Page 28 of Tempting Little Thief

Just like the dark-haired dude, I forgot his fuckin’ name, said he would, “Matt Jones” doubled his bet from last week.

Hayze wiggles his fingers at his sides, eager to close them around something, and my own adrenaline beats against my chest, but I keep it locked down.

No movement. No emotion. No tells.

The crowd goes crazy as the two come to blows, rocking and bobbing and landing hit after hit. Blood spills from Thomas’s mouth, and Moyer has a gash over his eye, but seconds before the first round can end, the fight does. Thomas catches Moyer with a clean fade to the jaw, and the guy goes down instantly.

Now we know for sure.

Some cheer; others complain, and my eyes lift to Hayze.

I bend, sliding under the rope and coming up next to Thomas.

I clap his shoulder, pay him off, and send the smiling man into the gang of girls waiting on him.

And then I turn to Moyer.

He chuckles, shrugging his shoulders as he tries to catch his breath. “Fuck, maybe you were right, Bishop. I should have waited another week to recover from last week’s pounding.”

I nod, glancing at the crowd, noting the whistleblower is nowhere in sight, and with moves too fast to be anticipated, I grip his head, slamming it down into my knee, kicking behind his a second later. His body jolts backward, and he drops flat on his back, his head bouncing against the ground with a hard thump, his bottom teeth now sticking through his lower lip. His eyes roll back as consciousness slips away and everyone around falls silent.

I whip around, locking my eyes on Green Jacket Guy, and his widen. I know what comes next. Everyone paying attention does.

Green Jacket tries to make a fucking run for it. He spins … right into Hayze, his throat wrapped up in Hayze’s eager hand.

Hayze stares up at him, his eyes dead and cold as he shifts, so the dude is facing me again, now forced to watch.

I bend down, take my knife from my pocket, and cut the protective tape from Moyer’s hands. I look up at Jennings, another guy who works out here, and lift my chin.

He dumps a bucket of water over Moyer’s head, and the fucker gasps himself awake.

It takes him a moment to remember where he’s at, and panic flickers across his face.

He knows he threw this fight like he threw last week’s, just like I know the guy in the green jacket pulled up in a black ride … Greg Moyer in his front fucking seat.

His eyes go wide, and then he screams, jerking in my hold as I snap his pinkie backward until his knuckle is flat against the back of his hand. And then I do the same thing to the middle finger and, lastly, his thumb. He doesn’t fight, doesn’t ask what I’m doing or why.

He just jerks and shakes and cries like a bitch, accepting his punishment, knowing it could be far worse … that it will be if he fights me.

I don’t tell anyone why I did it and I don’t stick around to see what Hayze will do to Green Jacket, but I know it will be worse than what I gave to Moyer.

Serves the fucker right.

A snake can’t slither into a wolf’s den and make it out in one piece. We will sniff it out, and then we’ll take you out. Forgiveness doesn’t exist here—reason number one my mother is nowhere to be fucking found; she ran right out of town with no word of where she went.

Bet she just fucking loves that, never having to look the son she fed to the devil over and over and over again in the eyes.

Wherever she is, she’s probably rebuilt a new life by now. Working at some fast-food joint and going home to a shitty but clean apartment without a care in the fucking world. No hungover husband to nurse, no kids to keep her awake with their cries for help that won’t come.

I will find you, Mother Dearest.

I roll my shoulders, blocking that shit out. Tonight ain’t about the past. My energy is boiling beneath my skin, begging for the release it didn’t get. I almost wish Moyer would have fought back, but a bitch is a bitch, so I knew he wouldn’t. My work for the night might be finished, but I haven’t yet.

So I nod my goodbye to my boys and slip out the hole in the gate. I pull my headphones on, slide my hands in my jacket pockets, and off I fucking go.

Might have to steal me a ride, but that’s all right.

I’ll pick a decent-looking car with a pile of shit under the hood, and if the night goes well, I might even torch it after and let the owner get a nice little insurance check as a thank-you.

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