“Alpha,” the dangerous man said from his side, cracking his knuckles. “You shouldn’t have entered the tournament this time, not with me in the ring.”
Alpha had definitely avoided that. Adrik was probably the only man who could seize his advantage over Alpha in the ring even though he was leaner and a few inches shorter. He was another boy of the streets, much harsher streets in his homeland, and he’d grown up as a force to be reckoned with when he got in the ring.
Alpha stayed silent.
Adrik twisted the ring on his left hand, keeping his eyes forward. “I don’t want to kill you, Villanova. And I’m not ready to die. There are things I need to do. Debts I must… settle.”
Alpha’s focus sharpened on the man. He’d have to get more research done on the man. The file he had was old—he had files on everyone he considered important enough in the underworld—and clearly, there had been some changes from then to now.
Alpha kept his tone deliberately light. “My wife wouldn’t like it if I let you touch me. She’s possessive.”
Adrik chuckled, bringing up his bottle of water to his mouth. “You’re lucky. Mine would slice me open the first chance she could.”
Interesting. Very interesting.
“So neither of us is dying,” Adrik declared. “Think about how we do that without throwing our names in the mud. Think about it.”
With that, he went back to the building, leaving Alpha mulling over his words. He was right. There had to be some way they could throw the fight without throwing their reputations.
As he thought, a silver cab pulled into the parking lot, his sister-in-law emerging from the back. He was truly surprised at how the sisters had gone living in the city without any personal mode of transportation. Zephyr, he knew, just didn’t know how to drive, mainly because she’d not shut up about how much she feared driving one night when Hector had almost hit a car from the side. Zenith, he didn’t know about.
The beautiful young woman came to him, her face serious as she rummaged in her bag, taking the envelope out.
“Read it for me please,” he requested, saw her dark eyes go to his eye patch before understanding dawned. Smart girl.
She ripped the flap of the envelope and took the notecard out, exactly like the ones he’d been getting.
“It’s time we meet,” Zenith read out loud verbatim from the note. “Consider this a courtesy. If you want the truth, midnight at Old Town Pier. Come alone. I won’t contact you again.”
Alpha knew exactly which location this was. Right next to the river, old, abandoned, a place no one went to since a small flood had destroyed it years ago.
It could be a trap. For all he knew, the killer was the one sending him the notes, wanting to lure him to the location. But his gut told him something else. His gut knew it was the one man he’d never been able to get a file on, because the man was a myth, and he existed in the very shadows he was named after.
Taking the note from Zenith, knowing he couldn’t drive himself but couldn’t take his men, he looked at his sister-in-law. “Can you drive?”
Zenith blinked in surprise, taken aback by his request. “Um. Yes.”
He nodded. “Good. I’ll need you to drive me to the location.”
She looked at her wristwatch. “It’ll take two hours with the traffic to get there. It’s on the other end of the city.”
Then he’d have a while to scope out the place. “Come to the compound. We’ll leave after dinner.”
He had his substitute driver take them to the compound, too many things going on in his head, questions he’d been putting off coming up. Yesterday, he’d had a visit from the homicide department at Trident, interrogating him about the whereabouts he’d been at the time of the murders and why someone would want to frame him. His alibis had been solid for most of them and the cops had been on his payroll, but it definitely irked him that some asshole was running about in his city not only targeting and hunting the very people he protected but also framing him systematically for it.
Zephyr greeted them on the deck, giving her wide-eyed sister a tour of the place while he showered and set the table for their meal, the dogs sitting around the kitchen—Baron ignoring everyone as he always did, Bear, like the sucker he’d become, looking at Zephyr like she hung the moon, and Bandit chewing on a new bra he’d stolen from her closet, this one a blue that matched her new hair.
He’d always liked her hair, wavy and long enough for him to wrap his hand around twice, little fringes that made her look adorable when she smiled, which was almost all the time. But he’d noticed her smiles weren’t all the same. Sometimes, she smiled at people out of politeness even when she didn’t want to because she was sweet like that, completely unlike him who had forgotten what a smile felt like until she poked the beast inside him. Sometimes, she smiled when she cried, and she cried a fucking lot much to his consternation, and those smiles always made her mouth quiver in ways he wanted to steady it with his lips. Sometimes, her smile was wicked and naughty, the green in her eyes popping more than the brown, the dimple in her cheek deep, and getting that smile made him want to turn her and smack her ass.
And then she smiled the soft smile, the one that was his favorite, the one that knocked him in his chest because of how tender it was. Gentleness was not something Alpha had been familiar with in a very long time. His life had been brutal and ugly and monstrous, all rough edges and bleeding wounds and selfish interests, and she, she was all softness and light and generosity. Her very existence was proof enough that there was good in the world, that beyond the pain and the hurt and the darkness, joy existed in the form of a small woman.
Even though he didn’t like that she’d changed her hair to a ‘sad’ blue, as she’d called it. He hoped she changed it again because seeing the strands just made him remember how he’d almost lost her to his stubbornness.
They wrapped up dinner, Zephyr and Zenith mostly chatting, telling him about their childhood and various antics from their younger age. For the first time, sitting with the two women as they argued in jest, surrounded by good food and his bois, Alpha felt a sense of family wash over him. He’d wanted it for such a long time deep down and eventually began to believe he would never have it. In the beginning, it had been the fact that he didn’t have to eat alone, that he could share a meal with someone. It had been sitting on his big couch with her presence by his side and watching something with her warmth pressed against him. It had been just coming back home and being greeted not just by his bois but by her genuine joy at seeing him. Little by little, she’d shifted things in his life, minuscule bit by minuscule bit, in a way he’d not even been aware of it happening until it had stopped. And now she was a part of his lifeblood, vital to his functioning.
He never wanted to tell her, but the best thing she could have done for them and their relationship had been to leave. It had shaken him up enough to make him open his eye and realize a life with her was something he wanted, a future with her was something he craved.
It was extraordinary the little things she kept adding to his life.