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Sadly, the silence wasn’t the only thing that left him clenching his teeth and struggling to maintain his calm. Andrei was back in the one place he’d believed he would never see again. He thought he’d gotten it out of his system, but the rush of that first fight—landing that first punch—had been intoxicating. The blood lust, the overwhelming need to snatch back control of his life and his future, it rose up so that conscious thought slipped away and he was acting purely on instinct. The drive to survive. To conquer. He’d been brutal, letting three years of anger and frustration pour out of him, so that he’d left his first opponent unconscious in a pool of his own blood in mere seconds. For a brief moment, he thought he might be able to return to fighting. He’d been fast and agile. Maybe he had recovered enough from surgery to get back into the cage. He wasn’t too old yet. Not quite thirty. He could sneak in a few years before retiring permanently.
And then the adrenaline wore off and his knee swelled. It was only through a mix of illegally acquired OxyContin and inflammation pills that he’d been able to walk the next day. Now he was getting through each fight that way and it needed to stop. He’d seen too many guys get hooked on painkillers and he didn’t want to go down that road.
Headlights slipped around the edges of some boards and splashed across the wall as a car pulled into the vacant parking lot. Andrei dropped back into some of the heavier shadows and pulled his phone out of his pocket. A second later a text came asking if he wanted to see a movie tomorrow. Some of the tension eased from his shoulders. It was Rowe signaling that he hadn’t been followed. Andrei typed “Sure” and put his phone in his pocket.
Moving deeper into the building, Andrei flipped on a light in a windowless room and stepped behind the door with his gun drawn. Rowe might have given the signal that he was alone, but Andrei was taking precautions until he saw it with his own eyes. Footsteps echoed through the abandoned school, crackling against broken linoleum, announcing that there were at least two people approaching.
A minute later the door pushed slowly open with a Glock entering first followed by the rest of Rowe. His boss quickly scanned the room, his eyes widening only slightly when he spotted Andrei with his weapon drawn. As he stepped farther into the room, he made a show of lifting his finger away from the trigger and putting the weapon in his holster under his arm.
Andrei’s breath caught in his throat when Lucas stepped into the room a second later. Dressed all in black, he looked like death or maybe just the devil come to collect him for his sins. He turned to face Andrei and he remained absolutely expressionless, as if he’d just glanced out the window to check if it was raining. There was only a tightening of the muscles in his jaw as if he were clenching his teeth. But not a word or a smirk or a grin.
“Trouble?” Andrei demanded, breaking the silence.
“None,” Rowe said with a shake of his head. “You?”
“No.” He watched as Lucas paced to the opposite side of the room and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. He said nothing and Andrei could feel the anger rising in him. No questions about how he was or if he’d been injured. Nothing to indicate that Lucas had given him even a passing thought. Just a cold, unblinking stare.
Even Rowe seemed surprised and confused, as he lifted both of his brows at his friend as if waiting for him to finally say something. Anything. The silence just stretched until it became uncomfortable.
“We’re close,” Andrei forced out, his voice rough and uneven.
The anger slipped from Rowe’s face and his mouth popped open. “You got a name? A face?”
Andrei shook his head. “Not yet. Just another middle man. Jake Heath. A hustler and a numbers guy. He handles a lot of the bets that take place at the fights, but he’s higher up the food chain. Knows about the attacks on Lucas.”
Rowe groaned, shoving both of his hands through his hair. “Not the breakthrough that I was hoping for at this point, but I guess it’s a step closer.”
Andrei allowed a small grin. “I’ve been officially hired for the next job. Told them I can get them through all the security at the penthouse. Deliver them straight to Vallois asleep in his bed.”
“Damn,” Rowe whispered, his eyes darting to Lucas. The other man didn’t flinch, his gaze still not straying from Andrei.
“We can set up a sting.”
Rowe dropped his hands back to his side, a growl of frustration slipping from him. “But that’s just going to catch us more thugs with no idea who hired them.”
