CHAPTER 1
LILI
“Let me out!”
I banged my fists on the door until they hurt.
No one came. No one answered.
My heart hammering in my chest, I spun and paced across the locker room. I’d been yelling and banging for the last hour. Now, my throat was hoarse and my hands were throbbing.
The gym locker room was sparse. Old, battered lockers in faded gray lined one of the plain, cinder block walls. I chafed my hands up and down my cold arms. My thin T-shirt wasn’t keeping me warm. There was nothing in the lockers. I’d checked. I’d been hoping for a helpful crowbar or hammer.
But nope, nothing.
Story of my life. Things were never easy.
I pressed my back to the cold wall and slid down until my denim-clad ass hit the chilly concrete floor.
“It’s going to be okay, Lili.” My voice echoed in the room.
It wasn’t. I didn’t believe that for a second. Not since two of Chadwick Goodyear’s goons had dragged me in here and locked the door.
Pressing a palm to my face, I tried some deep breathing. That was supposed to head off a panic attack, right?
I didn’t know what was going on. One minute, I’d been helping sort some of Dad’s gear, the next, the guys had grabbed me. They were standard-issue goons—thick necks, bulky bodies, and badly fitted suits. Goodyear had a whole squad of guys like that to do his bidding.
I’d spent plenty of time at this seedy warehouse over the years, even when I hadn’t wanted to. It housed averyillegal fight ring. The people here could be rough, tough, and dangerous. In the ring here, few fighters wore gloves, and there were no rules except to win. I knew some fighters had been badly hurt, and a couple had even died.
Dad was a trainer. By day, he worked at his boxing gym, but at night, he trained here. I swallowed. I hadn’t wanted him to work the illegal fights, but I got the feeling he couldn’t say no to the man holding the purse strings.
I did the books for Dad’s gym. I snorted. Okay, and stocked the gear, paid the bills, organized the cleaning, took care of the memberships. Dad treated me like an unpaid slave, most of the time.
How the hell had I ended up here?I wrapped my arms around my knees.
It had just been me and Dad since my Mom left when I was little. Brock Armstrong was gruff, rude, and a man’s man. He’d had no freaking clue what to do with a little girl, and I’d tagged along around the gym like a shadow. I closed my eyes. He hadn’t beaten me, and most of the time, didn’t even realize I was there, but he was quick with a complaint if I didn’t do something he wanted.
I sighed. Clearly there was something wrong with me. Mom hadn’t wanted me, and Dad only wanted me so I could make his life easier.
Hell, even my one best friend, Ava-Jane, had ghosted me. She’d dropped out of my life three months ago and stopped returning my messages.
At least I’d moved out into my own apartment two years ago. It was as far as Dad would allow me to go. It wasn’t much, and not in a great part of town, but it was mine. I’d tried to leave Las Vegas once, four years ago—when I was a bright-eyed, twenty-year-old filled with dreams and hope—but Dad had disabled my car, taken the money I’d saved, and ranted.
You owe me, girl. For all those years I fed and clothed you. You ain’t leaving.
So, I kept working for Dad. I did some bookkeeping on the side, and was squirreling away my money until I had enough to disappear and start fresh. I dreamed of going somewhere different. Of heading to the coast and finding a nice beachside town.
Something told me there’d be no beaches in my near future.
I stared at the bare wall. What the hell did Goodyear want with me?
Dad trained four fighters for Chadwick Goodyear. My stomach did a sickening turn. The guy gave me the creeps. No, honestly, he scared the hell out of me. I’d never met someone as two-faced as him, who would trample anyone to get his own way.
Most of Las Vegas knew Chadwick Goodyear as a pillar of the community. He was in his late fifties, tall, fit, with a distinguished head of gray-streaked hair. He was a successful businessman, and he looked it. He’d turned his family’s trucking business into one of the largest transportation companies in the country. He owned loads of Vegas real estate, had a glossy, blonde trophy wife, and three grown-up kids. The perfect family that he always trotted out for photo ops. They went to church every Sunday, attended the best parties and charity events, had all the casino owners on speed dial.
I’d like to say that no one knew Goodyear was an asshole, but that wasn’t true. There had been scandals. He’d been involved in some bad business deals, he’d stolen money from investors, and bullied some of his competitors. He’d denied it all and tied everything up in so many legal cases, they were still tangled up in court. He’d also been caught cheating on his wife—several times. His wife hadn’t left him, and I assumed the other women were eventually paid to disappear. On top of all that, just the other month, he’d been caught on camera saying horrible, racist things.
That story had also faded into the ether.
