Page 27 of Tempting Little Thief

Hayze sends the text, letting people know bets are open, and within ten minutes, body after body is slipping through the fence, ready for a show and some Friday night fun. If watching poor assholes punch each other to the point of split flesh for a small stack of cash counts as fun. And if it doesn’t, most of us out here turning a ten into a quick twenty, that’s enough incentive to slide this way. Not much feels better than taking cash from spoiled rich kids, and these fools love to throw bills around. It leads to a lot of dick-measuring when you mix the rich and the poor, but that’s why I’m here. To keep all these assholes in line, to remind them the second they crawl through that gate, who they are on the other side of it, means jack shit.

This is a dark spot on the edge of town with no electricity, a makeshift fighting ring in the dirt, and wooden flats stacked all around, the only seating option.

Bring drama here, bleed here. Run, we chase you. Disappear, we find you.

Sing? Well … better say your goodbyes before it’s too late.

Rats die. It’s as simple as that.

Three hours later and the place is louder and fuller, the air pungent with the scent of weed and tobacco. The dirt is stained red, pockets have been pinched or plugged, and the patrons are good and buzzed.

Holding the joint between my fingers, I pull in a long drag, letting it roll out over my lip and inhaling through my nose. My phone beeps in my free hand and I glance at the screen.

Hayze: your ten. Green jacket.

My eyes flick up, skating past Hayze, who is positioned on the opposite side of the yard but directly across from where I’m sitting. I don’t look in the direction he gave. Don’t need to.

If trust exists in this cesspool, Hayze holds most of mine in his greasy hands. He doesn’t live at the group home with me but stays in a tent behind his sister’s trailer on the south side. He’s two years older than me, got his GED in juvenile hall, found me again the minute he got out, and hasn’t left since. He’s my friend before he’s anything else, but he doesn’t work for anyone like I do. I prefer it that way. It will make it easier for when my time comes to leave this place, to find something better out there and to bring my sister home. He’s coming with me.

Right now, to keep the peace with my bosses, I don’t tell Hayze what he doesn’t need to know, and he understands it. I know the drill of bringing someone else into my jobs—I give him a cut of my money and if he fucks up, I pay the price. I wouldn’t risk my spot or my sister’s safety by bringing some fool I wouldn’t bleed for into the mix.

He was my neighbor before I came here, heard and saw more than I’d like, but it goes both ways. I wasn’t always from a group home, and he wasn’t always squatting in the back of a trap house. His situation is worse, which is why I leave him my car most of the time.

It’s an old beater that breaks down every couple weeks, but it’s a fucking car with a back seat that can serve as a bed when needed. More than he would ever ask for or expect, and that’s why I do it. That, and there’s no telling when he’ll need a quick escape or when I might have to call on one for my damn self.

He’s got no one but me, and I don’t take that loyalty for granted.

Like I said, when I leave, he’s coming with me.

It takes longer than I would have liked, but we’re finally rolling into the fourth and final fight. The hype guy in the center of the makeshift ring with a megaphone lets everyone know betting is open, then moves right along to shouting and clowning on our back-to-back contenders.

Greg Moyer, a nineteen-year-old asshole with a snow problem that’s led to some shitty decisions on his part, got his ass beat last week and came back again, but anything for a bag of blow, yeah?

Fucking weasel.

I take names and money, and it only takes a few minutes for the line before me to dwindle. Sensing eyes on me, mine cut to the dark-haired dude who hit me up after the last fights. Sure enough, he’s looking this way, but after our eyes meet, he slowly looks away, stuffing his hands in his jacket to hide the jewelry he doesn’t want jacked as he talks to the guy he came with, the same one as last time. The interaction is no more than a quick glance and I’m facing forward again.

“Bishop, I got ten on Moyer.” One of the regulars comes up, a sophomore from the group home who has seen shit that would make ex-cons cry.

“Boy, where’d you get twenty from?” I lift a brow, taking the bill he won’t be doubling like he hopes, and give him back his change. At least he won’t be ass broke again after he loses.

His smirk is as crooked as his teeth are. “Popped some chick’s tire at the grocery store, waited for her to come out and offered to change it for her for a fee.”

Chuckling, I shake my head, keeping the frown from my face when the dude in the green jacket shoulder-checks him out of his way.

The guy grins, pulling out a wad of bills. “Three-fifty on Thomas.”

Pulling smoke into my lungs, I blow it out into the guy’s face, mentally logging the name he gives.

Matt Jones.

Yeah, fucking right.

He might as well have said Joe Blow. He picked the whitest, most basic fucking name his little mind could conjure. Dumbass. Still, I take his cash, sealing his fate and dismissing him with a flick of my eyes over his shoulder.

A few more shuffle my way, then the dark-haired guy is in front of me. He holds out two bills between his fingers. I stare at him a long second then jump off the crate. Everyone who tried to line up behind him scatters, knowing the drill. Bets are closed when my feet hit the ground, but I snatch the money from his fingers as I shoulder past him.

I go to stand at the edge of the ring, and Hayze slides up directly across from me on the opposite side.

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