Page 18 of Filthy Beginnings

“With reason.”

“I can smell trouble a star system away,” snarled the consortium lackey, “and you, Damien Skolov, have trouble written all over you.”

True enough.

“But you’re going to let me stay anyway.” Because he might not be a genius like his brother Maxheim or a charmer like Alexi, or even a leader like their eldest Nikolai, but Damien had read enough telegraphed punches in his time to interpret Egan’s body language: he might want to bury him in a small ditch behind the stadium, but he wasn’t going to.

Not yet anyway.

Which meant someone else—someone even Egan couldn’t defy—had allowed Damien to remain, despite the trouble he’d caused.

Interesting.

“You’d better not give me any more trouble. You might be in this cell for fighting, but we both know what preceded it. Prizes are off limits until won.” Egan rattled on. “Any fighter found to have sullied consortium merchandise without permission will be banned from the tournament.”

Damien pictured choking the guy out—repeatedly.All in good time.

“You will follow the rules or you will not remain. No matter what anyone else says.” Threats delivered, Egan nodded toward a goon on his right and the manacles encircling Damien’s wrists unlocked and clattered to the ground. Next, the laser bars dimmed—but they didn’t blink out.

“You are free to go.” Smirk in place, Egan gestured down the hallway toward the metal exit door. “For now.”

Fuckers would not let him out without a little more payback.

Bracing himself, Damien started forward and then stopped. “If I go, he goes.” He jerked his head to where Crex stood, watching the exchange with a wide-eyed, nervous expression.

Egan’s spine snapped ruler straight. “That’s not your decision.”

“I think it might be.” He studied Egan and wondered just who had made the call to keep him in the tournament.

His brothers had no clue where he was. Yet. He’d told them he was going to his usual training retreat. But even if they’d figured out where he was, they didn’t have the pull to keep Egan from kicking him out of the tournament.

That lack of influence was half the reason Damien had come to the tournament.

To show his brothers he could be the male they needed him to be.

No more a runt. No more a youngling. No more a burden.

He was eighteen planetary rotations old now, and all grown up. Ready to step up.

Ready to be another badass like them. Maybe even badder: the fighter they needed to watch their back.

Now, he had another objective too: her.

With such high stakes, it made him uneasy not knowing who’d countermanded Egan’s impulse to kick him out or what was behind the decision. He’d found that most Alphas in the galaxy weren’t motivated by the goodness in their hearts.

But he’d make it work. He always did.

“Fine.” Disgust sharpened Egan’s voice. Anger too. “You can both go.”

But again, no one lowered the laser bars’ power. A few of the guards snickered.

Damien marched through the painful-as-fuck bars without hesitation—and kept right on walking toward the building’s exit.

A curse from Crex indicated he was close behind.

Damien let the guards have their fun. He’d find them after the tournament was over. They wouldn’t be laughing then.

But he had more important matters to tend to first.

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