AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Suddenly, a loud sound exploded throughout the room.
“Police!” someone yelled. “Get out!”
Chaos immediately broke out. People tried to run, but about two dozen armed police officers flooded the place, holding them down. In the midst of them, I saw Charlotte running to me.
“Oh my God, I was too late.” Her eyes were swimming with tears. “But please tell me I wasn’t too late.”
“What the…” I was still trying to make sense of her presence. The pain in my side barely hurt, and out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the police surrounding his body.
Viper.
“Charlotte immediately climbed into the ring and started touching my side, her face draining of color when she saw the blood spreading through my side.
“It’s a flesh wound,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure myself. Now that the danger had passed, it was starting to hurt. “What are you doing here?”
“We needed to gather evidence,” she said as if that would explain everything. “But I’m here now. Oh, I’m so sorry. I love you, Zane.”
Ah, so she’d called the police and set up a sting. Right from under my nose. Clever girl.
“I love you too,” I said, drawing her close and holding her tight, grateful I could breathe her in again. “So fucking much.”
EPILOGUE
ZANE
“Okay, here’s how you do it,” Toby said as he twisted his own arm at an angle and gestured to Casey. “You do it like this, and then when the person throws back a punch, you get them in the gut. That’s how you take down a larger opponent.”
Casey frowned at the move. “What if he doesn’t take the bait?”
Toby smirked with a self-assured look that was so typical of him. “They will.”
He glanced at me over his shoulder and smiled. I smiled back.
Our relationship was still odd but, at the same time, comfortable. Our reunion wasn’t typical. I was sitting in the hospital after they stitched me up, and he was in the opposite bed as they dealt with his wounds.
And then, after the doctors filed out, I knew he was awake. I could just sense it.
“Why didn’t you call me?” The question was loud in the quiet room.
He didn’t answer at first. It was strange because we hadn’t spoken in years, and those were the first words to come out of my mouth. Technically, at this point, we were more like strangers than friends.
But at heart, he was still my first family.
“I couldn’t,” Toby answered in a voice much deeper than I remembered. “Viper and the Bruners kept a tight leash. There was someone with me at all times.”
“You couldn’t find a way to get to me?”
“No,” he said. “One of them…he tried to help me. He got me a phone, but they found out. I think they have an IT guy on their end who can track my communications or some shit. They found out, and the guy who helped me…they burned him to death in front of me.” I could hear the pain in his voice, and my heart felt bleak. Someone as compassionate as Toby couldn’t take something like that. It would break him. Shit, I wished I killed Viper back in the ring.
But according to Charlotte, they’d gotten enough evidence to put him away for the rest of his miserable life. He and the rest of his damn family.
“He started putting you in fights?” I asked because I needed to know all of it.
“Yeah. He loved to watch me get beat up.” Toby’s voice trembled with rage. “Sadistic piece of shit.”
Damn it. I fucking wish I had killed the bastard.
“Eventually, I got good, though,” Toby said, and there was a trace of pride in his voice. “And they started making money off of me.”
