“I think seeing you might give her nightmares, boss. The girl survived in hell for most of her life and now she’s living the dream on easy street. She made it out. You should be happy for her, not trying to drag her back into the sludge.”

“The dream is not waiting tables at some run-down greasy spoon and pretending to be someone she’s not. Beautiful things grow in the sludge, my friend. Haven’t you ever seen a lotus flower?”

Chuck grinned at me again and cuffed me on the outside of the arm. He was so big and so strong the simple gesture almost knocked me over. I scowled at him and pushed off the desk.

“Key isn’t a flower. She’s a girl that got put into a hard spot way too young and has always done everything she had to do in order to survive. Sound familiar?”

I didn’t answer.

Not many people knew about where I had been before I called the Point home, but Chuck did. When I offered him the job as my head of security, he had agreed only as long as he knew who exactly it was he was going to work for. I gave him the same old song and dance I gave anyone when they asked about my past, but Chuck was smart. He was halfway out the door before I realized he was serious, so begrudgingly I laid it all out for him. Who I was and the things I had done . . . he hadn’t run. Hadn’t even blinked an eye, just told me that was a sad story but there were a million more like it in the Point, so I better stop thinking I was special and that I should quit using my past as an excuse for all my shitty actions.

“You have the fight set up for tonight?” I walked around the metal desk and took a seat behind it. In my old office, my desk was hand-carved mahogany and it took an army of strong backs to move across the floor. I missed the finer things in life, so with or without Keelyn here to take the spot I kept reserved by my side, I needed to get the ball rolling on the new club. The club had started all about her and as a way to bring her home and keep her here, but now the new club had to be all about the bottom dollar. I couldn’t wait any longer on the business part. I felt like I could wait on the girl forever, was pretty sure I had been.

“Race set it up. He brought in a ringer from Vegas to take on that grease monkey that works for Bax who’s been unstoppable the last few weekends.”

Race was a good partner. He understood money and the lengths people would go to get it and how easily they would spend it when you offered them something they wanted. He was crafty and understood the tricky ebb and flow of the streets. He didn’t trust me. It was always good to have a partner that was watching what you did like a hawk. It kept me as honest as I was ever going to get, and when I tried to cross the invisible line from shady into downright evil, he was usually the one there to pull me back from the edge. We didn’t like each other very much but we made a good team, and as long as the money kept rolling in, I had no problems sharing the profit or the reins with him.

“Bax know about the ringer? He’s gonna be pissed if we take his guy out.” Shane Baxter, Bax to those that had watched him run the streets since he was just a punk kid, was Race’s best friend and pretty much the undisputed gatekeeper of the city. He used to boost cars for the old crime boss and he was still helping Race collect debts that were owed on the side. Not much went down or happened in the Point without Bax’s approval. He was also Novak’s son and the half brother of the cop that was screwing the knockout I hired to manage my strip club. The big bruiser also used to be one of the top earners in the circle of blood. The boy was connected and not someone I actively tried to piss off even if the way he had of going about things was far brasher than how I liked to operate.

Chuck dipped his chin in a nod. “Race told him, and the kid still says he wants a piece of the guy. He’s running high on multiple wins and all the money he’s been making. His ego is making choices his skull is going to pay the price for when it hits the concrete. Bax warned the kid, but he don’t wanna listen.”

I looked at my watch and pressed the palm of one hand over the fingers of the other so I could crack my knuckles. “Pull the kid. I’ll take the ringer on. It’ll be a more evenly matched fight and Bax won’t be all over my ass if one of his guys gets annihilated. The kid can have the fight next weekend.”

Chuck’s dark eyes widened and he blew a long breath out of his nose that made his nostrils flare out at me. “Shit, Nassir, again?”

I nodded and stilled as some of the guilt and desperation that fueled my actions to get my girl back home swirled in my gut. When I didn’t get my way, when a situation was out of my control, it made everything inside of me go nuclear. I had to have an outlet for it. Most of the time I used sex. Some of the time I used violence. I had never felt the need to get in the ring before Key had left, but now it was a common occurrence. I had earned more money on the rigged fights in the last few months than Bax used to rake in back in his heyday, and I wasn’t even as close to being as big and brawny as the former car thief. No, I didn’t have a heavy bulk like most of the guys in the ring. What I worked with was training, cunning, and enough bodies on my hands that adding another one never caused me any kind of hesitation. I was never actually fighting the opponent in the ring with me, so size didn’t matter. I was fighting myself. Fighting the things I couldn’t control. Fighting the urge to simply take without asking and ruin any chance I had at forever with the one person I had ever wanted to promise that to.

That meant I never lost.

Guys three times my size went down. Guys with weapons were disarmed and snoring by the time I was done. Guys that fought professionally were taken out with a single, deadly move. Guys that were amateur brawlers didn’t stand a chance and posed zero challenge, which was why I only wanted the ringers, the guys we brought in to fight mean and dirty and that took no prisoners. Tonight especially. It wasn’t often that I allowed myself to dwell in old hatred and self-loathing. I accepted the man and the monster that I was. But resorting to fear tactics, to underhanded dealings with unknown entities to try to get my girl back home, was something else entirely . . . and the disgust that was boiling in my blood told me I needed to let someone hurt me for her. I deserved it and so much worse, but I wouldn’t even feel the punishment because my insides were numb.

She sent me away.

I tapped my fingers on the desk and met Chuck’s hard look with one of my own. “This will be the last one. We need to get the club open. I can’t wait for her any longer.”