UNDYING: A Bad Boy MMA Romance (Midwest Alphas) (Book 3) Read online

  Amy pushes forward to take the lead with square shoulders, forcing every bit of confidence she has into her step. She takes a long breath before sitting down at the single chair across from him. “Hello, Rick,” she says.

  Rick grins and throws up his hands. “Amy — it’s a pleasure.” He looks over her shoulder at me. “Hello, Claire.”

  His voice drags down my back like a set of jagged fingernails. I swallow, attempting to clear my tight vocal chords, but they barely wet. “Hello, Rick,” I reply, fighting the stiff choke. Fear clenches me, but it’s a comfort to see Tobias plant himself in front of me.

  Rick stares back at me with his stiff, blue eyes. “It’s nice to see you again. I really mean that.”

  His face flashes in my vision, flipping back and forth between his normal skin to one caked in blood. I look over his shoulder to see a line of three men, each one more brutal looking than the next, with strong muscles and dark eyes. One I recognize as the King we faced at the gym in Waynesville; the one that warned us to get out of town a few moments before we met Ryan in the parking lot. There are two others, neither of whom I recognize; one in a bright red hat and the other in a black turtleneck sweater. I suppose we never did tell Rick to come alone, not that he would have even if we asked him to.

  Rick’s eyes rise and he smirks. “Hello, Tobias. It’s been too long.”

  “I beg to differ,” Tobias says.

  “Hmm…” His grin spreads. “Well, you’ve certainly assembled quite the team for yourselves — what’s left of it, anyway.”

  “Which is exactly why we came forward,” Amy says. She squares her shoulders a bit more and sits with perfect, professional posture, showing off the natural confidence I know she has. “I have something to discuss with you.”

  “Your call was very brief, but promising,” Rick mutters. “Go ahead.”

  Amy takes a quick breath. “We want to challenge you to a tournament.”

  He chuckles. “A tournament?” His eyes pass between us. “What kind of tournament?”

  “Pretty simple, really,” she explains. “My best versus your best. Winner takes the territory.”

  “Why would we do that when we could just keep killing you all and take it that way?” he asks, his eyes full of amused darkness. It’s gotten worse now; that look of pure evil. It was always there before, ever since the day I met him. Just a glimmer now and again, nothing more. Now, I can’t stop seeing it.

  Amy leans forward in her chair. “If winning by default is your idea of winning, go right ahead. It wouldn’t surprise me at all. The Double Ex Kings are pretty well-known for their cowardice.” The men behind Rick shift, their faces curling even more towards anger, but Amy doesn’t budge and keeps her face stiff. “Also, how long until that trail of bodies leads back to your door? You can’t run an illegal underground MMA tournament from a jail cell.”

  Rick licks his lips and takes a quick glance at me. “I assure you, we’re more careful than that.”

  “And I assure you we’ve taken the necessary precautions to ensure you die in a concrete cell if something horrible suddenly happens to any of us.”

  “Fine then,” he chuckles. “What are your terms?”

  “Three of your best against three of mine. I think that’s fair.”

  “Best two out of three?”

  “Sure,” she answers. “If we win, you drop your vendetta against the Dames and you get out of my territory.”

  “And if we win?”

  “Then the Midwest Alphas are done,” she says. “Disbanded and forgotten. The state is yours.”

  Rick barely glances over his thick shoulder at his men. “Well, Amy, you’re right. That does sound fairly reasonable. You’re filling Lillian’s red boots quite nicely.” Amy says nothing, holding her hard stare as Rick looks over her shoulders and his eyes wander across the faces of Tobias, Ryan, and Pike. “I guess you brought your best three with you today?”

  “Not necessarily,” she says, looking at Ryan. His eyes shift nervously. “I’ll choose my fighters later—”

  He shakes his head and glides a finger over each of them. “No, it’s them or no deal. I insist on it. In fact, no deal at all unless I get to fight Tobias again. Our last tussle got cut a bit short…” His eyes travel to Tobias’ face and he waits for his response.

  Tobias flexes his jaw. “Fine.”

  Rick smiles. “Good.”

  Amy avoids Ryan’s eyes. “And you choose your best three based on who you brought with you today,” she adds quickly. “It’s only fair.”

  “Of course,” he agrees. “The other two will be picked from the men behind me.”

  “The fight will be one week from today,” she says.

  “Why wait? I say three days from now,” he counters.

  “Five,” she says, hiding her shaking fingers.

  Rick rolls his eyes. “You’re delaying an inevitable outcome, but sure. Five days from now it is.”

  “Location can be determined later at a secure location—”

  “How about Pike’s gym?” Rick suggests, looking at his old mentor. “We’re all familiar with it and the cops haven’t patrolled that street in years. Should be a safe spot.”

  Amy looks at Pike and he nods. “Okay then…” She extends her hand to make the deal.

  Rick stares at her fingers. “One last thing...”

  “What?” she asks, dropping her hand.

  His eyes fall on me. “Claire.”

  “What about her?”

  “If the Kings win… she leaves with me.”

  Tobias lays his protective hand on my arm.

  Amy flinches. “No. That’s not an option, Rick—”

  “It’s an all or nothing deal, Amy. Either she, and Tobias, agree to it now or we walk away and you live out the last of your days peeking over your shoulder.”

  “You’ll never get away with it,” she argues, pushing her lie. “We have a safe guard in place that—”

  “Safe guard or no safe guard,” he interrupts. “Save yourself, Amy. The only way you’ll survive this is if you agree to give her up now—”

  “Okay,” I say.

  “Claire,” Tobias growls in my ear.

  “No, I’ll do it.” I nod my head at Rick. “If you win, I will go with you.”

  Tobias pulls me back, spinning me around to face him. “He and I made that bargain before,” he reminds me. “He didn’t exactly keep up his end.”

  I look down at Rick. “He’s right. You sent Pike to collect me last time whether you won or lost.”

  “I did, didn’t I?” He smiles. “Well, this time will be different. I promise.”

  “We’re going to need something more substantial than empty words, Rick,” Amy says, taking command again. “What else can you offer?”

  Rick chews on his inner cheek, flicking his eyes around as the wheel turns in his head. “Information,” he finally answers.

  “What kind of information?”

  “I’m sure you’re all very curious to know what’s happened to your Jefferson City Dame…” he says slowly.

  “Where is she?” Pike asks.

  “She’s safe, I think…”

  “Cut the crap, Rick,” Amy bites. “Where is Veronica?”

  “I’ll cut her loose,” he says, “along with any smoking gun evidence I have on me that leads right to Lillian’s killer.”

  “So if you break the deal, we’ll have enough to turn over to the police and put you away,” Amy says.

  “Not exactly…”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask. “You told me you killed Lillian.”

  “Oh, I did,” he confesses, drawing rage beneath Pike’s eyes. “But there are two blood samples on the murder weapon. One, obviously, is Lillian’s. The second, well…” His eyes bounce to Tobias. “The second belongs to the murderer.”

  “You son-of-a-bitch—” Tobias whispers, pushing forward. Pike reaches out and grips his shoulder to hold him back.

  “How?” I ask
as a void fills my chest.

  “It wasn’t too difficult to get a blood sample, what with him bleeding all over the mat during the last tournament,” Rick says. “I was going to hold onto it in the off chance I’d need someone else to take the fall someday, but I’m willing to part with it as a show of good faith to you.”

  “You’re crazy,” I say.

  “You aren’t the only one with safe guards,” he replies. “I like to plan ahead.”

  I wipe a stray tear off my cheek. “Well, you’ve certainly outdone yourself this time.”

  “It’s real simple, Claire. I agree, today, right now, that if the Kings happen to lose, you will walk off into the sunset with him and there’s nothing I can or will do to stop you. Or, I’ll just hang onto it for a rainy day and you can count the moments until he’s arrested right in front of you and you never see him again…”

  My eyes shake with anger.

  “Fine—” Amy says, her voice trembling. “Hand over Veronica and any evidence you have that points to Tobias and we have a deal.”

  He lets the moment linger in the air, eating up every delicious second of it. “All right,” he says, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly. He extends his hand and waits for Amy.

  She tries hard to keep her fingers straight and steady, but I can see the tremor rock her wrist as his fingers wrap around hers.

  Rick pulls away, his amused grin still twitching along his lips, and stands up from his chair. “I’ll see you in five days.” As he steps around the table, he fires a wink at me. I feel it in my bones, cold and frightening, keeping me in place as he wanders off into the busy crowd with his Kings.

  Tobias jerks his shoulder from Pike’s grip and turns from me without a second glance. He walks away with Ryan and Amy following close behind him.

  Pike lingers back with me. “You agreed to that awfully fast, Claire,” he points out.

  “Yeah,” I mutter.

  His lips curl into a knowing smile. “You don’t plan on going gently into that good night, do you?”

  It’s a logical conclusion, one that surely crossed his mind the instant I agreed to it. “No,” I answer.

  “Well…” He clears his throat. “You know where to find me when you need help.”

  I shake my head. “I got it, Pike—”

  “Claire.” He spins on his heel. “No, you don’t.”

  I watch as he walks away, knowing that he’s one-hundred percent right about that.

  If the Kings win, I will go back to Rick. I made that deal and I intend to keep it, but like he said, I won’t go gently. Pike’s the only person I know that understands the full weight of what I’ll have to do if that happens.

  He’s the only person I can trust that’s gotten away with murder.

  Chapter 7

  Our Team Is Broken

  Tobias doesn’t say a word on the drive home, not that he could get a word in anyway. Amy and Ryan argue in the front seat, bickering back and forth since the moment she started the car.

  “I told you didn’t want to be involved in this, Amy,” he repeats for the third time.

  I see her roll her eyes in the rear view mirror. “I didn’t have a choice,” she says. At this point, I can probably mouth along with this banter. As perfect as they are for one another, I can’t help but wonder how much successful communication actually happens between them. Certainly more than Tobias is offering me in this moment, that’s for sure…

  “You easily could have said no to that,” Ryan argues. “There are plenty of Alpha fighters willing to go to the mat for this league—”

  “And you aren’t?” She takes her eyes off the road for several long, deadly seconds to stare at him.

  Ryan bites his tongue. “Amy…”

  “No, just go ahead and said it,” she barks. “You don’t care about any of this. In fact, you’d rather see your old boys club take over Missouri like a plague of woman-hating locusts.”

  “That’s not—”

  “Say it, Ryan!”

  “They aren’t all horrible people, Amy! Even the Alphas have their fair share of bad apples. It certainly doesn’t affect your opinion of them as a whole.”

  “We’re not talking about the Alphas!”

  “We were a minute ago!”

  I lean forward in my seat. “Amy, can you please just watch the road?”

  She twists her face to the front, but continues talking. “It’s too late to back out anyway. You have to fight.”

  “Yeah, no shit,” he mutters. “I have to fight against the very people that took me in when I lost my job, that gave me a place to live when I didn’t have a roof over my head — all because you couldn’t think straight under pressure.”

  Amy inhales, ready to continue her argument, but thinks better of it. She blows a growl and slaps the steering wheel with her palms, refusing to even look at him as she slams her foot even harder against the gas pedal.

  Ryan stares out the window with his arms crossed about his chest, embracing her obvious silent treatment for several long moments.

  I look to Tobias in the seat next to me. His face sits without expression, frozen solid as if it were chiseled from stone. A seed of doubt sprouts in my mind. Pike has always been willing to fight for the Alphas — no matter what the conflict. Ryan clearly doesn’t want to and Tobias… I can’t even tell where he stands right now.

  Our team is broken, cracking at the seams. It’s only a matter of time now until we fall apart completely. I stare out the window, shaking from fear and cold. Maybe I should have just stayed in Kansas City; hidden away in a dark corner where no one would ever find me. Sure, others would have died, but people die every day, right?

  I cringe at my own thoughts, tasting bile in my throat.

  “Ryan,” Tobias says, his eyes lingering on the world outside.

  “Yeah?”

  “What do you know about the Kings Rick brought with him?”

  Ryan sighs. “Well, they aren’t exactly amateurs. All of them were recruited in before I was.”

  “We met one before,” I say, meeting Amy’s eyes in the rear view mirror. “At the gym.”

  “His name is Kevin,” Ryan says.

  “Yeah…” she sneers. “The douche that touched my boob.”

  “You did kind of start that,” I point out.

  “Whatever — I’m sure he’s a real great guy.”

  “Who are the others?” Tobias asks quickly before Ryan can respond to her tone.

  Ryan pulls his eyes away from Amy. “The little one in the hat was Frankie. He’s pretty much the very definition of a loose cannon.”

  “And the other?” I ask. “The one in the turtleneck.”

  “That…” His voice falls. “That was Owen and ironically… he’s my cousin.”

  “What?” Amy asks. The steering wheel slips from her fingers, but she quickly rights the car before swiping the truck in the right lane.

  “Yep,” he answers. “He trained me, so luckily, I have a pretty good idea of what to expect.”

  Amy’s jaw sags, dangling open as shock refuses to pass through her. I see her eyes flinching around behind her perfectly mascaraed lashes, full of apology and regret, but she doesn’t say it out loud.

  “Rick has to choose between the three of them for the tournament,” Tobias says. “We can assume Owen will be one of them. He’ll hope it’ll rattle you enough to drop your guard.”

  “Yeah, I’d do the same thing…” Ryan mutters.

  “Who else would you choose?” I ask him.

  “Kevin is all brawn,” he answers. “Frankie is very fast, and extremely unpredictable. Honestly, it could go either way.”

  “Then we prepare for both,” I say. “Good thinking on asking Rick to pick from the men he brought with him, Amy. It gave us some advantage.”

  “Yeah, well…” She keeps her eyes forward. “Sometimes I think just fine under pressure.”

  I catch Ryan glancing at her, his eyes glowing with the same apologetic light, but just l
ike Amy, he stays quiet and looks out the window.

  ***

  I step out of Amy’s car and look up into the pale, white sky as small snowflakes tap the bridge of my nose. Winter keeps inching closer, tormenting me with colder air with every passing day. Soon, this whole farm will be covered in a blanket of snow and ice. This used to be exciting to me. Winter meant hot chocolate and snow days and little, chewy marshmallows. Now, it frightens me to death.

  Tobias closes the car door and steps towards the barn. I watch him from my seat as flakes fall into his black hair, wondering what he’s thinking beneath it all. He slides the barn door closed behind him, a firm statement of solitude if there ever was one. I step outside the car and linger next to the driver’s side door.

  Amy rolls her window down a few inches. “We’ll be back to pick you guys up tomorrow,” she says. “I’ll check for hotels tonight — no sense in driving back every night before the tournament. You should pack a bag for a week.

  I nod, barely registering the words passing through my ears. “Yeah…”

  “See you later,” she says. Ryan issues me a small wave from the passenger’s seat before she rolls the window back up and the two of them drive off down the driveway.

  I follow Tobias’ fresh footprints and pull the barn door open.

  “Claire,” he says as I step inside. He sits on the ground with his back against the hay bales in the corner. “I could really just use a few minutes to myself here.”

  I look at him, remembering my first summer here. “The last time you sat there, you told me you just wanted me to sit with you for a while.” I slide the door closed behind me, refusing to leave.

  For a brief second, I can smell the air from that night; thick and warm. He sat there, covered in fresh bruises, blood, and sweat, and fought through his pain to kiss me for the first time.

  Tobias glances up at me and shakes his head. “That was a long time ago…”

  “Feels longer than it really is.” I cross my arms to block the chill.