Bastian's Storm

Chapter Eight

I woke early in my usual position: my arms wrapped tightly around Raine with my body partially on top of hers. I had one leg tossed over both of hers as well, and her head was tucked securely against my shoulder. There were fading thoughts of dreams in my head, but I couldn’t remember their nature.

Looking down on Raine’s face, the anger, fear, and passion from the night before had transformed to an unusual sense of peace.

Pushing a little strand of hair off her forehead, I stared at her closed eyes and thought about her list of reasons she loved me. She always listed my strength first. I planned to keep her safe through my physical strength and my skills as a fighter, but I knew I needed more. I needed the strength of mind to overcome what was happening.

I needed to plan, which wasn’t exactly my strong point. I usually acted more impulsively, responding to the situation as it unfolded as opposed to setting the stage to ensure the outcome I chose. Offing a major crime lord wasn’t going to be something that happened without a precise plan, and I knew that. I was going to have to devise a way to give me access to Franks long enough to kill him and get myself back out alive.

Raine would have to be kept in the dark about all of it. There was no way I was going to let her in on my plan to kill Franks. I didn’t want her to be even more worried than she already was, and I was afraid of giving her too much information about what was going to happen. She already knew enough, and she hated what the inescapable future held. My Raine valued people’s lives in a way I wasn’t accustomed to, and she wouldn’t like the idea of me taking any additional lives to ensure the continued safety of her and my son.

I still wasn’t sure what to do about Landon, but that was secondary. I would prefer to find some way out of it all without having to kill him, but I wasn’t sure if that was going to be possible. Ultimately, he was still the father I never had.

I’m a father.

Every time I thought about Alex, I tried to create some kind of picture in my head of what he might look like. I wondered if he looked like I did at the same age, and that reminded me that I didn’t even have a picture of myself from when I was a kid.

Raine stirred a little, and as I glanced back at her, I wondered how it would sound if she added “you’re a good father” to my list of positive traits. The thought warmed me, and I held her a little closer as her eyes fluttered open.

Like most mornings when there wasn’t an immediate need to get out of bed, we spent time just looking at each other. I pushed her hair away from her face and stroked her cheek softly, and Raine smiled up at me, closed her eyes to my touch, and sighed.

“You’re beautiful,” I said quietly.

“I doubt that,” Raine snickered. “I’m always a mess in the morning.”

I had to correct her.

“A beautiful mess.”

Raine smiled. I was about to kiss her, but my phone buzzed with a text from John Paul.

Wakey wakey! Eggs and fuckin bakey!

I rolled my eyes.

“Who is that?” Raine asked.

“JP,” I said. “I have to get up.”

I took a quick shower. When I was done, I found fresh coffee waiting for me in the kitchen. Raine had her own cup in her hand, and she held onto it tightly without drinking.

“What happens now?” Raine asked. The tension in her voice was plain.

“I’m going to train with JP,” I said. “That will be for the next few days. After that, Landon said three weeks of training.”

“Where will you go for that?”

“I don’t know for sure,” I said. “Landon’s being in Miami makes me wonder if the tournament will take place somewhere around here, which would mean we stay close—in the same atmosphere. It’s best to train in the type of environment where you’re going to fight.”

“Where will I be?” Raine asked quietly.

Fuck. So much for my planning skills.

“I haven’t gotten that far,” I admitted. “I’ll talk to John Paul.”

“I could stay with Nick and Lindsay,” Raine suggested.

“No,” I said. “They can’t protect you.”

“We could go on a trip or something,” she said. “Stay out of the way?”

I shook my head.

“I want to know exactly where you are,” I replied. “If you’re not where I expect you to be, I won’t know if you’re safe or not.”

I was teetering on scaring her, which I didn’t want to do, but I wasn’t going to let her far from my sight if it could be helped. I moved closer and wrapped my arms around her. Raine placed her head on my shoulder and sighed.

“I hate this,” she whispered.

“I know,” I said. “I hate it, too. This time next month it will all be over, and you, me and Alex…well, we have to figure that part out.”

A thought occurred to me, and I leaned back and placed my palm on her cheek.

“I need you to help me figure that shit out,” I said. “I need you to get whatever the hell we’re gonna need with a kid around. I don’t know anything about that shit.”

“You think I do?”

I think you need to focus on something that isn’t about me killing people.

“I think you have a better chance of understanding it than I do. If you can put up with my childish ass, you can probably deal with a six-year-old as well.”

Raine gave me a tight lipped smile as another text from John Paul told me to come and meet him at the front door.

“I’ll be gone a while,” I told Raine, “just to the gym upstairs. Keep your phone close, and don’t open the fucking door for anyone, even if you think you know who it is.”

“Okay,” she said as she bit down on her lip.

“I’ve got you,” I said again, and she nodded.

I kissed her softly before we parted, and I went downstairs to meet John Paul at the entrance to our building. We headed up to the gym and started working out.

“Funny how old patterns fall back into place,” John Paul remarked as he watched me do leg presses on the machine. “It’s just like old times, isn’t it?”

“You knew about this the other day, didn’t you?” I accused.

“Maybe,” John Paul said as he winked at me. “Couldn’t say anything, but glad you took my advice anyway.”

“I thought it was an order,” I muttered. I pushed out another set of leg presses and then switched to dumbbells.

I kept it up until sweat was pouring off of me, and every muscle in my body ached. I was glad I had been spending some time at the gym lately because John Paul was ruthless on the weight training. I could keep up, but only barely.

I wasn’t about to let him know that, though.

So I pushed myself as much as humanly possible. It was territory I knew—push beyond your limits and never stop, never let go. I ached, I sweated, and I burned through sets like a maniac just to show John Paul that I could.

He knew exactly what I was doing.

“Is that all you got?” John Paul snorted. “You’re a wuss.”

“Fuck you,” I said as I slammed the weights down to the floor. “I don’t see you pushing out this many reps.”

“Not my training, bro.”

I extended my middle finger toward him as I completed another set of curls. At least I hadn’t lost much strength in my biceps, but I’d neglected leg workouts, and even I had to admit my gut was a little flabby from lack of ab work. I never should have let myself go so much. Now that Raine had to count on my strength, I wasn’t at my best.

I had to rectify that.

I also had to make sure she was safe even when I wasn’t around.

“I need Raine protected,” I said to John Paul as I shifted my weight on the bench and switched arms. “I want someone I trust around her all the time when I’m not.”

“Not sure who that would be,” John Paul said. “Is there anyone you trust?”

“You,” I said simply.

“You want me looking after your chick?”

“Who else?”

John Paul scratched his arm, looked up at the ceiling, and considered for a moment.

“Can I fuck her?”

I stood up, dropped the dumbbell to the floor, and punched him in the face.

He stumbled backward from the blow but righted himself quickly as he laughed and rubbed at his chin.

“I guess that’s a no.”

“Fucking right it’s a no,” I said as I glared at him. “Don’t you fucking touch her.”

“Duly noted.” He laughed again.

We finished our session, and John Paul came with me back to the condo. Raine had her school books spread out on the couch and coffee table, but I could tell she wasn’t getting any actual work done. I sat down beside her and tossed my arm over her shoulder, pulling her close, as John Paul helped himself to a bottle of water.

“Ugh!” Raine groaned as she placed her hands on my chest and pushed me away. “You stink.”

“You should have smelled him back in the day of booze and whores,” John Paul said.

Like I really needed him to bring that shit up.

“Don’t make me fucking beat you in front of her,” I snapped. “I bet I can find some other meathead around here to train with me.”

“Won’t be as pretty as I am,” John Paul said. He emptied the water bottle and tossed it into the bin. “I’m out. See you bright and early tomorrow.”

I trained with John Paul for four days—weights, endurance, and hand-to-hand fighting. I was sore, bruised, and tired on the fifth day when he came to the door and told me we weren’t training that morning.

“Meeting time,” he said simply.

We met Landon a few blocks away in a hotel room. He looked uncharacteristically tired and a little on edge. We sat down at a small, round table and waited for him to start.

“Your competition,” Landon said. He pushed a folder to me across the table, and I opened it. There were five sets of documents inside with names and pictures. “Study them. See what you can learn about them, and make sure you know how to take each and every one of them out.”

I scanned the documents, stopping immediately when I saw a familiar face.

Fuck me.

Even without the sunglasses, I recognized the picture as the dude on the beach with the ridiculous, fucking tongue twister, only now it didn’t seem so ridiculous. Now I saw it as the threat it clearly represented.

“You’re the pheasant.”

Evan Arden. He was listed as Rinaldo Moretti’s key hit man. The picture showed him at a shooting range with a high caliber rifle in his hands.

“I believe I may have mentioned that he’s your primary concern.”

“I’ve met him,” I said quietly.

Landon eyed me.

“When?”

“A couple weeks ago,” I said. “He talked to me on the beach when I was out for a run.”

“Recon is a specialty of his,” Landon said. “He’s probably been on a rooftop with his sniper rifle pointed at you already.”

“He’s a sniper?” John Paul said.

“Former Marine,” Landon informed us. “One of the best shooters they’ve ever seen. I knew of him through my military contacts before he got himself involved with Rinaldo Moretti. He’s taken out hundreds of Moretti’s enemies over the years, but he disappeared shortly after the war broke out.”

“Seems like a weird time to take off,” John Paul remarked.

“I couldn’t get a lot of detail,” Landon said, “but I got the idea he might have been at the crux of the issue that started this war in the first place.”

“You think he had sights on me but didn’t shoot me?”

“Arden knows the rules.” Landon stood up and walked over to the window to look out at the ocean. “Taking out a player once the tournament has been announced would inflame the war, not end it. He’s military, and following orders is in his blood. He’s also probably the next in line to run that organization if something happened to Moretti. Moretti’s only other options are his daughter Luisa, who might very well do it, or an illegitimate son he barely recognizes. Ending the feud is in Arden’s best interest.”

“But Arden hasn’t been involved in the war recently?” John Paul asked.

“Not at all,” Landon said. “He doesn’t even appear to be residing in the Chicago area. Probably has a place outside the country—no one seems to know for sure where he’s been, not even Moretti himself. Obviously he has a way to contact him though, or he wouldn’t be here.”

John Paul looked over to me with concern in his eyes.

“Tomorrow we meet with everyone,” Landon told us. “All six family heads and your competition will be there, Bastian. The others aren’t much of a worry, but I want you up close and personal with Arden before you have to take him on. Figure him out. Fuck with his head, if you can—I understand he’s a pretty hard nut to crack.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

“He was a POW in the Middle East. It fucked with his head, which is why he was discharged shortly after he was recovered from a camp in Afghanistan. There’s video out there—go watch it. Use it against him.”

“Will do.” I picked up the folder full of information and stood. John Paul followed suit, and he drove me back to the condo where Raine was still trying to study.

“Good workout?” Raine asked. She looked me over, and it was obvious I hadn’t been at the gym.

“I learned a lot,” I responded vaguely. She didn’t press for more, and I wondered if she just didn’t want to know.

“We have to move,” she said suddenly.

“What? Why?”

“We can’t fit us and a kid in this condo,” she said, “and I don’t like the public schools here. We need to move somewhere where Alex can get a good education, and we can get a place that will have enough room for him.”

As I looked around the apartment, I didn’t have much of an argument. She was right; there wasn’t enough room for another person in here even though we did have an extra bedroom.

“A house, maybe?” I said.

“I think that would be nice,” Raine agreed. “Someplace with a yard where he can be outside and play. I don’t want to worry about traffic.”

“Here in Miami?”

“Not in the city,” she said.

I knew what she really meant—not too close to the beach. I didn’t like it, but considering everything else, I wasn’t going to press the issue. She had my back on this, and I’d sacrifice whatever it took to make it work for all of us. Maybe I’d manage to convince her that Alex would benefit from living near the beach.

I went over to the couch and knelt beside her. I looked up into her face and captured her eyes with mine.

“Anything you want,” I told her. “Anywhere you want. I just want us all together when this is over.”

For once, I really meant it.

She bent over and placed her lips on mine.

“I love you,” she said.

“Right back at ya, babe.” I smiled and kissed her back.

I followed John Paul to his car after I made sure Raine was good for the day. I had no idea how long this meeting was going to last or where we were even going. John Paul drove south for some time, and as we reached Homestead and the unending fields of squash filled with migrant workers in wide-brimmed hats, we turned down a gravel road and headed toward a large barn out in the middle of fucking nowhere.

I’d spent the night studying all the documentation Landon had given me. I’d even found a video of a news release about Lieutenant Evan Arden and his capture in the Middle East. It included footage of a man being executed right beside him. I hadn’t studied the others as closely, but I was prepared to meet them all and get a better idea of their weaknesses. For the most part, the rest didn’t concern me.

As we got out of John Paul’s truck, I looked up to see ultralight planes and a few gliders up in the sky. Far across a field of yellow crook-necked squash, I could see a small airfield. Other than that, there was nothing and no one to be seen except for two menacing guys standing by the large double doors of the barn. John Paul’s boots kicked up dusty gravel as we approached, and the guards checked us both for weapons before they opened the doors to allow us inside.

I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but there were a lot of people in there. They formed six small groups around the mostly open area. I checked each group, silently naming the associated crime lords and their tournament participants.

Gavino Greco from Chicago was the closest to the door. Towering over him was a massive guy sporting hundreds of tattoos. There was enough ink showing on him that I wondered if even his dick was decorated. Aside from his face, he was covered in them. I remembered from the documents Landon had given me that he was called Hunter, and he wasn’t going to be easy to take down in a melee fight though he was mostly a bow-hunting fanatic. Of all the other fighters, he had the most tournament experience, with or without weapons.

The next group was also from Chicago. Since the start of the war and the fall of the last boss in Chicago, the organization had nearly failed completely. It was now run by two guys from Azerbaijan—Sergi Dytalov and Igor Severinov. They were unimpressive figures physically, but they had the most at stake in this little game, and they watched me carefully with calculating eyes as I walked in.

Their representative in the game was nearby, slouched in a chair and glaring at his own hands. His dark hair hung in his face a little, and the look on his face was anything but calm and collected. Erik Dytalov was into knives, according to the information I had on him, especially Busse and Kunai knives. A distant cousin of one of the new bosses, but not Russian born, he’d survived in the games for a couple years before he backed off and eventually quit playing. He hadn’t played for a while now, and I wondered just what he had been doing for the last few years instead of fighting.

To my right was Grant Chamber from the New York mob. There was a woman beside him I was pretty sure I recognized though I hadn’t figured it out from her picture. She was tall, dark-skinned, and had enough muscle on her to make you look twice, no doubt about it. As I looked at her in person, I realized I’d met her before.

“JP?”

“Yeah?” he responded quietly.

“Isn’t that the chick you dated in Seattle? Stacey?”

“Yeah,” he said, “I know. She goes by Reaper now. She’s been playing in the games for about a year.”

Obviously, he wasn’t surprised to see her here. He didn’t look at me, and I wasn’t sure if he cared or not that I was going to be killing her in a couple of weeks. If it mattered to him, he didn’t show it.

On the other side of the New York group was an imposing-looking woman with short hair and flashing eyes. I assumed through the process of elimination that it must be Maria Hill—the woman who ran the operations in Los Angeles. The tall African-American guy with her was Tyrone Chimes, an expert in knife combat and a good shot as well. He’d also been in the games for the last year or so.

In the very back, there was a tall, bald man with sausage-like arms and a bit of a gut. He made an imposing figure with two gigantic body guards on either side of him.

Joseph Franks.

I hadn’t seen him since the trial where I testified against him and Gunter Darke. Gunter had been convicted and killed in prison shortly afterwards. Franks, however, had gotten off scot-free even though I’d told the jury he ordered the deaths of everyone in the room. He just had that kind of pull, in and out of the system.

John Paul led the way as we walked toward Franks and his group.

“Sebastian,” Franks said in a cool voice as we approached, “it’s been a while.”

I nodded, took his outstretched hand, and took in a deep breath.

“Mister Franks,” I said. We shook, dropped hands, and looked at each other for a moment.

With guys like Franks, it was all about ego. Everything centered around who was the farthest up his ass at any given time. I’d done the unthinkable and dared to cross him.

For the first time, I considered that I may have been duped. He might have just lured me here to kill me, but as soon as the thought occurred to me, I knew it wasn’t true. If he wanted me dead, he’d just put a price on my head, and it would eventually be collected by someone. He wouldn’t have any need to go through an elaborate plot or involve all these people if my death was his goal.

He narrowed his eyes and leaned close to me.

“You were a bad boy, Mister Stark.”

I swallowed.

“Yeah, I know I was,” I said quietly. “It was a mistake, obviously.”

“A mistake because of what you tried to do,” he asked, “or because it didn’t work?”

I took in a long, slow breath. There was definitely a right answer to his question and a wrong one, but the words he wanted to hear weren’t readily apparent.

Clearly, I cannot choose the glass in front of you…

I went for honest.

“It didn’t work,” I said.

He laughed, clasped his hand on my back, and turned to one of the goons next to him.

“You hear that, Nathaniel?” he said. “Here’s a man who will let you know right where you stand.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Don’t you yes, sir me, you little shit,” he yelled so loudly and without warning that I had to take a step back. “You can’t give me a load of pleasantries when you’re skimming my profits!”

A moment later, a shot rang out, and Nathaniel lay on the floor near Landon’s feet. While my ears rang, Franks placed his gun back in its holster at his side and turned back to me.

“He tried to fuck me over last year,” Franks said with a shrug. “He had his one chance, but he tried to pull that shit again. You understand what I’m saying here, Stark?”

I looked into his steely eyes and nodded.

“Yeah, I get it,” I said. “I’m not a problem for you.”

“Good!” he said, all smiles again. “Now let me get this party started.”

Slightly shaken, but unwilling to show it, I moved off a little and watched as the body was hauled out of the back door of the barn. Landon looked over at me, and for a moment, I thought I saw relief in his eyes, but it was probably just the long halogen lights, hanging bare from the ceiling, playing tricks on my perception.

As I stood off to the side of Franks’ group, I checked out the final set of Chicago-based mafia cohorts—Rinaldo Moretti and his crew. There were several of them, including three bodyguards and a woman who must have been his daughter, Luisa. The guy with Rinaldo Moretti was an interesting one. Slim, wiry, and tall, he looked more like a schoolteacher than someone mixed up with organized crime. I was too far away to hear what they were talking about, but whatever it was, Moretti kept glaring at him. I didn’t pay much attention, though—my focus was on the other person standing with him.

Evan Arden.

I knew him both from the picture and from our brief encounter at the beach. He stood near Moretti at attention with his hands clasped behind his back. There was a shoulder holster over his arm, but it was empty. From the look of him, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t need a weapon if push came to shove. He wasn’t anywhere near my size, but he was a well-built guy—lean and muscular. I had the feeling that wherever he’d been hiding out, he’d kept up on his training.

Unlike I had.

I remembered Landon’s instructions about doing what I could to mess with Arden’s head. I thought about how he had looked on his knees with his hands bound behind his back as the guy next to him was shot in the head. He’d been a POW, and I wondered if bringing up the video might throw him off or if that was something he’d heard often enough already. I thought about what else I could say to him.

Not a fucking tongue-twister, that was for sure.

Franks called out to the room, and all six families gathered around the large table in the center of the barn. The three Chicago-based families, the reason we were all here, sat as far away from each other as possible. Gavino Greco and Rinaldo Moretti I knew from a multitude of tournaments, but the two Russian guys weren’t people I had seen before today. Igor Severinov and the other, Sergi Dytalov, had taken over when the Russian mob’s predecessors had retaliated against a stolen shipment of caviar by invading Moretti’s home. When the invasion turned into a bloodbath, people on all three sides had been killed, and the tension in the city had escalated to war.

I could feel the hatred between them anytime one of them made eye contact with another.

The six contestants, myself included, sat next to their bosses. I was between Franks and Landon. John Paul stood off to the side, watching intently, as Franks got the meeting started.

“This is going to be a little different, boys,” Franks said.

Maria Hill, the leader of the LA outfit, sat on the far side of the table and raised an eyebrow at him.

“And ladies,” he said with a smile.

“Oh, no,” she said sarcastically, “I’ll just sit over here and look pretty for you, how’s that? No, not too likely, huh?”

Franks ignored her and her tone.

“You’ll each be dropped with weapons in hand,” he said, “weapons chosen by your bosses and ones you’ve proven to be most effective when using.”

It was unusual to start a tournament armed, but not unheard of. There were many times when there were weapons to be found around the tournament grounds, but being dropped with them wasn’t usually part of the plan.

“Arden will have the firearms of his choosing,” Franks said as he looked over a list in front of him. “Dytalov, three Kunai throwing knives and a Busse Combat Team Gemini.”

He stopped and looked up at the dark-haired man near the Russian group.

“Whatever the fuck that is,” he added.

“You want me to go get it and show you?” Erik Dytalov volunteered.

“Shut your mouth,” Severinov said, “or I shut it for you.”

“Mister Hunter will be armed with a compound bow in addition to a handgun,” Franks said, “and Reaper will have her brass knuckles.”

He looked over to the woman sitting next to Chambers.

“Is that all?”

“I don’t need anything else,” she responded.

Hunter laughed.

“I got somethin’ else you need.”

“Bring it over here,” she challenged with a flash of her dark eyes, “I’ll show you just what I can do with it.”

“Enough,” Chambers said quietly. The guy was always as cool as a cucumber, even in the past when I’d just walked out of a game with his guy’s blood all over me. He’d hand over his cash with a slight smile and not another word.

“Tyrone Chimes will have a variety of blunt objects, and Mister Sebastian Stark…”

He looked over to me and smiled.

“Mister Stark will maintain a single weapon—the garrote.”

No guns, no knives, nothing but a fucking piece of piano wire.

Maybe he does want me to lose.

There were a few murmurs from the group before Franks continued.

“Your location,” Franks said, “is Buckingham Island in the Canadian territory of Nunavut. It’s about as unfriendly a place as you can imagine, but we don’t have to worry about you running into any tourists. It’s about six miles across in the center, and you’ll be dropped around the floes near the southern tip.”

“This will have to be a fast one,” Greco commented. “Everyone will freeze to death if it takes too long.”

“True,” Franks said. “Consider it added incentive to stop warring with your neighbors.”

Greco glared but didn’t comment further.

“Some weapons don’t function well in the cold,” Evan Arden remarked.

I watched him closely. There was no concern in his eyes; he was just stating a fact.

“Then you better have a backup plan, Mister Arden.”

I couldn’t see any reaction in the eyes of Moretti’s hit man. He was completely calm and expressionless. Both Hunter and Reaper smiled nasty little smiles in his direction, but Arden didn’t seem affected by that either.

Fuck me. He wasn’t going to be easy.

I considered the location of the fight and understood the choice of weapons for me. For one, I had been damn effective strangling people in past games. Moreover, it wouldn’t require any additional or complex equipment—nothing to misfire, no bolts to lose, and no possibility of it getting jammed in the cold. In fact, it was nearly the perfect weapon under such extreme conditions. I could use it without the loss of dexterity the others would experience through gloves and heavy clothing.

Maybe Franks wanted me to win after all.

I looked around the table to see the reaction from the others to the location. The Russians seemed pleased, Moretti and Greco annoyed, Chambers unaffected, and Hill downright pissed.

“The Arctic Circle?” she inquired. “Really? This is your best idea for the games? I mean, it’s not like the closed circuit is going to work too far a distance, so we’ll all be freezing our asses off. Oh, and let’s not forget surfer boy, here.”

She indicated Tyrone.

“He’ll lose his tan during the trip.”

A few snickers rang out as the dark-skinned man looked over at his boss and raised an eyebrow.

“She has a point about the closed circuit,” Moretti pointed out. “As Mister Arden said, equipment has a tendency to malfunction in extreme conditions.”

“All taken into consideration,” Franks said dismissively. “You’ll find our accommodations most pleasant as long as you stay indoors, and you can rest easy about the mechanical concerns—we’re bringing in only the best. It’s designed to handle the environment.”

There were a few more grumbles from the bosses, but Franks answered all of their concerns quickly and efficiently. I could hear Landon in his words and figured they had rehearsed all of this. Landon was a planner, and he wouldn’t let any matter get lost in the details.

The meeting came to a close as each of the bosses was handed an encrypted thumb-drive with all the pertinent information on it. Franks and Landon moved off to the far side of the barn to discuss something. Hunter watched with narrowed eyes as John Paul moved quietly up behind Reaper and leaned close to her to speak. I couldn’t hear their words, though, and didn’t really care.

My thoughts were on my main opponent.

Following Landon’s instructions, I ignored the other fighters and made my way over to Arden. He was near Rinaldo Moretti, looking at the man intently and nodding his head every so often. I stood a little way away from them as they finished their conversation but was just close enough to hear the tail end of it.

“…will have an effect on the weapons. Mountainous terrain increases the possibility of an avalanche when I fire, too.”

“I can ask,” Moretti said, “but I think everything is set now.”

“He’s done this intentionally to give himself better odds,” Arden replied.

“Possibly,” Moretti agreed, “but there isn’t anything to be done about it now. It has to be this way, son.”

I took note of how Moretti addressed Arden and looked at both of them a little more closely. Moretti was short and stocky, whereas Arden was tall and sculpted with lean muscle. His eyes were blue, Moretti’s brown. Arden had light brown hair, cut short against the sides of his head in proper military fashion, and a slight, scruffy beard, but Moretti didn’t have enough hair to determine what color it might have been in his youth. I couldn’t see any resemblance, but that didn’t always matter.

“I understand, sir,” Arden replied.

Moretti stood and headed over to the group that included Franks and Landon, and I took the opportunity to talk to Arden. He looked up as I approached, his face as passive as it had been during the meeting.

“Mister Stark,” he replied politely. He stood and reached out to shake my hand then sat back down at the table.

“I don’t really see Moretti as a bird-man,” I said as I sat down across from him.

Arden looked at me, and I saw him stifle a slight smirk.

“Rinaldo’s more than he appears,” he said. “Like many people in this room, underestimating him is usually a mistake.”

“You aren’t really his kid, are you?” I asked.

“Not by blood,” Arden said simply. “Not that it matters.”

I nodded slowly. His loyalties were set, no doubt about that. He clearly wasn’t someone who was going to turn on his boss. He wasn’t in this because of blood or for the money but a deeper sense of commitment and allegiance.

“You still think I’m a pheasant for plucking?”

Arden stared at me, his face blank. I saw his chest rise and fall slowly, as if he were centering himself.

“I think at the end of this, it’s going to come down to you and me,” he said. “After that, it’s no more than a matter of will.”

He looked me over briefly.

“And aim,” he added.

“You think that will be enough for you?” I asked.

“More than,” he replied. There wasn’t any bravado in the statement; he simply thought it a matter of fact. He had no doubt in his abilities, and I needed to throw him off his game.

“It didn’t keep you out of enemy hands in the past,” I said with a shrug. “It sounds to me as if you have a habit of letting people get the jump on you.”

His eyes tightened but only slightly and briefly. I was hoping for a stronger reaction, but frankly, I wasn’t accustomed to playing mind games. Any reaction at all out of this guy seemed to be a win.

Arden stood, took two steps to get around the table, and leaned over slightly to look me in the face.

“I hear you’re fighting for a kid,” he said softly. “Maybe when I’m done with you, I’ll put a bullet in his skull, just like his mother’s.”

Instantly, my hands were balled into fists. Once that happened, there was no more control left in me. I swung at him, made contact with his jaw, and sent him flying backward. I was on my feet and going for him a second later, but that was all it took for two of Moretti’s goons to grab my arms to try to hold me back.

It didn’t work.

I wrenched one arm out of the grasp of the guy on my right and used it to pop the one on the left hard enough to make him let go. I started to head back to Arden, who was on the floor and rubbing his chin but starting to stand back up again. Another hand grabbed my arm, but I couldn’t shake it off.

“Stop.” Landon’s voice rang clear in my head even before I realized he was the one holding me back. John Paul was on the other side, telling me to take it easy, that there would be a time and place for this, but not here, not now.

“Motherfucker,” I growled. I shook them both off of me though John Paul kept his hand on my shoulder as I stomped toward the door of the barn. I didn’t get far. A moment later, Landon was standing in front of me, blocking my passage.

“Just let me get the fuck out of here!” I snarled.

Landon glared, and I felt someone else walk up beside me. I turned quickly, and found myself looking at a very irate Joseph Franks.

Fuck.

“You press too far,” Franks growled in my ear. “I might need you for now, but don’t you pull something like that again, or I’ll blow your brains out and find myself another fighter.”

I wasn’t sure if the threat was serious or not, and I wasn’t going to take the chance that he was bluffing. Anything I said could be used against me, Raine, and my son at any time. Deciding to go for contrite, I glanced at the ground, then back up to him.

“I know,” I said, “I got it. Don’t you worry about a fucking thing—I’m taking all these motherfuckers out.”

“That’s more like it,” he said with a smile. It didn’t touch his eyes, but it was an effort, at least.

Deciding it was best to get out as soon as possible, John Paul escorted me out the door and back to his car.

“You are out of your fucking mind,” he said as he started the engine and began to back around the other vehicles. “That was seriously stupid.”

“Fuck you,” I muttered. I knew he was right, but I wasn’t about to admit it. I just wanted to get home to Raine. I leaned back in the seat, closed my eyes, and pretended to sleep the rest of the way back to Miami.

There was no question about it—Evan Arden was my primary concern. The others were going to fall quickly and easily, either to me or to Arden. A couple of them would probably take each other out, which was just fine by me. I wasn’t counting frags here; only winning mattered.

Last man standing.

As he had said, it would come down to the two of us. When that happened, it was going to be a matter of who found who first—a matter of my hands or his scope.

Unfortunately, he’d already gotten the drop on me once down at the beach. I couldn’t let that happen again. It wouldn't have happened if I had been on alert. I wasn’t going to fail in that respect when it came to the tournament. There was far too much on the line.

If he was serious about going after Alex…

I wondered if he had something to lose as well though, or rather, someone. Somehow, I doubted it. He didn’t seem the relationship type, and I couldn’t imagine any chick falling for a guy who was so cold, so blank. Yeah, I’d killed more than a few people in the past during tournaments, and I was going to do it again with good reason, but he’d killed a lot more people in service to Moretti and his family. What kind of girl would put up with that?

Well, Raine put up with my ass, so maybe it was possible.

Ultimately, it didn’t matter. Even if he did have someone he cared about out there, it wasn’t as if I could use that to my advantage—not now. The games were set, the territory chosen, and all there would be now was preparation for the fight. Once it was announced, no one was allowed to screw with the odds of which player would win.

My direction was clear. At least for now, Evan Arden wasn’t my concern.