in attendance hears me scream the wordnowhen he lowers his hand and the bell rings.
Both Michael and Ben look up at me with dark expressions before they look back at each other and nod.
Chapter seven
Michael
It didn’t occur to me to plan for this scenario. There was no reason for me to expect Ben to walk into this ring becauseI thought he was fucking DEAD!Probably. I thought he wasprobablydead. I’ve been too afraid to hope for him to be alive.
And to know Desie is somewhere in this building…she can’t be here for this. My mind is racing and I know this was probably their plan all along, but they can’t possibly think it’s a good idea to let her watch Ben and I fight each other. I felt her the minute I sat down in the corner, then she screamed and every horrible emotion and paralyzing fear I’ve been pushing away rushed over me at once.
This is the first time I’ve seen my brother and my girl in who knows how long. My relief is quickly replaced with even more fear, most of it pouring in from Desie. From Ben’s ticking jaw and set brow, I know he’s feeling the same. We look at each other and know what we have to do. We don’t need a conversation. He was told the same thing I was told. Win the fight, keep her safe. So, that’s what we’re going to do. One of us will win this fight. It doesn’t matter which one. And Desie will remain safe. I only wish I could have gotten a better look at her before the ref barked at us to begin.
It makes me sick that I have to go from being ecstatic that my brother is alive to beating the fuck out of him. We haven’t gotten into a real fight with each other in so long. This isn’t exactly a real fight, though. I mean, it technically is; but we aren’t fighting with each other. In a way, a fucked up, sideways way, we’re fighting for each other like we always do.
Ben gives me a small and sad smile before he throws out his fist. We know all of the other’s strengths and weaknesses, we know each other’s strategy. I don’t know what they’re hoping to accomplish with this, I can beat other men to death any day of the week, but not Ben. Desie wouldn’t want that regardless of any other circumstance.
I dodge the punch, because I always dodge it, and we settle into something similar to our sparring routine. After a few minutes of that, the crowd starts getting restless and the ref hisses at us to do something besides play with each other or Flores will make good on his threat. The ref probably doesn’t know what the threat is, only that there is one and if we were smart we’d try to avoid it.
Ben and I step away from each other just long enough to exchange another determined nod, and then we go at each other in earnest. I let Ben take me to the mat and fight the urge to hug him to me. The crowd wouldn’t like that. They didn’t come here to watch us hug each other.
“You win,” Ben says into my ear as we lock up with our arms around each other's necks, and I shake my head. The only way either of us wins is if the other is either unconscious or dead. The bell rings and we ignore it. Rules don’t matter very much at The Backhouse.
“No,” I grit out. He’s on top of me, pinning me with my face smashed into the mat.
“Yes,” he grunts, bringing his knee sharply into my side. “Don’t drag it out. Knock me out, I’ll leave it open. Get it over with. She doesn’t need to see it drag on.” Then he releases me and backs up to his corner to give me time to get to my feet.
I look into my brother’s eyes one more time before I step toward him
“I love you, Mikey,” he says, then turns his shoulders to the left just slightly, giving me the opening just like he said he would.
