PUSH: Ultra Alpha MMA Badboy Mafia Romance (Southside Brotherhood Book 2) Read online

  As Leonard had cut, his goon-twin prepared to stomp Flynn’s head into mashed potatoes with the heel of his boot.

  “Dad’s not happy. You must know that, but just in case you are in shock and not thinking clearly, I’ll remind you. What is your fascination with that girl? You’ve already gotten yourself kicked out of the house, disowned, no job, no money. No one in their right mind with any connection to our world will help you. All for a girl you have never even touched…or have you?”

  Gideon droned on, and Flynn detached from his half-brother’s snarky arrogant recounting of the state of his life.

  That girl? What the fuck does he know? You can’t explain blue and gold and green to a colorblind imbecile. All I fucking know is, I didn’t die last night, and now I have to figure out how to live. Jesus Christ, why didn’t she let me die? It seemed like a good idea at the time.

  I was one boot stomp away, and she called off the dogs. I still can’t believe they listened to her. That fuck kept his knife a half-inch in my chest muscle the entire time she negotiated for my life. If her fiancé weren't my dad, the twins would have finished me without hesitation.

  “You may never fight again. That fucker cut deep; you may not get your swing back. Then what? You have no family, no money, no friends and no career. Quite the American dream. Maybe you could run to Ireland, see if you can lick your wound back across the pond. Join the IRA. Chase Leprechauns and drown yourself in gallons of Guinness. I can hear you now at the pub, recounting your tale of woe and defeat by the new world that chewed you up and spat you right back where you belong. The bastard son of the great Colin Dunleavy, couldn’t keep his cock from getting him killed. It’s weak bro.”

  “Fuck off. What the fuck do you care? Tell Dad to fuck off, too.”

  “Tell him yourself.” Gideon smiled as Flynn winced.

  Flynn got to his feet with a deep breath. He caught a sidelong glance of himself in the mirror over the sink. The purple around his eye was just beginning to turn to shades of green. Half the white of his eye had exploded into a deep red that made him look like a half-turned zombie.

  Dark, dried burgundy tipped the ends of his brown hair and the three-day facial scruff that covered his hardened jaw line.

  Jesus, I could be an extra in the damn Walking Dead.

  Luckily, he’d worn black pants, so the soaked in blood along the front didn’t show. He didn’t have a shirt; they’d cut it off in the emergency room. His black leather jacket had luckily made it through in one piece. He did his best to wrangle his good arm into its sleeve and hitch the other side up over his other shoulder.

  “Fine, brother. I’ll let you be on your way. But, before you go—now that you are bright-eyed and focused—Dad has a message. You listening?” Gideon’s leaned forward to be sure Flynn was listening.

  I can’t fucking wait to hear this.

  “He says you have an appointment. Five o’clock today, O’Leary’s.”

  Shit. I may just die today after all.

  ***

  Gideon sat stone still grinning as Flynn pushed through the opening in the curtain and made his way through the moans and coughs that came from behind the other closed curtains of the emergency room. The antiseptic smell burned in Flynn’s nose as he headed toward the glowing red ‘EXIT’ sign at the end of a long hall.

  With low expectations, he reached into the inner pocket of his jacket.

  Well, what the hell did I do to deserve this good karma?

  His fingers wrapped around his wallet and phone, both intact and his wallet still filled with green.

  It won’t get me far, but it will get me the fuck away from here. Thank fuck for city hospitals, always some cab driver waiting around to drive some drunk fuck back to the row.

  “Belmont and Cass,” Flynn said as he dropped into the stale-smelling backseat.

  The driver putting the cab into gear was the only acknowledgment of Flynn’s existence and directions.

  He’d been ready to die. Willing in fact. Now, in the back of this shit-smelling cab, he couldn’t be sure where he stood on the whole living or dying decision.

  What he did know was the taste of her lips.

  Flynn leaned his head back, let his eyes go to half-mast and tried to remember every nuance of her flavor. Lilly's scent nearly drove him mad, and now he knew her taste. He couldn’t stop reliving the kiss, imagining the softness and the way she yielded when he nudged her with his tongue.

  The cab lurched to a stop in front of the Camden Arms, a classic Detroit public housing project left to fall into itself on the north end of the building after a fire from a homemade meth lab consumed nearly a third of the apartments.

  Sheets and towels covered the windows of the second-floor apartment where Mrs. Leonard stayed with her six grandchildren, the flicker of the perpetually lit television the only glow of light.

  “Six-fifty.” The driver didn’t even turn around as Flynn handed him a ten, slipped off the backseat held together by strips of duct tape and headed toward unit six, right under the never ending gymnastics of the seemingly sleepless gaggle of youth that lived above.

  The irony of moving here, behind the razor wire and quadruple dead bolts, was that Flynn felt safer than in the 11,000 square foot estate where his father had housed him in New American luxury for the last twenty-seven years. Despite his former home's security, fences, cameras and staff, this hovel of Detroit’s crumbling inner city still felt more secure.

  Inside unit six, Flynn flopped onto the drooping green sofa. He couldn’t stop staring at the crack that ran from the light switch up over the yellow ceiling and down to the plug behind the TV which he had never turned on.

  A deep throbbing came from his chest. The twelve shots of Lidocaine were wearing off, and Flynn was beginning to feel something again. The low burn quickly turned to branding pain every time he tried to lift his arm.

  He let out a groan and went from sitting to laying. The sad faded green couch doubled as his bed. The digital clock on top of the cardboard box next to the never-used TV flashed 5:15 am.

  So, twelve hours until I go see Topher. Twelve hours until I see if I get to live. And, now I want to. The second she took my kiss, I decided, and everything that came before changed. Now, I fucking need to figure out how to get to her without killing us both. Fuck. Six months ago, I didn’t feel anything. Six months ago, I accepted my shitty fate as their fighting-dog. Trained on the weak, chained and destined to earn them every dollar I could in the pit until I was of no more use. Then, she showed up. Now I’m completely fucked.

  Chapter Three

  The marbles inside Lilly’s head rolled around with vigor the next morning. The throbbing behind each eyeball more familiar that she cared to admit.

  I hate him. More than before.

  I counted the locks when they left.

  Click. Clunk. Click.

  The middle one is the original, the one I managed to unlock from the inside like MacGuyver. The next day they added two more.

  What did they expect? It’s my brain they want. Did they not expect me to use it for my own purposes now and then? Fucking stupid apes.

  Why do I hate him so much?

  Because.

  Before him, I’d never felt much of anything. Never dreamed I would love anyone or could expect any more from my life, which wasn’t much.

  Then, six months ago, he held his hand out and helped me up off the front steps of this dark palace.

  We both felt it, and every day since I understand what it is like to want. To feel—and I hate him for it.

  After the maids came and scrubbed the blood out of the ivory silk of the antique rug, Lilly had filled her crystal glass to the rim and had spent the next hour ingesting the magical liquid that would allow her a few hours of dreamless sleep.

  Now, the sun was up and the rhythm of the locks told her who was here.

  No surprise. The surprise was that he had waited this long to come. She wrapped her wanton curls into an even more wanton bun
on top of her head.

  He hates my hair this way. Time to smile and let the games begin.

  Black suit, white shirt, silk tie the color of money, hair straight off of Bela Lugosi’s Dracula and the soulless eyes of a shark.

  His demeanor felt more like a mortician than a fiancé checking on his future bride. The temperature in the room chilled as he stepped inside.

  Colin licked his lips and shoved his hands into his pockets as he stared out the window and kicked the door shut behind him. He hadn’t yet met her eyes; he looked like a man who had come into a room to be alone.

  His spicy cologne was overwhelming. Lilly’s stomach lurched already threatening to spasm in dry heaves, and his smell only added to the sick.

  “Do I not give you everything you need? Certainly more than you’ve ever had.” Colin spoke toward the window.

  “I don’t know what I need. Therefore, I cannot answer your question.” Lilly felt her heartbeat slow.

  She should feel fear, but she gave up that luxury long ago. It was an insufferable emotion. More useless than most.

  “You are ungrateful, Lilly.”

  “Am I?”

  “Yes. Don’t be a child. As you can imagine, I am in no mood.”

  A soft knock on the door and in walked Colin’s other offspring.

  “Hello, Gideon.” Lilly smiled sweetly, her words dripping with saccharine.

  “Quite a night?” Gideon rose another few inches above his father’s six feet. A younger version of what would be considered a stately, handsome man by most that didn’t understand what lay beneath.

  Gideon flashed his wicked smile and his father’s same dead-looking, black eyes toward Lilly.

  “Yes, it was. It’s turning into quite a morning. So exciting to have you both visit me so early. Surely you are both here to check on my wellbeing. To be certain I was not harmed or emotionally traumatized by the—”

  “Shut up.” Colin still spoke toward the window, as if looking at her was offensive. “Gideon, did you deliver the message?”

  “Yep. He’s all stitched up and back in that shit hole of an apartment.”

  “Were you scared to see him die?” Colin finally turned to look at the Lilly.

  Lilly smiled back. “Nothing scares me; you should know that.”

  “I don’t believe that. Everyone has a weakness, something they’re afraid of losing, and I think your something is my bastard son. Otherwise, why did you let him live?”

  “Because, he reminds me of you, my love. How could I let them kill your own son? I knew how devastated you would be.”

  “Wow. She’s itchin’ for a lesson in manners.” Gideon curled his lips in something close to a smile while his eyes lit from behind at the thought of what he hoped would be the start of a good pre-breakfast fireworks show.

  Lilly thought of luring them both onto the balcony in order to throw them into the pool two stories below.

  Eight months ago when her mother came to her with the news she'd be moving to a mansion in the United States, her matrimonial destiny sealed, even her nightmares had been better than this.

  Hit me. Please, just hit me, then you’ll leave me alone for a few days. It’s worth the pain to have some peace.

  The sound of a soft squeak coming from the bathroom where the breeze blew the leaded glass window with the hinge still hanging loose drew Lilly’s eyes.

  “Yes, of course,” Colin said. “Family is everything. However, Flynn does not seem to understand his precarious position in our family. I made it very clear to him the last time. Following rules is not one of his strengths. He always needed a heavier hand than his brother.”

  “I’m the good son.” Gideon flashed a contemptuous smile.

  “So, what do you want? I assume my duties today are the same as every day. Why don’t you guys move along and let me get dressed.”

  Her brain flailed against the gnawing worry. Where was Flynn? Was he all right? Was he, in fact, still alive?

  The vision of the knife cutting across the hard flesh of his chest etched into her memory like an old photograph. The blood had come immediately and in large quantity as Thing One stood on Flynn’s left arm with both feet while Thing Two slowly drew the knife across.

  The air in the room had turned to ice as Flynn took the pain in stoic silence, his eyes never leaving hers. Lilly had felt like someone was squeezing her heart in an iron grip, her gut filled with a swarm of buzzing, angry bees as she watched, knowing he was about to die right there on her bedroom floor.

  It’s his eyes. It’s always been his eyes. From the moment he looked down at me on the front steps, drowning in my own astonishment, it was his eyes I remember.

  “Lilly!”

  “What?” Her head snapped up to see Colin standing next to the bed.

  “Marriages like ours have existed since there was marriage. You should feel thankful you have something to offer, something that will bring our two families together.”

  Lilly drew one corner of her mouth to the side, curling her nose in the process.

  Colin loved telling her how lucky she was. It took a great deal of will not to roll her eyes, knowing that would get her a knock to the head.

  Give me a slap or a face shot any day, but I hate when he slams my head. That ache lasts all day.

  “As much as I appreciate the visit, can we please wrap this up?” Lilly needed a shower and a tall espresso to clear the Johnny Walker cobwebs.

  Looking from Colin to Gideon, Lilly realized that for most women, either of these male specimens would elicit a swoon-worthy response. They were tall and lean with classic, sophisticated features that would put them both in an Armani ad or on the cover of GQ even on their worst day.

  But, when she looked at them, she felt nothing. No natural instinct to mate with the powerful alpha. Their arrogance gained not by their worthy achievements but by endowment and oppression and cruelty.

  A stripe of clear morning sunshine stretched through the diamond beveled shapes on the windows, striking Colin’s just graying hair at the temple—impeccably trimmed around his ear and above the pressed collar of his shirt.

  Colin dropped his hand to twist a wayward curl from Lilly’s face with his manicured fingers. She could smell his cologne and the scent of turkish coffee, he was standing so close, his breath from above coming slow and steady.

  “Get dressed. The car will be downstairs in forty-five minutes. You are behind on your deadline. The code should have been in beta testing last week.”

  “I know but these things do not always follow your artificial timelines.” Lilly pushed his hand back from her face and lurched up and out of bed.

  She wore the white Irish lace and linen nightgowns her mother had made for her. Colin hated the provincial nature of something so homespun, but Lilly loved wearing them because they reminded her of Abigail.

  “Be careful.” Colin spoke toward Lilly as she brushed by. “Stay away from Flynn. I am not going to ask more about your involvement with my son, but I want to be sure you understand. You are to be my wife. I will not wed a whore.” He grabbed onto her arm as she moved toward the bathroom, leaning down to sear the words into her ear. “Trust me, my darling, if you are not a virgin on our wedding night, I will invite every Irish fuck I can find to have a go at you. Your mother was a whore and look what that got her.”

  Lilly wrenched her arm away. His fingertips twisting into the soft skin on the inside of her arm would most likely leave purple marks as they had so many times before.

  “I’ll volunteer,” Gideon added from the corner. “And, I’m a good Irish fuck. You’re a little generous in the ass for my taste, but I’ll still have a go.”

  “Well, this has been delightful.” Lilly gave them a bright, sweet smile.

  “See you downstairs in twenty minutes. You get 200 calories for breakfast.” Colin gave her a glance up and down, swallowing his disdain for her less-than bony frame. “And, I want that section of code finished today.”

  Colin nodd
ed to his younger look-a-like, and finally they were gone. Lilly looked around the room. She may as well have stepped into a royal country estate in Ireland. How could a room so beautiful house such sorrow?

  Such a waste. If Jane Austen had an evil twin, she would have written this little love story.

  Chapter Four

  O’Leary’s was a time capsule. Topher MacGuire held court there every day, including holidays, standing next to his father from the time that he was old enough to ride a bike.

  Since then, Topher had turned the back alley gambling and illegal alcohol business into a thriving empire. He was as brutal and ruthless as his father, yet held onto the old school ways of building relationships and staying entrenched in the old neighborhoods of Southwest Detroit.

  The bar had certainly seen its share of fights settled with one body being dragged out the back door. Topher had sat at the same table for going on forty years. The enormous mirror behind the bar reflected back the worn, carved wooden booths and neon Guinness sign.

  Leonard, who’d stood behind the bar from the beginning of Topher's reign, was as much a fixture as the .45 Magnum under the counter by the register. His starched white shirt and black bow tie were as ever present as the cigarette that dangled from the corner of his mouth. His rolled-up sleeves showed off a tuft of the dark hair on his arms.

  Flynn shook off the drops of early fall rain from his hair as he made his way down the back hall with its flickering, buzzing fluorescent light. He walked toward the clinking of glasses and voices talking of remember-whens and guess-what’s.

  As Flynn rounded the corner, Topher raised his head and gave him a half-smile, showing off the brownish-yellow teeth behind his swollen lips. His half-full bottle of Chianti sat in its place at the right corner of the four seat table with his worn brown leather ledger open in front of him.

  “You’re early. Must be anxious to get started.” Topher waved his hand toward the chair next to him, and Flynn took his place in silent resignation.