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Not just anyone could play here.
A knock sounded on the door, and I glanced at the screen on the wall to see who it was through the camera.
Ronan.
I hit the button and unlocked the door.
He stepped inside, dressed in a fitted t-shirt and jeans. His heavy boots thudded against the black tile as he made his way toward me. With identical blue eyes and the same tanned skin, my younger brother looked more like my twin. “There are four men down in the basement.”
“A double feature, huh?”
“Yep. The men are too scared to rip us off, so our men are bringing in their own enemies are part of their initiation fee.”
When men were stupid enough to cross us, we tossed them into the ring to fight for their lives. If they won, they got to keep their life and turn into my bitch. If they didn’t…that was self-explanatory. It was an illegal fighting ring and how I made the bulk of my money. Men loved betting on the sport, and it was always entertaining. My cruelty was obvious to everyone in the underworld, so it was rare for someone to actually cross the casino. We were running out of fighters that way, so members volunteered their enemies—and they made a lot of cash because of it.
“Good. It’ll be a great time.” I shut my laptop even though Ronan knew about the cash because he ran this world with me. It was too big for one person, but I was definitely the one on top.
Ronan sat in the seat across from my desk, his muscular arms stretching his t-shirt. “I’ve got a new fish on the line. But I only hear bad things about this guy.”
I rolled my eyes. “The same thing is true for every other member here. We’re murderers, thieves, and tyrants. Why do you think we get along so well?” I leaned back against my leather chair and gave him a slight wink.
“But this guy is unpredictable. He’s shifty.”
“What did you hear?”
“They call him The Butcher. I guess he killed his whole family.”
I shrugged. “I’ve wanted to do the same to you a few times.”
Ronan didn’t respond to my joke. “But he was fifteen when he killed his entire family—with a knife.”
That was pretty damn bloody. “What does he do now?”
“That’s the thing—nothing specific. He robs people at random, kills some of them. Has a group of thugs that follow his orders. He makes serious dough that way, robbing rich houses and threatening to kill their kids if they call the cops.”
“Sounds like an angel compared to some of the assholes in here.”
“But sometimes he doesn’t take anything… Sometimes he butchers an entire family at random and just leaves…”
That made my blood turn cold. Criminals usually had a motive, and that made them easy to understand. When they only wanted one thing, they were easy to manipulate, to predict. But when there was no motivation, it was a different story. I’d killed a lot of men in my life, but never without provocation. And I’d never killed a woman or a child. Butchering innocent people had never been my thing, but I definitely wouldn’t go out of my way to save them either. “Interesting.”
“See what I mean? He’s a loose cannon.”
“You want to deny him entry?”
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
“We have lots of killers here.”
“Yeah, but they’re predictable. They kill for a reason. This guy doesn’t—which makes him a psychopath.”
Turning down a psychopath was sometimes worse than letting him in—and keeping a close eye on him. “He understands the rules here. Regardless of the company he keeps, he’ll never be able to challenge us. And if he does step out of line, we’ll send him to the ring. I’m sure a lot of people would love to see him beaten to death.”
“Unless he wins,” he countered.
If he really was that much trouble, there were ways to get around it. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t.”
I lay beside a woman, finished but unsatisfied.
She was beautiful and knew how to please a man, but I found myself bored most of the time, my mind drifting elsewhere.
To someone else.
There wasn’t unbridled passion or scorching heat. There weren’t tremors that shook my arms. There wasn’t that slow burn that turned into a raging inferno. It was tame—ordinary. She came, and I only did because I made it happen.
Now I felt my body fill with regret, wishing I’d gone somewhere else that night instead of taking this woman up on her offer.
I wasn’t even sure what her name was.
Michelle?
Melanie?
Whatever, it didn’t fucking matter.
I sat up in bed and ran my hand through my hair, wondering if Carmen was alone in her apartment right now. Was she sleeping with other men? Did she have regulars that she invited over? Or was I her number one choice? I would ask, but she rarely gave up personal information since she was insistent on keeping her distance from me.
