Chapter 1
“Fuck!” Kyce shouts, shaking his hands. “I said spar, you asshole.”
He’s always been a little bitch. Baby brother or not, I’m not going to cut him a break. I never have and I’m not about to start now. Standing at a whopping five feet eleven and weighing in at a sparse hundred and sixty-five pounds, the little shit has always been eager to wrangle with me. When he was old enough for me to put him in a headlock and torture the ever-living shit out of him, it became his life goal to beat me fair and square.
What are brothers for?
Mom used to get so pissed when he came home busted up, bloodied, and bruised. He did his best to conceal the fact it was me, always blaming someone else, but Mom could see through his lies. She never understood it was his fault. You just can’t run with the big dogs without any repercussions. Hell, I went through the same torment with Jackson, trying to show my worth. Jackson was a shit and taught me how to be a shit. The arrogant asshole knew he was the biggest prick in school and would always bring it home to me.
I’m six years younger than him, but just as big. Scrapping with him taught me the ropes. Technically, I’m only passing down a favor to Kyce. Not like he needs it. The little shit has soaked in all of my lessons and can stand his ground pretty damn well. He’s gotten good. Too good. So good, I’ve tried talking him into joining the MMAT. But he’s chicken shit. Says he doesn’t particularly care to get beat up for a living even though he comes to all my fights, and as you can see, sometimes he’s my training partner.
We’ve grown closer since my boy, Matt, moved out of town to North Carolina for his job. Kyce has since become my partner in crime.
“I am sparring, shithead. Man up.” I chuckle, slamming my gloves together and bouncing on my toes.
He narrows his frustrated eyes at me. “I’m not Morris Fischer.” It’s his turn to chuckle as the anger melts away to amusement. He wipes the sweat from his forehead with his forearm. “Morris Fischer,” he repeats the name. “Who the fuck names their kid that? His mom probably forced him to become a fighter because of the bullies at school calling him names, picking on her precious baby.”
“You going to put up a fight or fantasize about fucking his mom?” I tease, rousing him. Pissed brother equals pissed fighting with something to prove.
He shoves his mouth guard back in, raises his gloves closer to his face, and tucks his chin. He steps in and swings, connecting with my glove and then fires off a wide right hook. I duck.
Told you he’d fall for my pestering him.
He unloads a flurry of punches as I weave and duck from each. Then vexation saturates the wrinkled lines between his eyes. He drops his hands, his face red. “Man, fuck this.” He rips the gloves from his hands and throws them on the mat.
I can’t help but laugh at his temper tantrum. “You’re doubting my livelihood.”
“I’ve trained with you for years and I can’t ever get the better of you,” he snaps, sounding more like a defensive puppy.
“You’ve won a time or two,” I say.
He puffs a scowl. “You let me win the first time and the other time your ego was busted up because of Levi. Pretty shitty I can’t win unless you’re wounded.”
I smirk. “I let you win both times.”
He shakes his head. His short brown hair, normally gelled up and spikey, lays flat and heavy against his head, drenched in sweat. “Not when Levi handed you your ass on a golden glove.”
Asshole knows the low blows. Levi didn’t hand me shit. I fucked that up by myself and he was there to take everything from me—my championship, my professional contract, and my dignity.
“I let you win that, too. Your smile lifted my spirits.” My tone reeks of sarcasm.
“Yeah, right,” he scoffs. “Your ego is way too big for you to ever let that happen.”
I slide my gloves off. “What’s with you?”
He shakes his head, dismissing me with a toss of his hand, and drops out of the ring. I’m at him in a flash, slipping under the ropes and snatching his arm.
“Dude. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
He bobs his head from shoulder to shoulder and looks away. “Crystal bounced. Not like you care.”
He’s right. I don’t give a damn about the conniving bitch. She’s had him on a short leash and used him for everything she could think of. But he’s still my brother. “Why?”
He shrugs a shoulder. “No reason. She spent the night, we had some fun, and when we woke up the next morning, she called it quits. Grabbed her shit and left.”
“Do you talk in your sleep?” I ask, trying to keep a straight face and do well except for my twitchy lips.
He closes his eyes, reining in his temper. It’s a Hayes thing—our tempers. It runs very fucking deep in the family along with our eyes. It’s Dad’s dominant genes.
“I saw it coming weeks ago,” he admits.
“Did you love her?”
He looks to his feet. “Wanted to. Does that count?”
“You can’t force that shit. If it’s there, it’s there. I’d say after what…four months? If you didn’t feel it, that shit wasn’t happening.”
Jackson was blessed with Dad’s lack of emotions. Poor Kyce was cursed with Mom’s sensitivity even though I tried beating it out of him when we were younger. I swear I tried my fucking hardest. And me, well, I lean a bit more on Dad’s side, but I don’t have a shortage of emotions. I just reserve those for the right person.
I shove his shoulder. “Good riddance. She wasn’t any good for you anyway.”
“Good lay.” His eyes smile along with his lips.
I drop my head back and laugh. “There’s more where that came from.”
He exhales deeply. “What are you doing tonight? The guys were telling me about a club twenty minutes away.”
I raise a shoulder. “Clubbing. The misery expunger. I’m down. What time?”
“Pick me up around eight.”
My brows jump high on my forehead. “Eight? Are you buying me dinner and a movie? Do we kiss at the end of this date?”
He rolls his eyes—yep, just like mom—and shakes his head. “God. Sometimes I hate you’re my fucking brother. I’d only claim Jackson if I could.”
“Ah, the good brother,” I say facetiously. “You’d miss me.”
“Not if you didn’t exist,” he quips.
I laugh again. “You’d dream of having a brother as brilliant as I am.”
“I’d wish for a sister.”
I shove his shoulder again. “You’d dream of your sister? No fucking wonder Crystal split. You’re a sick fuck.”
He sucks his laugh in his throat and I flash my best shit-eating grin before striding away.
“I’ll pick my sweetie up at eight,” I yell over my shoulder, pushing out the door.
Determined to be the little punk he is, when I picked up Kyce, he insisted we go straight to The Grind just to prove me wrong. I’ve heard about this place a time or two. It opened less than a year ago and people rave about it. It’s apparently the hottest club to hit New England in years.
I pull into the parking lot and see the line to get into the place is wrapped around the building. Kyce shoots me a quick glance. “Ethan said for us to use the back entrance.” He points. “Said he’d let us in.”
“Why do you still talk to that fucknut?” I ask pulling into a spot in the back.
“Bygones are bygones.” He drops out the truck.
Ethan, the toothy grinning, backstabbing bastard, pushes open the door and lets us in. “You’re going to love it here, Ryker,” he says like I give a fuck about what’s spewing from his mouth. “DJ Echo is here tonight and he’s the bomb diggity.”
I shoot Kyce an annoyed glance and continue to make my way in without a word to the over-enthused Ethan. I only tolerate him because Kyce forgave the weasel, but it doesn’t mean I’ll chat him up like he’s a fucking friend.
The place is busy as hell, swamped with people. Most of the guys here are college age and the women have the same resemblance, only less clothed. They’re here with only one intention and it isn’t one their daddies would approve. The bass vibrates my chest, and strobe lights flicker around us—blue, purple, green, white. I close my eyes for a fraction of a second and reminisce my fight entrance. I love entering arenas—screaming fans, loud music, the lights adding the to hype. It pulls adrenaline from every cell in my blood. It’s exhilarating as hell. And I fucking love it. I’m ready to get back in there.
We make our way to the stick figure of a bartender and order our beers before finding the table. It’s off to the side, locked and loaded with some of Kyce’s boys.
“What’s up, Ryker?” Nick, the one I can stand, says.
Now, before you go and label me as the biggest fucking prick, you’ve got the wrong idea. It might seem I don’t like many people, and for the most part you are correct. But I run off vibes. Bad vibes equal shadiness. Shadiness equals piss poor people. And I don’t fare well with it. I also don’t like to hand out second chances often.
Take the shithead at the door, for instance. Ethan went behind Kyce’s back and fucked the girl he was talking to. What kind of “good friend” does that? One who should get his ass whipped, that’s who. The girl came clean a week later. Guilt ate her fake tanned skin up. Ethan claimed he was drunk and didn’t remember. I don’t believe him. Either way, Kyce ditched the chick and put Ethan on his shit list. They’d both be gone if it were me.
Trust is big for me. I’ve been burned too many times, and in the industry I work, trust is hard to find. I’m not a mean asshole, just a guarded one. I pay attention. I watch. I learn. Now if you do the same, you’ll see I’m not the bad guy.
“What’s up, man?” I tip my chin and then take a long draw from the cold beer.
“Not much. Same old, same old. Haven’t seen you around lately.”
I smile. “I’m always around. I’ve been back in town for months. You’ve been missing from the scene.”
Nick’s dark brown eyes dart away before answering. “Women,” he says with a nervous chuckle. “You know how they can be.”
“Ryker, the motherfucking Striker,” Jordie’s skinny arm slaps my shoulder. “How are you?”
Despite being a stroke to the ego, I despise fake friendliness because I’m prominent in the fighting world. Jordie is a fanboy, only evolving into one of my supporters after I won a few. Not because he’s been friends with our family for years.
“Good,” I answer.
“That’s great, man. When’s your next fight?”
“About a month.”
“Against who?”
“Some douche named Morris,” Kyce cuts in.
My baby brother—my number one fan.
“Fischer?” Jeff, who’s been attached to Jordie’s hip since high school, asks.
“Yeah.” I shift my view to him and his preppy ass attire.
“Isn’t he from Germany?”
Indifference tightens my lips and I shrug a shoulder. “No clue.”
“Aren’t you supposed to know about your opponents?” Jordie asks.
“I know about his fighting. The rest doesn’t interest me.”
“It’s your first fight since losing,” Jordie informs me as if I don’t fucking know this shit. “You nervous?”
I slice my eyes to him and allow a polite smile to rest on my lips. “Never nervous.”
Thankfully, Jeff spots a few girls on the dance floor, and dumb and dumber go give it a shot. Those two can’t do a damn thing without each other’s company. It’s fucking ridiculous. If I didn’t know them, I’d swear they were lovers.
Nick and Kyce stay behind. Kyce knows dancing isn’t in our blood. We can barely do the damn Hokey Pokey. We order another round of beers from the cute redheaded waitress who can’t keep her dark hazel eyes off me. They stay on me while the guys tell her what they’d like and she’s met by my smirk before she rushes off. I chuckle.
“I need to learn the Hayes’ secret,” Nick says watching her dainty ass sway off.
Kyce grins. “All in the genes.”
“We have no secret,” I add. “We were born gods.”
This causes us all to laugh.
“All I was blessed with was thick hair,” Nick tells us.
Kyce’s expression turns serious as he looks to him. “Which you never do a damn thing with. Brush it. Style it. Fucking do something to it.”
Redhead comes back and sets our beers on the table in front of us.
She rocks back nervously, with her eyes on me. “Hey.”
I arch a brow knowing her intent. “Hi.”
“After I get off work, would you like to go somewhere?” She waves her hand and looks to the ceiling. “Away from here.” She ends her sentence with her lips between her teeth.
I clear my throat and lean in close to her face. Her breath hitches as the pulse in her throat makes a clear presence. “No. Thank you.” She sucks a short gasp and I continue. “We’ve not even exchanged names and you’re willing to cart me out of here. I don’t take pleasure in easy.”
Kyce chokes on his beer.
Her eyes snap to him before sliding back to me, mad with embarrassment. “You think I’m easy?”
I take her in—small tits, no curves, and a nasty attitude. “I don’t have to think it, sweetheart.”
“I just wanted to get to know you,” she spits.
“I’m sure,” I reply cynically. “Whatever you tell yourself to sleep at night.”
Just as red as her hair, fire blazes in her wake as she storms off.
Nick’s mouth is twitching to say something while he watches me take a swallow from my beer. I grin to him. “If it’s easy for me, think how easy it is for any other guy. I’m not interested in that.”
“Pussy’s pussy.” Nick shrugs.
I tip my beer to him. “Coming from the guy who recently stated he was having women problems. Want me to take a stab at the problem?”
His eyes scrutinize me, but he remains silent. Good. I’d hate to be the asshole tonight.
I pan the crowd and set my half empty beer down. “I’ve had my fill of the place. You good or riding with me?” I point, asking Kyce.
He looks to Nick who nods in a silent affirmation before answering. “I’ll hitch a ride with him.”
“Have a good night, ladies.” I grin before making my way through the crowd to get to the back door.
Ethan’s surprised when he spots me. “Leaving so soon?”
I don’t answer him, only glaring at him with a stone-cold stare as I push out the door. I have nothing to say to the rat bastard.