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Yanking my elbow out of his grasp, I tug my coat into place. “Don’t touch me.” I give him a cold stare.
He rears back, annoyance and hurt flash in his hazel depths. “Kim.”
“I’m serious. Hands off.”
Finn rounds the car, and his attention shifts between our two tense postures. He lets out a short bark of laughter. “Yeah, this is gonna be a lot of fun.” Squaring his shoulders, he nods to the other guards we brought from another car.
We travel in a minipack now that we’ve attacked the Zhangs. Lorcan, Finn, and I are in the middle. Makes me wonder whether Lorcan’s out-in-front stance when I first started was another facade he wore. Maybe he and Finn are more alike than I want to believe.
Distance. I need distance. I can’t keep sinking into this life. We all have a role to play, and mine is to take them down and stop them from ripping each other apart. It isn’t to get swept away by either of them.
As we’re led to our seats, stale sweat, the sharp tang of fresh blood, and the overwhelming stench of too much cologne causes my stomach to roll. There are too many smells at once. The warehouse is packed with people dressed in a range of clothes from the very expensive and glamorous to something more akin to my yoga outfits as Lorcan likes to call them.
A burly man leads us to a group of three seats in the second row, close to the aisle and central to the action. Carys often surprises me with the people she knows and the things she can do. Rage-filled music is being pumped through the speakers, which is probably supposed to get the crowd in the mood for the bloody fists flying. As we file in, I realize I’ll be stuck between Lorcan and Finn. There’s no way I’m sitting next to Lorcan for the whole match.
Before I enter the aisle, I hesitate. “I’m going to the bathroom. I’ll be back in a minute.”
“They’re over—” Finn tries to point.
“I know where they are.” Moving past him, I head for the hallway as other people mill around me, taking seats, getting drinks, and placing bets.
I locate the accessible bathroom again, somewhat surprised there isn’t a line up this near to the match. Once I’m finished, I open the door.
“The everything woman in my establishment, using my facilities. Whatcha doin’ here?” Derry’s dark gaze bores into me as he comes forward from his relaxed pose against the opposite wall.
His position forces me to either retreat into the bathroom or stand my ground. I’m not a fan of retreating. I clasp the edge of the still-open door. My free hand skims my side to where I concealed a small tactical knife in case I ran into trouble tonight.
“The fight.” I tip my head in the direction of the action.
With a shove, Derry propels me into the bathroom. The suddenness catches me off guard. I stumble as he rushes in behind me. My fingers scrabble for the blade. Before I can latch onto it, his hand is around my neck, forcing me backward against the wall. My fingertips graze the hole in my pants where the knife is lodged, but I can’t quite get it in this position.
“Did you know they were fucking with me? They never intended to do a deal.”
“No.” The word is pushed out as I calculate my odds and options of getting out of here in one piece without having to kill him. I could do it. The grip on my chin isn’t strong, but it’s still spiked my heart rate.
“Why are you here?”
“I wanted to see a fight.”
His hold lessens when he comes closer to my face, his lips inches from my ear. In another man, it might even be a turn-on, but he smells like garlic and cheap cologne. “You’re one of those women. You get hot and bothered by a bit of violence.”
Am I one of those women? Maybe. But his brand of violence isn’t the least bit seductive. I swallow and then smirk. “If I was hot and bothered about violence, you’d be on the floor right now.”
He takes it the wrong way and presses his bulky body closer. Derry eases off enough on my neck my index finger manages to get purchase on the handle of the knife. I pull until it’s almost in my palm.
“You know, the O’Malleys and Donagheys had a good relationship for years. Mutually beneficial. Then Finn had to find out about how his momma was done in, and it went to shit.”
“Loose lips sink ships.” Another piece of the puzzle.
“And fucking paper trails.” Derry’s lips graze my earlobe, and a shiver of revulsion goes through me. Again, because he’s a clueless wonder who’s had too many women with no choice but to say yes, he takes my shiver as excitement. “You like that?” he murmurs.
“Not even a little bit. Your garlic and cologne combination isn’t working for me.” I push the knife up my sleeve and try a less violent approach to getting free. In one sharp movement, I latch my hands onto his shoulders and slam my knee into his groin with as much force as I can muster.
He stumbles, cupping himself, groaning through clenched teeth, “You’re gonna regret that.”
With a flick of my wrist, the knife pops out into my hand. “Unless you’re packing, I doubt it. You don’t touch a woman who doesn’t want to be touched. It’s a lesson I hear you’ve yet to learn.”
“It ain’t gonna be a woman who teaches it to me.”