Salvation (4 page)

They didn’t have to have sex. They could fake it. But they weren’t going to have to, and that both thrilled and scared her.

“Why does Keller want you pissed off?” she asked finally, once they broke apart again.

He sighed as he let her down gently. “I’ve got to fight tonight.”

“Fight? We’ve got to get out of here.” Even as she said it, she hadn’t fully understood that that’s exactly what her plan had been—swoop in and bring Bishop home. How she could manage that without risking Defiance wasn’t something she cared to think about. Step one was simply rescue Bishop.

Bishop shook his head sadly. “That’s not happening, Luna.”

Step one had turned into
imprison them both
. “Fine. You want to stay here and slowly kill yourself, go for it. I’m not.”

Although she had both feet on the ground, he hadn’t let go of her, and his grip was ironclad, one she didn’t bother struggling against. “You don’t get it, babe. There’s no leaving now. Not for either of us.”

“What are you talking about? Now that Keller knows we’re together...”

“Yeah, now that he knows,” he repeated. “Think he won’t use you against me?”

That reality sank in, fast enough to make her dizzy. What had she done? She knew as well as anyone who’d grown up in this MC culture exactly what it entailed, what the men who ran it were capable of. Keller was mafia, an entirely different breed but there was no mistaking the similarities, the ruthless violence, the grab for power...the refusal to see women as anything but fucktoys.

She drew in a shaky breath and straightened her shoulders. “How much longer?”

“I doubled the money. Keller doubled it. It was the only way he’d let Mathias go, and the only way he’d keep supplying Defiance.”

“He changed the terms? How can he do that?”

“It’s cute that shit like that still surprises you, babe.” He smiled without any humor. “We’re here until the debt’s all paid. Eight more months of doing Keller’s bidding.”

“And I’m just supposed to live here with you.”

“That’s pretty much the arrangement Keller was talking about. Unless you’d rather spend the time in the jail cell?”

“Uh, no thanks.”

“Did you really not tell anyone you were coming?”

“No.”

He sighed. “We’re going to talk about that shit more, Luna. What the fuck were you thinking, making this trip alone? Goddamn lucky you’re still alive.” Then he knocked on the window and told the guard who stuck his head in, “Let Keller know I need to make a call.”

“You know the rules,” the guard told him.

“Fine,” he said through gritted teeth, knowing Keller would make him pay for all of this at tonight’s fight and beyond. Keller would allow the call in order to get more from Bishop, because Keller didn’t believe in something for nothing.

Then again, neither did Bishop.

“There are rules about phone calls?” she asked.

“Yeah. None allowed. Or do you think I was just totally avoiding Defiance all these months.”

“I thought you were an exception.”

“There’s nothing like that here.”

“Seems like you’re on your way to being one,” she said, thinking back to what those women murmured when she’d told the guard who she was here to see.

He snorted. “You jealous, babe?”

“Would it matter if I was?”

“Hell of a lot.” His eyes blazed but before they could continue, the guard was motioning for Bishop to come with him. “Can you stay out of trouble for like ten minutes?”

“I’ll do my very best,” she told him dryly.

He rolled his eyes at her and left, muttering to himself.

Chapter Four

Luna tasted sweet and hot, like she didn’t belong anywhere on this godforsaken earth. But she was
here
and all the bitching and moaning in the world about how she’d put herself in danger and shouldn’t be here wouldn’t change that. He’d never been much into that anyway—complaints had been drilled out of him at a very early age and even once he was on safer ground with Mathias’s family, the resolve to make a change instead of complaining had become a part of who he was.

Maybe he would’ve been like that anyway. He believed in a higher power, believed that it let him make his own mistakes, but also put him on the right path to meet the people he needed to meet.

Pete—the same guard who’d won a shitload of money betting on Bishop in all his fights—dialed the number and handed Bishop the ringing phone. In the small room with Pete and the windows that looked out onto the entire floor of cells, Bishop waited for Defiance to answer his call.

It was Hammer who first picked up, and Bishop didn’t waste time. “It’s Bishop. Need Caspar—can’t stay on the line long.”

Hammer yelled for Caspar, right in his goddamned ear. “You didn’t have to make me deaf, man.”

“Sorry, Bishop. How are you?”

“It’s like Club Med over here,” he said, and in a way he wasn’t even lying. “I’m fine, Hammer. Tell Mathias I’m fine, okay?”

“He’s fucked with worry. Here’s Caspar.”

Bishop didn’t want to know Mathias was fucked with worry. He’d already
known
, but knowing and hearing for sure were two different things.

“Bishop, the fuck?” Caspar growled.

“It’s cool, Caspar. Just had a visitor. I figured my old lady wouldn’t hold out the whole time. So she’s here with me. Keller invited her to stay.”

“Your old lady?” Caspar paused and Bishop heard Tru in the background. “You’re shittin’ me? Luna’s with you?”

“Right. So she’ll hang.”

“He won’t let her go. Fuck.” Caspar’s question didn’t need an answer. He knew the deal. “Need intervention?”

“Definitely not. It’s cool.”

Caspar sighed. “For you maybe. Tru’s gonna kill me.”

“Like Luna’s not going to be the fucking death of me?” That was the truth, and also not odd for Pete to be hearing. Times might change, but women driving men crazy would be around until the end of time.

“Enjoy the ride, brother. Your cut’s ready for you as soon as you get back,” Caspar told him.

“Thanks.” He hung up, looked at Pete, who smirked and said, “Women.”

“Tell me about it,” Bishop muttered. “Better take me to my ball and chain.”

Pete obliged. As they approached the room he’d left Luna in, Bishop saw she had a visitor, a woman named Jessie, who was asking, “You’re here for Bishop? Did you know him from home?”

He hung back with Pete and heard Luna say, “From Defiance.”

Which was true, because Luna didn’t know what he considered home. Hell, neither did he.

Jessie was saying, “He’s won every fight. No matter how big or mean his opponents are. Last week, he fought six times in a row. And the last was two-on-one. Afterward, he wasn’t tired at all, if you know what I mean?”

Pete snickered, Bishop groaned internally because yeah, of course Luna knew.

“I promised Bishop I’d be good for ten minutes. But if he’s not back in thirty seconds, I’m punching your teeth down your throat.”

Pete whistled under his breath and Bishop cleared his throat. Jessie turned around and truth be told, even though she put on a good front, she was a little pale from Luna’s last words.

“Heard she’s your old lady,” Jessie said.

He smiled. “Word travels fast.”

“You don’t seem the type.”

He shrugged. “She didn’t realize she wanted me until I was gone.”

“Isn’t that always the way,” Jessie told him. “Good luck with her. She was ready to punch me if you didn’t come back when you did.”

He looked past her at Luna, who simply shrugged and smiled sweetly.

Yeah, she’d do just fine here. Whether he’d survive or not remained to be seen.

Chapter Five

There was no time for Luna to get her bearings. One minute, they were in the underground jail cells and the next, they were out in the open-aired semi-darkness, and firmly inside Keller’s compound gates.

It was crowded. Within minutes of starting to walk away from the tunnel’s entrance, spotlights began to illuminate the area, showering the crowds with light. She looked around as people began to cheer and realized it looked a lot like the amusement parks of old. There was even a giant Ferris wheel in one corner.

“I’m late—let’s move,” Bishop told her. He grasped her hand in his and he led, parting the crowds so all she had to do was keep up with him, which was no easy task.

She hadn’t wanted to see him fight. Now, she was going to be doing so for the next eight months. For her, the fights were the worst parts of Defiance, although the parties afterward were what gave her comfort that some things could remain normal.

“Who do you fight?”

“Champions brought in from some of the other mafia families. Occasionally, some MC guys repped by those mafias.”

“Is Keller friendly with any of the MCs?”

“He considers Defiance his best asset. Otherwise, he doesn’t trust the MCs as far as he can throw them,” Bishop told her. “I can’t blame him. There aren’t many people you can, or should, trust these days. But you can trust me, and you need to. You have to stick with me, Luna. Close by, all times, unless there’s a Keller guard with you.”

“I’m a target because I’m Defiance?”

“Because you’re here for me,” he clarified. “At least from an outsider’s point of view.”

“So you’re a champion. They want to bring you down.”

“Right. It’s in Keller’s best interest to protect me, to keep me happy and healthy and well fed.”

And well fucked
, she wanted to add. But she bit it back. She couldn’t change what had happened when she wasn’t here.

After pushing through for about ten minutes, they ended up inside a large, warehouse-like building. They’d avoided the long line by going in the back entrance, which she guessed was where the fighters entered.

Inside a semi-private locker room, she sat on a bench while he opened a locker with the help of a guard, who had a special key.

When the guard left, Luna asked Bishop, “How often do you fight?”

Bishop had started to strip down in front of her, and she didn’t think he was going to answer her. He seemed to be distracted, and she definitely was once he was out of his clothes.

Before he pulled on his jockstrap, cup and shorts, he seemed to pause, as if knowing she was watching, and she got an eyeful of a large, jutting cock, cut abs and a broadly muscled chest.

Finally, he pulled the shorts up, didn’t bother with a shirt or shoes. He did, however, quickly tape his hands and put in a mouth guard for a quick moment, like he was testing the fit. They didn’t have regular dentistry, so anything to protect their teeth, they did. Even Defiance had begun to institute those rules after a few of the guys had lost their teeth and had to go hours away to find a dentist.

And he still hadn’t answered her. Instead, he motioned for her to follow him, which she did. The floor under her feet felt as if it was shaking, and she heard the applause. The clapping was in sync, a slow, hypnotic beat that summoned Bishop closer to the main arena.

When they pushed out, the crowd began to cheer. Again, Bishop didn’t seem to even register it. He headed right to the edge of the ring and pointed to a spot for her to stand. Several bodyguards closed in behind her, ensuring none of the crowd could get close to her.

She surveyed the sheer amount of people crammed inside of this place and realized no, she definitely wasn’t in Defiance any longer. The man in the ring who Bishop was set to fight was giant, and Bishop was no slouch in that department himself.

She tore her gaze from the crowd, because Bishop was now standing directly in front of her.

“The bigger they are,” he told her, like he was reading her mind. “You don’t have to watch. I can have the guys take you back to the locker room to wait.”

“No. I’m waiting here for you,” she said firmly.

He nodded, like he approved. Gave her the smallest hint of a smile, his eyes a glint of slate against the gray backdrop of the room before turning toward the ref and his opponent.

The ref was speaking to the men, maybe telling them the rules—she couldn’t hear—and suddenly, Keller was standing next to her. And that’s when she realized that not only was Bishop fighting that giant man, but it was also two against one, as another man stepped into the ring to face off against Bishop as well.

She turned to Keller. “Two against one? Are you punishing him for my arrival?”

Keller kept his gaze on the men in the ring. “You did break the rules. I made it clear that Bishop wasn’t supposed to have any visitors from Defiance here.”

“Don’t blame him for my indiscretion.”

“Obviously, I’ll do whatever I’d like on my compound.”

“Why should it be any different than Defiance?” she muttered and to her surprise, Keller laughed.

“Ah, Luna, it’s so much different here than Defiance. You just haven’t opened your eyes enough to believe it.” Keller pointed to the ring. “Bishop enjoys this.”

She wanted to argue, but she couldn’t. Not on that fact. “You can enjoy something that’s not good for you.”

“He’s happy you’re here, Luna. This will be good for him.”

Whether this meant her being here at the compound or at the fight, she didn’t know, and she didn’t have time to worry because the fighting began in earnest.

The energy was very much the same as it was during Defiance fights, but amped up a thousand times more. There was open betting happening right in front of her. There were women, barely dressed, hanging over the ropes. There were bouncers and bodyguards, and she was happy that she was up on the platform, because the crowd looked crushing. Even with a bit of space between them, she was suffocating, but she swallowed her fear to focus on Bishop. This fight was her fault—everything that happened to him in Keller’s space would be her fault.

He’d taken on Mathias’s cross and now hers.

Before the men were called together again, Bishop turned to face her, leaning on the ropes, smiling lazily. If she didn’t know better, she’d say he was drunk or high, but she knew he didn’t use any of those substances. He took her chin in his hand and drew her face close. Kissed her, gentle at first, then harder, pulling back with a quick nip at her lower lip.

“Kick their asses,” she told him.

“For you, babe, sure.”

* * *

Bishop lunged for the bigger of the two men. While the shorter man gave him several good punches to his ribs, Bishop concentrated all his energies on the giant in front of him. A punch to the big man’s solar plexus rendered him useless for several minutes, and Bishop took that opportunity to fuck up his face as much as he could before delivering a last stunning blow to the side of his head. Before the larger man hit the mat, Bishop turned on the guy who was trying to get on his back, like some kind of spider monkey on crack, and slammed him against the ropes.

The guy went backward and then came flying toward Bishop, unable to stop himself. Bishop head-butted him and stared at him for the two seconds the guy remained standing, a dazed look in his eyes before he surrendered to the inevitable unconsciousness.

And that’s when a third man climbed into the ring. No one stopped him even though the bouncers were supposed to. That was the rule—the fights were laid out in advance. There were never surprises like this.

The surprise was a member of the LoV MC—and he was gunning for Bishop. Bishop hadn’t even known he’d been fighting an LoV member—Keller kept them away from him because of the bad blood between their MCs.

There weren’t many LoV that hung around here, but enough to keep Bishop on high alert. Just like he was now.

“My fucking brother,” the LoV howled, pointing to the unconscious man on the ground. He pulled out a knife and circled Bishop, both of them stepping over the bodies of the prone men on the ground.

The crowd roared at this turn of events. As much as they liked it when Bishop won, they also liked this added competition, the pissed-off look on Bishop’s face...and the smile on Keller’s.

So it wasn’t planned, but it worked to Keller’s advantage—it would show the compound what happened to people who didn’t follow the rules.

Bishop let the LoV circle him, swiping the knife back and forth, waiting for Bishop to jump away. But Bishop stood his ground, never taking his eyes from the man’s. And that made the guy falter a little, because he was probably thinking, “Who doesn’t get scared of a knife being shoved at him?”

Bishop guessed he didn’t. And he was also tired and bored and wanted to get the hell out of there. He moved forward, grabbed the LoV’s wrist and disarmed him. He glanced at Keller, who nodded mildly, before driving the knife cleanly through the man’s carotid. The crowd gasped, then screamed...and then the motherfuckers started to clap, like this was some kind of amazing event. Like Bishop hadn’t just killed an MC man for approaching him in the ring unauthorized.

Like Keller hadn’t orchestrated the whole fucking thing as a test of Bishop’s loyalty.

Bishop forced himself to pass, every single time. Accepted his fate as gracefully as he could, even as he wiped the blood from his hands.

The ref called the fight in Bishop’s favor, raised his arm above his head for several seconds as the crowd cheered. People won a lot of money because of Bishop, so they were more than happy to be happy for him.

Until several more LoV members jumped into the ring. The crowd screamed—Bishop barely had time to look toward Keller for approval to take out these assholes before the riots began.

But Keller shook his head no. That meant, fight them off but no more killing. And so he did. In the background, he heard shots fired to the ceiling. He was pretty sure there’d be tear gas set off at any moment if the warning shots didn’t work to calm people the fuck down.

He’d forced himself to forget that Luna was standing there, watching everything. Best that she saw what she was in for, right from the start. And once the guards jumped into the ring and yanked the LoV away, bloodied and bruised from their time with Bishop, the ref held Bishop there.

He looked into the crowd and saw more of the guards rounding up LoV members. There were more of them here tonight than Bishop was used to seeing at a fight. What the fuck was going on?

When the crowds calmed, the ref finally cleared him to leave and Bishop ducked through the ropes and walked past Luna, who’d been safe and sound the entire time, surrounded by three burly guards with guns who faced outward, trapping her in a prison for her own safety.

As Bishop went by her, she reached through the men and grabbed for his arm. Stared at him as he stared through her. Finally, the guards moved away and she said, “Bishop...”

God, he hated that she saw that. But he didn’t jerk his arm away, just let her hold him and he continued walking. She had no choice but to hang on or she’d be swallowed up by the crowd that seemed intent on following him.

And she wasn’t being deterred, calling, “Bishop,” until he finally turned and asked, “What?” and waited for her inevitable reproach.

Instead, she put her hands gently on either side of his face and she kissed him. For a second, he froze, and then he eased against her, his body seeking the comfort of hers.