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I didn’t take offense at the statement since, for a while, I’d thought the same thing. “Same here.”
“Well, if you want to leave something behind…” He smirked at me. “Since you’re such a hotshot now.”
He gestured his head to the hundred dollar bills still on his counter.
I shook my head and pulled out my wallet again.
Several hundred dollars later, I was walking out of the bar and toward my car. But I didn’t get far into the parking lot before I overheard the conversation of a group of guys passing by.
“Y’all aren’t gonna believe what I just heard,” one of them said. “I heard The Wolf is back in town.”
I froze the minute I heard my stage name. Shit. I wasn’t trying to get recognized while I was in town. I didn’t want to scare Toby or whoever was doing this back into hiding. I was glad the truck was partially shielding me, at least, as more of their conversations flowed toward me.
“You’re lying,” a tall blonde guy said.
“I’m not fucking around. Simon texted me that he thought he saw The Wolf at Chief’s.”
“So he’s here to fight against Viper?”
“Nah, I think Viper’s matching up against that new guy—The Freak, or whatever his name is.”
“Yeah? But wouldn’t it be crazy if they all went for a cage match?”
“But they won’t.” The first man carelessly tossed his hair over his shoulder as he watchfully glanced around behind him. It was something we fighters did out of habit. He still didn’t see me, though, his voice growing faint as he got farther away. Still, his last words echoed to me. “Max said The Wolf was done for. Remember?”
The mention of my old manager had annoyance rumbling up in me. The old bastard was still in the underground scene, huh? I wondered which poor soul he was trying to screw over now.
“But I thought Max said he didn’t work with him no more,” the first voice commented as the bar doors opened, nearly drowning out the rest of his words. “Said he quit because he was difficult to work with. And he got some kid killed after getting him involved with the wrong people.”
What?
No,Istopped working with Max because he was a shady-ass fucker who tried to make even more money from my blood. The man was always into his little side deals, gambling my life like it was his. He made money by pitting me against tougher and tougher opponents and betting I would win. I always won despite having low experience and with all the odds stacked against me, and Max would rake it in. But then, as I drew more of an audience and developed a reputation for not getting my ass kicked, the stakes grew higher and higher.
And it stopped being profitable for me to win, so instead, he started betting I would lose.
The day I fired him, he was begging me to throw a match. I refused, and we got into a heated argument. That was a week before Toby died.
So where did that rumor come from? Max didn’t even know Toby. I kept those two sides of my life far apart.
Suspicion beat at my temple as a crazy idea formed.
What if my ex-manager knew a lot more than he was letting on?
I hadn’t considered the possibility before, but now it struck me like a bolt of lightning.
And just like that, I knew where my next stop was.
Luckily, Max still went by the same name and address when I looked up his office online. His official job was as an insurance salesman, but he managed the underground on the side. I invaded his office like a storm, ignoring his secretary’s calls as I walked the familiar path to his office.
Throwing open the door revealed a shocked Max, who was talking to a husky boy in a football uniform who looked like he was barely out of high school.
Max’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head when he saw it was me. His eyes flickered between me and the boy.
It looked like he was in the middle of recruitment.
“Get out,” I commanded the boy.
“Oh my God, you’re….” Amazement filled his eyes, but his smile fell when I turned to stare at him again.
