Page 83

I paused. “Match fixing?”
Gino shrugged his slim shoulders. “You call it match fixing; I call it you had a bad day. It happens. No one can win forever, right? So maybe you just don’t win on a night where we have a lot of bets for you as the favorite.”
I shook my head. “That doesn’t sit well with me.”
“You’d get fifty percent of the profit. If we build you up enough over the first two matches, it should be a nice lump sum. I heard your truck is off the road.”
“Yeah. It is.”
“How you gonna get to your new job without a ride?”
“I’ll fix it.” Eventually. When I could afford the new parts the damn thing needed.
“Or you can throw one match and just buy a whole new truck. No one has to know. Stop being so straight.”
I practically laughed in his face at that. I’d been kissing a guy in an elevator just hours earlier. Nothing very straight about that.
But Gino’s face remained serious. “We have guys throw them all the time. Everyone does it.”
I didn’t doubt that. Saint View wasn’t exactly known for its morals. “Doesn’t make it right.”
Gino sighed. “Fine. Think about it? At least come in and fight the next two weekends, okay? You’ll kick ass. We can discuss the third one after that.”
I eyed him. “You paying an appearance fee?”
Gino snorted. “Nope.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. I’ll just come fight for fun. But it’s a no on the match fixing. Okay?”
Gino backed off, his hands up. “Fine. Fine. You’re a good boy. I got it.”
I sighed, thinking about my damn truck in pieces on the driveway and having to ask Vaughn to be my taxi because I couldn’t even afford one. Rebel had called me good too.
That was me. Always the good guy.
Being good sucked about as much as being broke.
22
FANG
The clubhouse buzzed with a nervous sort of anticipation. War, and Hawk, our VP, were locked away in church. Not the holy kind. The kind where my brothers and I gathered around a table to discuss club business. The rest of us hadn’t been invited in, and I seemed to be the only one okay with that.
Aloha folded his arms across his broad chest and glared at the door that hadn’t opened in hours. “What the hell do you think they’re even talking about all this time? They’ve been in there forever.”
Ratchet, one of our new prospects, sniggered around his beer. “Maybe they ain’t talking. If you know what I mean.”
Aloha raised an eyebrow at the cocky young shit who’d been hanging around for weeks. “I don’t know what you mean at all. Why don’t you tell us?”
Ratchet thrust his hips a couple of times. “You know. I heard Prez ain’t fussy about who he takes into his bed. Women. Men. Whatever.”
I was instantly defensive over War. Bliss too.
War once said it was his duty to look after Rebel because she was Bliss’s best friend. That they were a package deal. If that were true, and Rebel was mine, I needed to watch out for her bestie too.
I glared at the new prospect. I didn’t even need to say anything.
His smile faltered, then fell away completely.