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“Ignoring my better judgement,” I told him sourly, gesturing to the bored-looking bartender to indicate that I’d pay for the beer she’d just slid across the sticky wood of the bar top.
“Thanks, asshole,” Mouse said, picking up the sweat-beaded Heineken and saluting me with it. He threw it back, chugging; then wiped a dirty sleeve across his mouth. “Seriously, though. What the hell are you doing back here? You look good—love the threads, by the way. Only you also kind of look like shit. You in trouble or something?”
Only the kind I voluntarily signed up for, because apparently, I’m an idiot,I thought.
“Nah,” I said aloud. “I just need to know where the fights are being held this week. I’m out of the loop, and I figured you’d be the easiest person to ask.”
Mouse’s expression turned cagey. He took another swig from the beer, like he was playing for time.
“Problem?” I asked, dialing up the alpha bristling and letting a hint of bark creep into the word.
Mouse was a beta, so it wasn’t the kind of power move it might’ve been with an omega. He still flinched, though—well used to dealing with unpredictable alphas and their tempers.
“Nah, man. There’s no problem. Only... what do you want with the fights, anyway? You’d do better to steer clear of all that shit.”
Believe me, I’d love to, I wanted to tell him.
Instead, I gave a careless shrug. “What can I say? I like betting on cage matches. Made some good money a few weeks back when they were set up at the old meat packing plant in National City. I wouldn’t mind making some more.”
Zalen had pulled the details of Emiel’s last fight-related fiasco out of Luca, and apparently that bit of inside information was enough to soothe Mouse’s worries that I was a mole for the cops or whatever the hell. His shoulders relaxed from where they’d been hunched up around his ears.
“Oh,” he muttered. “Well, as long as you know what you’re getting into, I guess.” He swirled the dregs of his beer around the bottom of the bottle. “I heard they’re in the old Spivey Building for now. Just watch yourself, okay, Goldie?”
The old nickname made the scar in my side itch, but I just nodded. “Thanks, man. Here, have another one on me. And take care of yourself, yeah? You can’t keep swindling people at pool forever.”
“Just watch me,” Mouse muttered, hunching in on himself once more.
The Spivey Building was just east of Eads Bridge, barely a few blocks off the Interstate. I didn’t even know what it had been used for, back in the day—but it had been abandoned for decades.
The area around it wasn’t completely derelict. A few lonely offices clung to the neighborhood, probably because they couldn’t afford to move anyplace better. Those stubborn accountants and payroll processors clearly knew enough not to stick around after dark, though... and I couldn’t really blame them.
“You bring me to all the nicest places, Z,” I groused, as Zalen cautiously pulled his SUV into an overgrown lot full of cars about half a block from the center of the action.
“You should’ve come to Mia’s restaurant with us when we were wooing those investors a few weeks back,” he said. “I can do ‘classy,’ you know.”
In his defense, Mister Ex-New York City Stockbroker probablycoulddo classy. I still wondered sometimes what had possessed him to throw it all away in favor of returning to his crumbling hometown and opening a youth center. His omega mate had died shortly before he moved back here—I knew that much, at least. But I was pretty sure there was more to it.
“Fine,” I told him. “You owe me a nice lunch somewhere expensive, in that case.”
Zalen grunted what was probably meant as an acknowledgment and turned off the engine. “You see Emiel’s Bronco anywhere?” he asked.
I felt like total crap, I was half asleep where I sat, and my dick ached from knotting two omegas for four-and-a-half days straight. I swallowed a sigh and craned around, looking for an old gray Ford among the forest of black SUVs, aging BMWs with rims worth more than the cars they were attached to, and modified Japanese hatchbacks.
“It’s dark, Zalen. I can’t see for shit with the headlights off. Besides, if he’s been here for days, he probably got towed already.” Barely two minutes in, and my patience for both this trip and the alpha who’d necessitated it was nearly nonexistent.
“We don’t know that he’s been staying here the whole time,” Zalen said uncertainly. “He’s probably got a hotel room somewhere.”
It was my turn to grunt.
“Yeah, whatever.” I opened the passenger door and stepped out of the silver SUV, slamming it behind me.
God, I hated this gang shitso much. There was nothing like a bunch of alphas beating the crap out of each other for money, in a place where there were no pesky rules about not actually killing your opponent.
And just like that, the echo of remembered gunfire sent a chill of gooseflesh down my back. For all I knew, the asshole who’d put a bullet in me when I was a teenager might be strolling around the place, laughing with his homies and putting money on the next fight.
Assuming, of course, that he’d managed to stay alive this long. Late twenties was old for a gangbanger.
“Let’s look for him inside,” Zalen said grimly, coming around to stand next to me.