Hard Work by K.M. Scott (24)

Zane

My eyes snapped open at the sound of the alarm blaring in my ear, and I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. Quickly, I slammed my hand down on it to turn it off and stretched my body. The sun shone through the curtains, and I rolled over to gently shake Becca’s shoulder until her eyes fluttered open.

“Hey, today’s the big day. You need to get up.”

She smiled up at me and said, “You sure you want to do this? It’s a big step you know.”

I hopped out of bed and in minutes I was ready to greet the world. Heading towards the door, I replied, “It’s the right thing to do. I’ll meet you down there.”

Bounding down the stairs, I hit the lobby and smiled at Mandy and her new assistant as I walked into the dining room.

“Today’s the day right?” Mandy called over cheerfully.

“Sure is!” I said, earning a smile from the two of them.

I sat down at the table where I’d first seen Becca and waited for her there. When I saw her coming toward me, it struck me once again how beautiful she was. It didn’t matter if she was in her professional work clothes or jeans and a t-shirt. She never failed to stun me.

Standing, I took her hand in mine and kissed her softly. “You ready?”

She answered with a simple nod, and I planted one more kiss on her forehead as I breathed in the smell of her lavender shampoo and then walked out onto the front porch with her. Kristen, my attorney, waited for us looking supremely uncomfortable and out of place in one of the old rocking chairs that sat alongside a small table at the end of the porch.

“Good morning, Kristen. I appreciate you coming out to meet us here today. Would you like to come inside and have a coffee?”

Kristen smiled politely. “No, thank you. It’s a very nice New England fall day, so if you’re fine out here, so am I.”

She wore her usual dark colored pantsuit and her hair sat on the top of her head in a tight bun. She looked like she would rather be anywhere else than in a chair that moved despite her wanting it to remain still.

“I’m sorry Zane had you come all the way out here,” Becca offered as she shook Kristen’s hand. “But it really is lovely to see you again. How is everything in town? I hear you’re moving out to Boston to relocate permanently.”

“I am. My father needs some help at home since his surgery. I’ll be visiting a lot, though, trust me. Anyway, let’s get down to business.”

We sat down in the chairs around the small table and listened as she instructed us on what we needed to do. Pointing at the signature lines on the back page of the legal agreement she’d set out on the table, she said, “I just need you to sign here and here, and you will officially be joint owners of The Gilford House Inn.”

We took turns signing the document and exchanged a long glance after we were finished. Co-owners of our little piece of heaven.

“Excellent. Congratulations! You’re now joint owners. Enjoy!” Kristen said with a smile, shaking our hands.

“Are you sure we can’t invite you in?” Becca asked, reading my mind.

Kristen waved off the offer. “I wish I could, but I have a ton of work to do. Good luck you two. It’s a great place, so I know you’ll be happy.”

She hurried off after we thanked her for her help, and I turned to Becca. “So now we own this place. Are you sure you aren’t like Kristen there, regretting leaving the big city and your advertising career for this sleepy inn here in the sticks?”

Becca shook her head before leaning in and kissing me. “I love this place, and I love you, Zane Gilford. So no, I don’t regret a thing. What about you? Any regrets about not going back to the perpetually sunny days of California?”

I shook my head, more sure than ever that I’d make the right choice. “No way. I can’t think of anywhere else in the world I’d want to be but right here.”

She leaned in and gave me another kiss as my mind drifted off for a moment to thoughts of all the times, good and bad, that I’d had at the inn and how it had all come to this. My mother had always wanted me to love the inn as much as she had, and now I did.

Silently I said to myself, “Thanks, Mom. I hope I showed you that you didn’t fail to do right with me. I hope I made you proud.”

Becca said something, but I didn’t hear her since I’d been wrapped up in thought. I looked down at her as she rested her head on my shoulder and said, “Sorry, babe. I didn’t hear you. What did you say?”

“Where were you there? You looked like you were a million miles away just now,” she said with that playful little smile of hers that I loved so much.

I shook my head and kissed her. “Nope. I’m right here. Right where I belong.”

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Ryder

As usual, the crowd at The Pit screamed its lust for the two of us to pound the fuck out of each other. Impatient bastards. I couldn’t hear any one person’s words clearly, but I’d done this enough times to know what the people who’d come to watch us wanted.

Blood. Pain. And one of us as close to death as possible. It thrilled them in some sick way almost as much as I suspected winning did when their fighter crushed another person.

My opponent tonight stood nearly as tall as I did at six foot three, but his body was smaller than mine. He looked older, like something in the way he carried himself said he’d seen more of life than I had. His angular face looked hard, and on either side of his perfectly straight nose were eyes staring me down like he thought squinting and grimacing would make me run for the nearest exit like some fucking scared little boy. He was fighting the wrong person if that’s what he expected.

I’d never lost and for good reason. When you had nothing but the feel of your fists beating the hell out of someone and the sound of those rabid fucks cheering you on like you were some kind of hero for nearly killing another man, all you wanted was to win.

Fifteen times I’d won right here in this dank warehouse against guys bigger and stronger than me, and every time it seemed to surprise everyone. Even those who had bet on me.

If they only knew how unlikely it was anyone could match the rage inside me, they’d never bet against me again.

Some impatient bastard behind me barked, “Stop dancing around! Hit ’em!”

Mr. Grimace narrowed his eyes until he could barely see out of them and took a deep breath. Why did he bother with all this tough guy bullshit? That’s not what these bloodthirsty fucks wanted.

Pain is what they wanted.

So that’s what they’d get. His or mine. It didn’t matter to them.

“Scared, motherfucker?” he grunted out in a deep voice I knew wasn’t really how he talked. “I’m going to fuck you up.”

I didn’t bother answering.

He caught me in the face with a hard right that scrambled my brains for a second, and then his fist skidded along my jaw and ran square into my right shoulder. The last guy I fought had done a number on that one, so that hurt like a bitch.

I knew how this went, though. The people around us wanted a show as much as they wanted a fight. I could have just beat the fuck out of him and won, but that’s not what this was. I’d been told that enough times to understand even if I could pound the piss out of a guy, I had to at least make it look like a fight and not just some sad beat down.

So that’s what I did. I took a few hits, sometimes more than a few, and let it look like there was some chance I wouldn’t win. The other guy got to feel pretty big in the shorts and the crowd got to feel like this was really a match between two fighters.

It wasn’t, though.

He paraded around like a peacock, preening to the crowd while I gritted my teeth and pushed my shoulder back into place. I took a deep breath and waited for the moment I’d show him who he was dealing with.

Flush with the love of the crowd, he turned back to face me. A few shots into me had made him think he had a chance.

I stepped forward as he lunged at me and leveled my fist against his jaw. His head ricocheted back, sending him reeling for a second or two, but I didn’t let up. My right hand zeroed in on his face again, this time connecting with his cheekbone. I felt it crack against my knuckles bulging out of my fist and saw him stagger back away from me.

But he would get no mercy from me. That wasn’t what I was here for.

“Get him!” the crowd screamed as the guy cowered, hanging his head to protect his busted face.

That wouldn’t help him, though. Not with me. I knew what my role was. I knew why all these people had come here tonight, and it wasn’t to see mercy. Mercy was for suckers. Fuck mercy.

They wanted blood and pain, and blood and pain is what they’d get.

I walked toward him as a feeling of complete calm came over me. All the noise of the crowd around us faded away until all I heard were the words I told myself every time I stood to fight.

It’s you or him. Nothing more. Either you win or he does, but if you lose, you’ll have nothing.

He looked up and I saw the pleading in his eyes. I’d seen it fifteen times before. No matter how big and tough they’d been in the beginning, each one ended up giving me that same sad look that said they wanted me to be someone other than who they’d heard I was.

Someone other than who I had to be.

Maybe they fought for some reason that had nothing to do with their very survival. Maybe they thought it would be fun, or it would make them feel tough. Maybe they thought they had something to prove to some girl. Whatever their reasons for agreeing to fight, they weren’t why I fought.

For me, every win put me one step closer to being free. I didn’t fight for shits and giggles or because I wanted to impress some skirt. I fought for the chance that one day I would never have to step foot in this fucking shithole place again. I fought because deep in the back of my mind there existed the tiniest dream that one day I’d be normal and have a normal life.

That one day I wouldn’t have to be the man I’d been forced to become in this fight.

I knew his weak spots and attacked them. My fists pummeled his face, and no matter how hard he tried to shield himself from the blows, it was no use. Over and over, I hit him until that pretty face of his looked like mangled hamburger. Blood, flesh, and bone mixed to make a horror show. The nose that had been so straight just a few minutes before now pointed down toward his mouth like some deranged compass.

As I stood up to my full height, I heard the crowd cheering, as if I’d done something worthy of praise. A man lay in a crumpled heap at my feet, defeated and broken, and these fuckers were thrilled about it.

Looking around, I saw some clapping and others pumping their fists in the air as my win filled them with some kind of messed up happiness. Who was I kidding? What it filled was their wallets. That’s why they were so happy.

Floyd raised my right arm in the air to the delight of the rabid fans and said in my ear, “That’s my boy. You done good, son.”

I forced a smile and nodded my head. I wasn’t his boy and he wasn’t my father. I was his fighter and he was the scumbag who went out to find people for me to fight. Whatever else he thought we were was all in his mind.

He lowered my arm and slapped me on the back. “Go relax. You deserve it. You put on a good show. Just look at the way these people love you!”

I tore my stare from his greasy comb-over and beady eyes and looked over his head to see the people who loved me. Between the booze, the drugs, and the fight, they looked like wild animals.

Who was worse? Them or me?

“Ryder, there’s someone here to talk to you,” Floyd yelled from the other side of the door.

I didn’t want to talk to anyone. All I wanted to do was sit on my crappy metal folding chair in this dingy room and hope my shoulder started feeling better. I’d downed a few shots of Floyd’s whisky about ten minutes ago, but so far, it hadn’t helped ease the pain.

“Not now,” I yelled back.

He’d only open the door anyway. I knew that. It still felt good to let him and whoever the hell was standing there with him know that I didn’t want to talk.

The door opened a second later and I saw Floyd and some guy who looked far too well-dressed to be anywhere near the warehouse on any night standing in my shitty little room. He had a vibe that screamed money with his suit, expensive shoes, and slicked back grey hair that made him look what my mother used to call stately.

“This is Mr. Robert Erickson,” Floyd said as the man walked into the room like he owned the place. “I’ll leave you two to talk.”

I’d never seen Floyd leave a scene that fast. As he closed the door, I looked at the man who stood in front of me and saw he was studying me as much as I was him. Not that I was all too curious about what he wanted. People dressed like he was coming into my world never brought anything good with them.

Never.

The intruder looked around the cinder block room I called mine and then looked down at me. “Ryder, as our mutual friend Floyd said, my name is Robert Erickson. Do you know who I am?”

Shaking my head, I shrugged. “Nope. Should I?”

His dark eyebrows drew in like angry black slashes and his eyes narrowed to slits, much like the way the guy I just beat to a pulp had looked at the beginning of our fight. “I’m the man who runs this show. You are sitting in my warehouse and fighting in my stable. So yes, maybe you should know who I am.”

As much as I knew he thought I should be impressed by this, I wasn’t. Folding my arms across my chest, I said, “Oh yeah? Nice to meet the big boss then. I hope you bet on me tonight.”

His eyes opened wider as the corners of his mouth inched up into what reminded me of how a crocodile looked right before he ate his prey. “You’re pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

I looked up at the ceiling for a moment, unsure how I should answer that. Fuck yeah, I was sure of myself. I may not have been wearing a thousand dollar suit and fine leather shoes like him, but I had gifts of my own that had made me a winner sixteen times already.

Pursing my lips, I shrugged again. “I haven’t lost yet. Come see me when I do and I’ll tell you how cocky I’m feeling then.”

His crocodile smile spread even wider across his face. Nodding, he said, “I’ll remember that. For now, I’m here to tell you I’ve bought your contract from Floyd. So now you work for only me.”

The words hit me like a fist to the face. I didn’t have a contract with Floyd or anyone else. I fought to pay off money I owed him, and when that debt was paid off, I’d get to leave this shithole world of fighting. Now all that seemed like a pipe dream this fucker had dashed to pieces.

I stood from my rusted metal chair and stared at Robert Erickson. “What does that mean?”

Nearly the same height, he met my gaze with one so intense I thought about taking a step back. When he spoke, it sounded like his voice came from somewhere dark.

“It means I own you now. You fight for me and I expect you to win like you always have.”

Left unsaid was the implicit threat that hung off every word. If you lose, you’ll suffer. The only question was how.

My mind spun at the news that all I’d planned, all I’d worked for, was gone now. “So I guess my deal with Floyd to be released from fighting when I paid off what I owed him is gone too?”

“Yes.”

“And if I don’t agree to this new deal?” I asked, silently gauging my chances of not only getting past him but finding some way of surviving after I got away. He was big, and I had a sneaking suspicion even bigger guys stood outside waiting for him.

Robert Erickson looked like the type of man who got what he wanted, one way or another, whether the other person involved wanted it or not.

“You have no say in it, but let me assure you that you want to fight for me. For now, let’s get you to your place so you can pack your things.”

He turned to open the door as I explained this room was my place. “No need to go anywhere. You’re already in it.”

Erickson slowly looked back at me with confusion written all over his face. “You live here?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Short commute time to work and everything I need within arm’s reach. What more could a guy ask for?”

Closing the door, he turned to face me. “How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

“And you live here, in my warehouse where Floyd holds fights for me?” he asked as he looked around my room again, this time with a look of disgust like the fact made him sick.

“Yep. Better than the street or jail. I might not get three hots, but I got a cot and a shower.”

My answer didn’t make the sickened expression leave his face, but he nodded anyway. “Well, gather your things. It’s time to go.”

I opened my mouth to ask where, but he walked out and left me standing there in that room I’d lived in for the past three months. As I stuffed the few clothes I owned, deodorant, and my toothbrush into a duffel bag, I thought wherever I was going had to be better than this place.

We pulled up to a massive black gate between two even bigger rows of hedges and stopped momentarily as the driver got the go ahead to drive onto the property. I couldn’t help but stare out the window as we drove up the long driveway past some kind of fountain that looked like something the Greek gods might swim in and a bunch of smaller hedges than the ones out front that looked like the gardener had cut them all into bird shapes. Robert Erickson was even richer than I’d first thought. Only insanely wealthy people lived in places like this.

The car stopped in front of a house so big I couldn’t see all of it as I looked out the car window. Erickson tapped me on the arm as I stared out at the mansion and said, “Welcome home.”

Home? This couldn’t be my home. Instantly, the thought of what I’d have to do to live in a place like this raced through my mind. Fighting in The Pit wasn’t going to be enough to live in a house like the one I saw in front of me.

I opened the car door and stepped out onto a stone driveway as I gaped at the house, which was even more impressive without the tinting of the car window getting in my way. Huge white columns towered above us to the second story of the gold colored home, and a glass front door so enormous I’d never seen one so big stood behind them.

“Follow me,” was all Erickson said as he led the way to those doors. I couldn’t imagine what waited inside after an outside this incredible.

I did as he ordered and caught up to him as he walked into an entryway so big the sound of our shoes hitting the white marble tile on the floor echoed off the matching marble tiled walls. He strode through like nothing around us was special toward the most spectacular curved wrought iron staircase I’d ever seen.

Not that I had seen many curved staircases with wrought iron in my life. I think I’d seen either a grand total of two times in a magazine some girl had in English class one time. I really didn’t have much interest in reading architectural magazines, but she did and since I wanted to get in her pants, I sat next to her after school as she told me all about her dreams of having a huge house with a curved staircase and a wrought iron railing one day.

She would have loved Erickson’s place. For me, it made me feel small, something very few people or things had achieved in a long time. Not small, actually. More like insignificant.

As my head swiveled left and right to look at the artwork on the walls, Robert said, “Come in here to my office. I want you to meet some people.”

My hand clutched the handle of my duffel bag tightly in my palm. Meet some people? I didn’t even look like they’d let me on the property to be the goddamned gardener who made hedges into animal shapes and now he wanted to introduce me to some people?

That feeling of insignificance morphed into one of pure discomfort. I didn’t belong there, no matter how much he wanted to parade me through the place, and whoever he wanted me to meet would know that as sure as I did.

He led me into his office, a room even bigger than the entryway and as dark as that was light. This room had dark green walls the color of a pool table and a dark wood floor. Floor to ceiling bookcases held books with names I’d never heard of and sculptures I guessed cost more than my life was worth.

“Wait here. I’ll be right back,” he announced before leaving as I continued to look around in awe.

Seconds later, he came back with two females and ordered them into his office. Neither one looked like him, but something about the way they acted told me they weren’t servants or people he’d just basically bought, like me.

They stopped dead at the sight of me standing there in my old gym pants and black t-shirt and the one I figured was older spun around to look at him in disgust.

“Who is this?”

“Girls, this is Ryder. He’s going to be living here, so treat him like family.”

Robert’s proclamation infuriated her, and she shook her head angrily. “What, like a brother? You go out one night and get us a brother? Is that how it goes, Dad?”

He ignored her outburst and turned his two daughters to face me. “Ryder, the one who can’t stop talking is Janelle. The other one is Serena.”

“Hi,” I mumbled, unsure if I should say anything.

They both stood staring at me like I was some foreign thing that needed to be removed and fast. The one named Janelle had short dark brown hair, and although I couldn’t be sure since her eyes were flashing so much hatred, I thought they were brown too. Thin, she wore jeans and a tight blue shirt and heels that gave her at least three inches on her normal height.

The other one, Serena, had lighter brown hair that fell to below her shoulders in soft waves that reminded me of what mermaids looked like. Dressed in jean shorts and a white t-shirt that both showed off her tan and toned body, she stood barefoot next to her father and stared at me with big brown eyes that didn’t have hatred but something else in them.

Disappointment?

As Janelle returned to complaining about my very existence, I heard Serena say in a pained voice, “You said you knew where she was. You promised you’d find her this time. Where is she?”

I imagined that’s what that guy with the pleading eyes would have sounded like if he begged me not to beat the shit out of him. The way she said those words made my chest hurt, and I didn’t even know who she was talking about.

But Robert was unmoved by her pleading. Waving off her questions, he said, “Maybe next time, honey. For now, I want you two to welcome Ryder to our home.”

He put his arms around both of them, but Janelle slipped out of his hold and stormed off without another word. I didn’t have to guess how she felt about me. Serena said nothing more about what was obviously so important to her and simply looked at me with that pleading in her eyes that hadn’t worked on her father.

With a nudge from him, she finally said, “Welcome to our home. I hope you like it here.”

And with that, she quietly left without another word to her father about whoever she wanted him to find.

Robert walked behind his desk and sat down in his chair as I watched her walk away, her sagging shoulders signaling how defeated she felt. Clearly, it didn’t affect her father at all.

“They’ll get used to you. Janelle is a little temperamental, but I guess that’s to be expected from a girl, even one her age. She’s a lot like me, though, so at least she has that going for her. Serena is the polar opposite. She’s like her mother. Don’t worry about her. She’ll take to you like every stray she brings home.”

Not that I didn’t know I looked like some stray dog compared to them, but the way he said it brought the reality home for sure. In a hurry to get out of there and to wherever he kept the strays he brought home, I said, “Well, if you can just point me in the direction of where you want me to go, I’ll get out of your hair.”

He shook his head as that crocodile smile spread across his face again. “Not yet. First, I want you to know what I expect of you. So sit down and relax.”

Dropping my duffel bag, I sat down in a chair in front of his desk as he’d ordered and listened to hear just what this whole arrangement would involve.

He steepled his fingers in front of him and began. “You’ll continue to fight as you did tonight. As I said before, I expect you to continue to win. When you do, you’ll get paid, despite the fact that you won’t need money as long as you live here.”

“I won’t need money?” I asked, confused what kind of world this guy lived in that didn’t require cash.

Lifting his chin, he shook his head. “No, you won’t. Your room and board, along with all the food you want and clothes you need, will be provided. I have a state of the art workout center you’re to use to make sure you’re in the best shape possible. So you see, you won’t need money.”

I didn’t know if I should question this whole situation that sounded too good to be true, but I asked, “And if I don’t win a fight?”

His face grew dark. “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, I have very few rules, other than you performing in fights like I’ve seen. No drugs and no romantic attachments. I don’t care who you fuck, but don’t get involved. I remember being your age, so I don’t expect you to live like a monk, but no relationships.”

I wasn’t a fan of having so much of my life dictated, but assuming I got a room even as big as a broom closet on his estate, maybe it wouldn’t be too much of a tradeoff. I wasn’t exactly looking for a relationship anyway and I didn’t do drugs. Hoping he wasn’t about to announce that I had to double as a stable boy or something like that, I smiled.

“Okay. I can live with those.”

“And you aren’t to tell anyone here what you do. Is that clear?”

“Sure. But if I’m not here as a fighter, what am I supposed to say if someone asks?”

“They won’t,” he said with a confidence I guessed came from being the boss.

“Got it.”

“Good. I’ll have my housekeeper take you to your room. For now, you’ll have the spare bedroom on this floor.”

A short, dark haired woman he called Josephine appeared a few seconds later, so I stood from my chair and grabbed my duffel bag to go with her. I felt like there were a lot more questions I should ask Robert, but he didn’t seem interested in talking anymore and picked up the phone to call someone, so I smiled again and moved to leave.

Just before I reached the door, he said, “Oh, Ryder, one more thing.”

There it was. The one thing that would make this whole situation unbearable. I slowly turned around and waited for the other shoe to drop.

“Don’t even think of doing anything with either of the girls. In that respect, I do care who you fuck.”

I thought back to how much Janelle hated me already and easily put the idea of fucking her out of my mind. And Serena? I wasn’t sure if she was even legal, and I didn’t need that dogging me. An angry father was one thing, but prison was an entirely different story.

She was beautiful, though. There was something about her I could definitely like, if things were different. But no matter how beautiful she was, I wasn’t touching that.

“No problem,” I answered with confidence, hoping that was the worst thing about living at Erickson’s house.

If it was, this would be the best thing to ever happen to me, even if it meant I had to keep fighting. Maybe freedom wasn’t all it was cracked up to be anyway.

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