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Boyd
Wiping my cheek with the handkerchief I wrench from the waistband of my athletic shorts, I clean the blood off my skin, increasing the pressure of my forearms against my opponent’s throat.
Once upon a time, I liked to believe I was better than this. Better than biology and above circumstance. That not being born in King’s Trace gave me a leg up when it comes to the evil that rains in the streets, exists behind every closed door, and whispers in the wind.
I should’ve known better.
The first time I beat a man’s face to a bloody pulp, there should’ve been shock. Remorse. Fear. But when his skull cracked against the lip of the tub in LeeAnn’s tiny bathroom, splitting his skin where it connected, and leaked blood when he settled on the floor, I didn’t feel anything.
A kid shouldn’t be so comfortable with that level of violence. With death. By that time, though, I’d already pulled LeeAnn from the brink countless times, shielded her body with my own when her drug dealing one-nighters or the thieves she kept as boyfriends decided they wanted to take some of their anger out on her.
I let them use me instead.
That was my normal. Black and blue skin, busted lips, broken bones. The will to live wasn’t present in me for a long time outside of the need to make other people hurt the way I did.
It wasn’t until I moved in with my aunt Dottie and her husband, William, that I realized violence isn’t supposed to be inherent. You’re not supposed to crave it or chase the release you get from partaking in it.
At that point, it was too late, a carnal need that burrowed into my bones, replacing the marrow with its filth.
For Dottie and William’s sake, I buried it. Kept the tendencies a secret, only hit people I knew would fight fair, didn’t actively go searching for trouble.
In college, I happened upon the Crystal Knuckle, an underground—and completely illegal—MMA fight club that exists in the interconnected basements of several downtown businesses, beginning at the King’s Trace Courthouse.
Owned by the Bianchi family, a small organized crime unit that came to town a few years ago trying to encroach on Montalto and Stonemore territory, it’s an elite club whose members pay exorbitant fees and undergo extensive background searches just to beat the shit out of each other, or watch other people get the shit beat out of them.
Angelo Bianchi, a middle-aged man with a sleek ponytail and biceps bigger than my thighs, steps up through the ropes around the ring, kicking at my bruised ribs. He’s the head of the crime family and is extremely strict when it comes to the things he allows down here.
“Where are your fucking gloves, Kelly?”
Proper gear is a must. There are posters detailing the things to be worn inside the ring plastered against every cement wall down here, from the lobby to the locker rooms, but I rarely pay them any mind. It’s not like my opponents get many hits in, anyway.
I unwrap myself from the Rhode Island tourist who’d picked my ticket tonight, apparently unaware that my showing up in an expensive, five-piece suit didn’t mean I was clean. He spits in my direction, this time just missing my face as he scrambles away, cursing in a foreign language.
Rolling over, I smirk at the molar stranded on the mat, the bloody root still in place, and reach for it before Angelo has a chance to realize what I did.
I don’t fight clean at all. What’s the point when everything you’re doing is illegal, regardless?
Plus, there’s no thrill in following the rules that the Bianchis set. No excitement to be had with simple leg kicks and elbow strikes. If you want the gratification of the violence, you have to dig deep, or else you’ll never be satisfied.
Angelo shakes his head, shoving his hands into his maroon tracksuit pockets. “I tell you time and time again, ‘no gloves, no fights,’ but you never fucking listen. You deaf or somethin’, kid?”
As if on some sort of cue, the ache in my ear intensifies, and I sit up slowly, trying to gather my bearings, curling my fist around the tooth. That fucker knew what he was doing, I’ll give him that; before I could even blink once the timer sounded, he’d launched into an attack, elbowing my ribs as I climbed inside, taking out my feet, and ramming his knee into the side of my head until all noise grew distant for me.
When I rounded on him, slamming his body into the soft padding of the ring floor, I’d shoved my fist into his mouth, found a loose tooth toward the back, and yanked it out before pulling him into a guillotine, reveling in the different shades of red and purple his face turned before Angelo interrupted.
I wipe my mouth with the back of my free hand, taking the one he outstretches and getting to my feet. “I don’t need you to worry about me, Angelo. I’m a big boy, I can take a few blows.”
He rolls his eyes, muttering something in Italian, and smooths a hand over his ponytail. “Be that as it may, rules are rules for a reason. I don’t want anyone dying while they’re down here. I got enough shit above ground to clean up without having to worry about this gig, too.”
“I’ll try to remember,” I lie, waving as we part ways and I head for the locker room showers.
Once inside, I drop the tooth with the others in the cloth knapsack I keep tucked in the back of my locker. Evidence.
Stripping down, I hang a towel on the shower divider and step beneath the scalding spray, rinsing myself of the blood and sweat. Pain flares through every nerve ending in my body, and I’m focused on the way it caresses my skin, a hot blade dipped in ecstasy.
I almost don’t notice the shadow in the corner of the room or hear the throat when it clears.
My head whips to the side, meeting eyes so dark and evil they’re almost black, completely devoid of any emotion whatsoever. His black trench coat is buttoned to his sharp chin, even though it’s a million degrees in this basement and incredibly humid, his inky hair matted down beneath a knit cap.
