“Okay, doesn’t seem like I have much of a choice. I assume I am going to be issued a badge of some kind?”
“You have a badge number, which you will need to memorize. For your own safety, you will not be able to be located in the system without that badge number and only that badge number. If you get arrested, your only way out is with that number. You’re risking your life if Mercier finds out you’re a cop Chances are we will never see you again either. On top of that, if you are suspected of changing sides, I will make damn sure you are arrested and put away for a long time. Knowing all of this, are you still interested?” Palmer asks, seeming less than confident.
“Sure, what else do I have to do?”
“Remember, once you locate my son, you are to report his location back to Henry. Do not attempt to rescue him yourself. There is no telling what these people would do.”
“What if they have already done what they are going to do?”
“Then I still want to know what happened and who did it. Once we know that, I will handle it from there.” Palmer sighs, shutting his eyes, seeming to understand the likelihood.
“When do I start?”
“As of right now you have officially been dishonorably discharged, and on your way back to your old neighborhood, in need of a job,” Henry says, handing me my discharge papers.
“Do I get a car, apartment, money? Anything to start?”
“No, you get what anyone else would get. What you went in with, which doesn’t look like much. Of course, you will earn a paycheck, but that can’t be officially issued until after the mission is concluded. Mercier has too many people on the inside who could alert him to a new hire and scare him from hiring you.”
“Great. I can’t wait. Broke, jobless, and set up to risk my life for someone I have never met. Wow, dreams do come true,” I smart, earning a roll of the eyes from Palmer.
CHAPTER 2
Laila
They took my winnings from the fights I won and donated it to charity for me. At least they were kind enough to give me my last paycheck, which paid for my taxi to the middle of hell. Hell is getting expensive these days. Now, I have to get a job before I starve, and I know just the man to help me—Triangle. Triangle is a supplier. He’s the center of everything in this city. Whatever comes in and whatever goes out, at some point, passes through Triangle. He’s not the easiest to find, unless you happen to know his addiction to fresh baked Spanish doughnuts. Mrs. Cervantes’ special recipe is sold only at her small corner store. It takes most of the day for him to show, but eventually, he does, and I quickly add my tab to his with a nod. That should get his attention.
“Thirty-five dollars?! For doughnuts?” Triangle gripes, waving the bill at the poor woman.
“You pay for the girl’s food and drink too! She’s been here all day.”
Triangle looks confused as he turns to search. “What girl …? Oh, son of a bitch. What the hell are you doing back? I thought you were in jail or something?”
“It was the army.”
“Even worse. What do you want?” He takes out a wad of cash and pays, cursing me with every bill he hands over.
“I need a job, Triangle, and you’re the person to help me get it.”
“What happened to the army?”
“I was discharged due to differences of opinion.”
He starts laughing. “What did you do? Shoot the wrong side?”
“He attacked me first.”
He stops and looks at me, shaking his head. “I am sure he did. I don’t know too many open spots right now, but I am sure someone will get killed or jailed sooner or later. About all I can get you right now is auto detail downtown.”
Tri walks fast out the door, moving to a new place as he always does. I stay with him though and force him to continue talking to me. “I actually heard there was a recent opening in security.” He gives me a sideways glance. “Come on, Tri. Give me some info. I’ve learned a lot since I have been away.”
“Security for Mercier is not something you want. It’s not a job for a woman, Laila.”
“I can do it, and I want it. It’s the best paying job in the city. And the only one I am really qualified to do.”
“It’s also the most difficult job to get. The interview process can be deadly. The last person not to get the job and lived, is drinking his food through a straw. Mercier demands that you are able to prove yourself. If you make it through the test, that doesn’t mean you will make it.” I sigh impatiently. “How did you even get into the military? Don’t they do some kind of mental exam?” I stand my ground, folding my arms and facing him straight on until he finally gives with an exaggerated sigh. “Fine, if you are suicidal, the open audition is tomorrow night at the Spectator.”
“The arena?”
“Yeah, it’s a sick process. If I were you, I would wait until I have an opening in exports. You’ll live longer.”
“Just out of curiosity, how did this opening come about?”
“The guy was nailed.”
“He was arrested?”
“No, he was literally nailed to the bottom of a canal. Supposedly, he was trying to get out and quit the team, which you can’t do, so he tried to get out by talking, and you really can’t do that. They found him the next day during low tide with a huge spike right through his shoulder and into the ground. Feet just floating up to the top.” Ew. “And the guy didn’t die from the spike, he drowned. Picture that and consider a different career path, Laila.”
I take a moment and then smile. “No, I really want to do security. The pay is better.” He tries again to walk away from me. “You owe me, remember?” He stops dead in his tracks. “You would be underground right now if not for me saving your ass. You know I can win. You saw it. I am even better now.”
“You have issues, but fine, I’ll help you. There’s a finder’s fee I could use, but if you get killed and embarrass me, I will never forgive you.” He takes my cell and types in an address. “Meet me here tomorrow night. You better be there.” I thank him, take my doughnuts, some borrowed cash and move to my motel for the night, knowing I am going to need sleep and plenty of it to win this job.
The Spectator is alive with excitement, but you aren’t getting in without a name. Thankfully, Triangle trusts me enough to let me use his. He brings me in and puts my name in the hat of competitors. He was laughed at, but I promised him an opportunity to make some real money on what most would bet against—me. I am not so sure he is willing to bet much, but he is vouching for me. He’s also making side deals for my internal organs to be sold on the black market as a backup option. I sit, waiting and wondering what in the hell I am in store for when Triangle comes up with a number and hands it to me. “What’s this?”
“It’s your toe tag number, just in case you get lost in the madness and they can’t distinguish your body from the others. I would say ‘good luck’, but I am not sure what the goal for this game is going to be tonight. You just better hope it’s not last man standing. Go in and give them your name and number and don’t leave me as an emergency contact. I don’t know you anymore.”
“You will wish you hadn’t said that here soon.” He shakes his head and walks away to get a seat. I maneuver my way through the people to get in the right line.
“Name?” A man with a clipboard asks without looking at me.
“Laila Lowell.”
The man suddenly looks up at me and shakes his head. “No women in this competition, Honey.”
“Is that a rule? I don’t remember seeing rules posted anywhere?”
“There are no rules. There are just no women,” he insists.
“Well, there will be tonight.” I look around to spot Mercier and make eye contact with one of his guards who is looking me over suspiciously. I race up the railings and across the balcony and immediately get Mercier’s attention. “Sir, apparently you haven’t left word that women can compete too.”
“It’s too much for a woman. It would end too soon. That wo
uldn’t be fun for anyone. Go home to your husband and kids and make some soup. It’s a cold night,” he says, dismissing me with a wave of his hand.
“Are you afraid I’ll embarrass your men here …” I pause, waiting for my words to come clear to him. “Are you afraid that a woman might destroy one of your favorites? Cause you to lose money and make you look bad? Because you know you can still change your bet to me and beat everyone, take ‘em all by the balls.” I connect eyes with him and hold them until he finally gets interested enough. “My name is Laila Lowell. I was just discharged from the military, and I need a job. I want a good job, and the job you’re offering is the best job in the city right now. For me.” I smile, knowing he’s interested in my sell; however, one of his guards is not at all happy. He steps further in my way to keep me from Mercier.
“What do you think, Nathan? Do you think a woman can win this?”
“I doubt it, although she may get raped a few times before she dies which could be fun to watch. We could have some great late night videos to enjoy later.” Nathan makes a dirty gesture towards me with a laugh.
“And you, Ben? Do you think that this would entertain our customers tonight?” Mercier asks the man standing between me and his boss. He’s tall and handsome, and a little young to be so high up in the ranks of Mercier’s team.
“I think she doesn’t understand how dirty this can get and should go enter a beauty contest instead.” He leans down to me and whispers. “I don’t know how you got in here, but you need to get out before you get yourself killed.” I stare into his eyes and see something I didn’t expect to see—genuine concern.
“That’s not what I asked you, Benjamin. Do you think she could provide some real entertainment tonight?”
“Sir, I don’t think it would be something the wives here could stomach.”
“Oh Ben! I would love to see it myself,” Jolie Mercier remarks, climbing over her husband to get a better look at me. “Oh yes, Honey Bear, she looks like something that might get you encouraged tonight.”
“Well then, Ms. Lowell, we are anxious to be entertained by you.” Mercier accepts me and forces them to put me in.
I nod and happily jump down to continue checking in. “Are you insane?” A young man comes from out of nowhere. “You need to go and go now before they don’t allow you to leave. It’s not safe for you here.” I look the young, athletic man over, and despite his handsome, boy-next-door looks, I am not swayed.
“But this is the only way to get the job, correct?”
“It is, but surely your life is worth more than what you are going to have to endure here, and you will endure it for hours until everyone in the crowd gets tired of watching. Only then will they finally let you go, or die, which is more likely. These are big, disgusting men you are going up against here. You can’t fight them, and you certainly can’t fight them all.”
I keep smiling as I prepare myself for anything and everything.
Mercier’s head guard, Ben, comes down and walks up to us. His perfectly tailored suit and shirt fits his physique like it was sewn right onto his body. “Don’t bother wasting your breath, Luca. She is obviously brain damaged. Word of advice since you’re so determined to do this: When you realize you’re in over your head out there, call for me or Luca, and we will sneak you out of here before the animals go crazy. If you don’t remember our names just start screaming for help.”
“That’s nice, GQ, but I don’t ever yell for help. I don’t need help from anyone, but thanks anyway.”
I barely look at him as he continues to judge me. “You know, there was one woman who tried this over a year ago. She was beaten so bad that she couldn’t feel the animals raping her, sometimes two to three of them at the same time. The only good news for her was that her brain had stop comprehending what was happening. She lay there dying, unable to scream and unable to move while the fighters used her for whatever they needed. Then the crowd moved in. Even they just wanted to cut a piece off and take it with them as a souvenir.” I roll my eyes at his attempt to scare me, and his impatience with me reaches its maximum. He huffs and steps in close, grabbing my face and forcing me to look up at him. “I don’t care what you think you can do, what local gym classes you have taken, you can’t handle these people. You need to go. Please.” We pause, caught in the brief moment our eyes lock. I can’t think of anything smartass to say to him, or anything to say at all, so I back away from his grasp and move on towards the line of competitors. I look back at the man as he discusses picking me up and carrying me out of here. It’s an odd exchange between Ben and Luca. Ben glances my way once more before walking out of the main arena, seemingly admitting defeat to Luca’s insistence that he let me go. Luca stands close to the edge of the ring and turns to nod in my direction.
I turn away and redirect my focus to the arena. The center floor has a simple guardrail around it, nothing that would make it difficult to get away. The men with guns at each corner, however, would make it difficult to get far. They aren’t letting more than one competitor out of here alive.
The clipboard man gathers all of the competitors together. “Okay gentleman and … woman, the rules are just this. Come out alive through that door over there, and I mean come out able bodied to start work by tomorrow morning, and the job is yours. The competition does not, and will not, end until there is a winner. Whatever is on you at this moment is what you have to survive with. If you lose anything, then it’s lost, and I doubt you’re getting it back. Everything is fair game, including other people’s weapons. New rule for the night: There will be no pulling out of bodies whether dead or passed out. Everyone remains in until a winner has made it through the door. The ones left inside will remain until the Boss becomes tired and is ready to go home.” Wow, they are really hoping I get brutally raped in here. I guess none of my feminist sisters are here, ready to come to my rescue. Scrolling through the crowd of hungry men, it’s clear no one here is hoping I make it out alive or with a stitch of clothes on.
Before I can step into the battlefield, I am grabbed by the arm. “I don’t know who you are, or why you have a death wish, but when all goes wrong, you run through that door.” Luca motions to a dark door with no markings.
“While I appreciate you and your friend’s concern for me, I can handle myself. Besides, why would I trust you any more than anyone else here?”
A charming smile develops on his face, so charming that it is impossible for me not to smile back. “My name is Luca.” He points in a direction behind him and right at Ben. “And that’s my brother, Ben. The keys to his car are in the car sitting right outside that door. Take the car and get out of here, but you damn well better call the number taped to the dash because he will come after you if you don’t give him his car back. He loves that fucking car.”
“You didn’t answer my question, Luca. Why do you care?”
“About you? We don’t. Let’s just say we liked our mother and we don’t enjoy this insane game of Titus’s.”
“Okay. If I need it, I will use it, but only after I win.”
He rolls his eyes away from me. “It’s your moment. It’s your last, but it is certainly yours to screw up.”
“Lady, are you coming are not?” The impatient clipboard man yells while motioning for me to move forward.
The only thing I didn’t count on was that we would all go at once. I quickly assess my competition and see who is coming after me first. Surely they will think to take out who they believe to be their biggest competition first—each other—and leave me until last. There are nine men, and every one of them is looking at me. Well, I guess they aren’t the smartest assholes in the world. There is supposedly no guns allowed in the arena, but I catch sight of a hidden gem at one man’s ankle, and another has a blade strapped to himself, a couple actually. They all have some kind of weapon, except one who is completely relying on his size. Dumbass. I was told I wasn’t allowed to kill anyone on this mission unless my life was in danger. This counts, or at leas
t it will.
“I can’t wait to hang your tits on my wall,” one disgusting jackass salivates in my direction. Oh yeah, this most definitely counts. I focus on the biggest guy here and smile. “You want me, Honey? Come and get you some Tank,” he taunts.
“Oh, I’m coming for ya … Tank.”
CHAPTER 3
Ben
This woman is certifiably insane. Beautiful but insane, and there’s a decent chance her insanity is drug induced. I glance back at Titus who is so excited by the idea of her getting ripped apart that I want to stab him in the heart myself. “I don’t think I can watch this.”
Luca stops me on my way out. “Ben, you know you can’t leave. Titus isn’t going to let you leave without making you regret it somehow. Worse yet, he will let Nathan decide your punishment,” Luca says as we both glance at the psychopath who is vibrating in anticipation.
“I wouldn’t doubt he’d jump in and finish them all off himself.”
“The sad part is, if none of them get approval from the big man, they will all just disappear, and they don’t even know it, especially her.” Luca sighs. “I can easily look away. It’s the screaming that bothers me.”
Our job pays great and keeps us protected from harm and arrest. It’s fairly easy, most of the time. The only bad part is this—the bullshit Titus makes us go through to test our loyalty to him. I would rather take on attackers than sit through this shit. They blow the slaughter bell, and I can’t help myself. I seek her out and cringe. The woman bolts forward like a bat out of hell, runs right up the chest of the biggest guy there, and sits around his neck like it’s a saddle. She uses him and his body to beat away attackers. He can’t attack her because of all the others coming after him to get to her. I stand up straight and watch as they start fighting each other to clear a path to him—to her. She made herself a prize, and they are blinded, entranced by the thought of making her theirs. Four men down, five left, and she still remains. Her tower eventually falls with a knife to the knee. She rolls off, keeping hold of his neck and turning him over her as a shield to counter the attack from the man with the knife. The blade plunges into her tower’s chest, and blood pours from him when she pulls the knife from his flesh and launches it. Her next attacker comes in strong and falls face forward, resting on the blade between his eyes. Stealing the dagger from the latest dead man, she spins to her feet, ready to face off with the three remaining men. One has a rope that he’s wrapping around his knuckles, waiting to wrap it around her neck. The fool is too blinded by his greed for her that he overlooks the man standing next to him with a gun, the second man. The man slyly reaches down to his ankle, grabs his gun, and shoots the man with the rope. The tightly wound rope slowly comes undone as the man’s body hits the floor. She races towards the third man and jumps feet first into his chest, knocking him backwards to the ground. I jump to the edge to look closer as she lies motionless with her head at the man’s feet. The final man, standing, shakes his head with a smile as he walks up on her. Watching her casually, he shoots the cursing man underneath her as he tries to stand and run away. Holding his weapon steady on her, he calls out with a warning.