Chapter 24
Bastien
Past
“My name’s John Warwick and I’ve been watching you these past few months, kid,” the well dressed dark-skinned man said after I collected my winnings from the night’s fight. “You have more spirit than I’ve ever seen in a fighter. Why are you wasting your talent on these thugs? Go pro. You could be rich and famous.”
Supposedly this guy was some crazy billionaire: Eccentric, elusive and completely unpredictable. That would explain why he’s here.
Underground fighting brought out all the crazies.
“I don’t care about any of that.” I hefted my duffle bag and walked away.
“What do you care about?” He asked, keeping pace with me.
“At this point?” I slowed a moment to consider the question. No one had ever asked me that. What was keeping me going? “Just my mistakes.”
“I want you to be my bodyguard. Name your price.”
“I don’t want your money. I’m doing fine on my own.” I started walking toward the exit again. I was tired, beat to hell, hungry enough to eat a horse, and I had places to be. I couldn’t waste time on some bored rich asshole.
“A man who can’t be bought… I like that. Now I have to have you work for me.” He slowed to a stop at the warehouse’s exit.
Not going to happen, pal.
I adjusted my pack, but said nothing as I walked into the parking lot. Olivia had an event downtown. I wasn’t invited of course, but I liked to hang around within eyeshot just to make sure no one bothered her.
“You’re never going to get Olivia back like this you know.” Warwick called out after me. “Hell, you’re doing a shit job of even protecting her.”
“How do you know about her?” I stopped and turned around.
“That O on your chest is telling. Starving and down to your last two hundred dollars and what do you do? You get a symbol for her tattooed on you as a reminder.”
“That was you!” My fists balled up as I stormed back to him.
“No, I didn’t rob you. The tattoo artist was a friend of mine.” He laughed uproariously. “I’ve had people following you though. Not just you—” He corrected himself, before moving on.
He walked past me toward a small sports car parked at the back of the parking garage.
“Is it a coincidence that you pick underground fighting matches only in the cities that Olivia Ward is currently in?” He asked. “Of course not. I’m impressed at what you’ve done with so little. I’ve seen what you’ve done to her stalkers. Really efficient work!”
“What do you want?”
“I’ve already told you that.”
“Why me? There’s a thousand other fighters out there.”
“You’ve got heart and will stop at nothing.” He paused thoughtfully, then opened his driver’s door. “I admire that.”
“If you put that fanatical exuberance of yours to work for me, I’ll give you the resources to really keep her safe.” He got into his car and pushed open the passenger’s side door from within.
“Why do you give a shit about me keeping Olivia safe?”
“I have something of a vested interest in that girl,” Warwick said cryptically. His expression hinted at an old mistake that weighed heavily on him, but I couldn’t even guess at what the hell it was. “We all have things we need to atone for…”
Warwick saw the curious look on my face and quickly snapped out of it, his unwavering and confident smile slowly returned. “This is your chance to be more than just Bash. What do you say?”
Present
“Wait!” Olivia protested frantically when the two men forced us to drop to our knees. “I’m Olivia Ward. I’m a millionaire! I can pay you not to kill us.”
The thugs led us down a long hallway, far enough away from the fighting pit that no one would be able to hear what was about to happen to us. When I figured out that they were planning on executing us I tried to fight back, but was too exhausted.
All it took was a gun pressed to Olivia’s head to stop me dead in my tracks.
The assassins that were gunning for her family had finally caught up with us.
I wasn’t going to be able to punch my way out of this.
“A Ward’s promises mean two things to us. Jack and shit.” The grizzled men chuckled to themselves. It sounded like they’d gone through this routine before. “You might be a celebrity, but we know you’re broke.”
“I’m not broke.” I said, realizing I only had one real play.
“The hole her father’s in is going to take a hell of a lot more than one night of a fighter’s earnings—”
“I’m John Warwick’s beneficiary.” That got their attention.
“The billionaire?” One of them asked.
I nodded slowly, not daring to look over at Olivia.
“What?” Olivia asked.
“Go get your boss. I know he’s here.” I know he’s here. “Tell him I’ll double the debt her father owes.”
They shared a look, then one of the thugs stepped out of the room to call their boss.
“Beneficiary?” Olivia’s tone was full of disbelief. “When were you going to tell me you were a billionaire?”
“I was going to tell you, I promise. I just…” Opening up to her like this was tougher than the fight. I sighed, lowering my head.
“But you’d rather I found out with a gun to my head?” She scoffed, betrayed by what I’d kept from her for so long. “What the hell, Bastien?”
“The night I left you, your father told me that I’d never amount to anything. He asked me what kind of a life I could really give you.” I looked at her with upturned eyes. “And I didn’t know the answer to that. Thinking that I might poison your future, your hopes and dreams, terrified me. It kept me up at night for years.
“I’m tired of you making decisions for me.” The anger in her voice was being replaced with sadness, and that stung me far more.
“I was going to tell you what happened right when I came back into your life. I wanted to! But I was afraid.”
“Of what?” She asked. “What could you possibly have been afraid of?”
“That you’d think he was right.” I said flatly. “I fell into this money, Olive. And if I can get us out of this I lose it all. The contract I signed with John was that I could use it to keep you safe, but once that was over I’d have to donate every cent to his favorite charities. All of it.
“If you knew then you’d have looked at me differently.” I stood up and extended a hand for her to do the same.
“Hey! I didn’t say you could get up,” barked the remaining enforcer, as he took a step toward us.
“What am I going to do?” I snapped at him. “Bleed on you? Your boss isn’t going to have you shoot us. We’re past that. Keep up.”
I helped Olivia to her feet.
“Thanks.” She appealed to me. “I never cared about the money.”
“Then I guess I needed to prove to myself that you could love me without knowing I was rich. That the Olivia I fell in love with could love the Bastien that I wanted to be.”
“You saved my life, Bastien.” Olivia glanced behind her. “Hopefully twice. All I ever wanted was to be with you.”
“I know that now.” I said. “Can you forgive me? It’ll be the last time you’ll ever have to.”
Olivia sighed, biting her lip. Then she looked up at me. “No more secrets between us?”
“I promise.”
Olive nodded, her eyes drifted down to the tattoo on my chest.
“When did you get that done?” She asked, probably wondering why she hadn’t seen it until tonight.
“A long, long time ago.”
“That can’t be right.” Her face twisted up in confusion. “I’ve seen you—”
“Makeup.” I half frowned.
“Makeup?” The confusion on her face melted into bemusement. “You’ve been covering that this whole time?”
“Not my proudest moment.” I sighed, instinctively flexing and cracking knuckles. “My father was a Marine. The idea of using any kind of makeup… I guess I was a little embarrassed.”
“Why?” Olive slowly shook her head in disbelief. “Why cover something like that at all?” She carefully dragged her fingers across the pendant tattoo on my chest.
“I didn’t cover it.” I paused, then corrected myself. “Not until I came back as your bodyguard.
Olivia raised her eyebrows more out of concern this time than anything. I could only imagine what was going on behind her beautiful eyes. What she must be thinking of me.
Looking down at the tattoo, I said, “It’s a reminder of why I fought so hard every night. An impossible dream that kept me going.” I glanced back up at her. “You had so much going on when I came back. With your father being an asshole and freezing your accounts, the new movie you were trying to get, coming off the scandal with Samantha, and people attacking your family…I just didn’t want to add anymore stress to your life.”
“Knowing you’ve always cared so much for me isn’t a bad thing, you dork.” Olive’s eyes started to water, then she hugged me tightly, filling me with a warmth I hadn’t felt since the second time I kissed her on prom night.
My adrenaline was still up so much that I didn’t feel the full weight of all my wounds, even with her squeezing me as much as she was.
This moment, as fucked up as it was, was all I ever wanted.
“Well that’s all nice and touching,” Sylvester Mangold, the notorious loan shark, said as he entered the small concrete room. “But what’s all this about doubling Delvin’s gambling debt?”
“You heard right, Sylvester,” I said.
Abeo had introduced us several years back. Sylvester was always hovering around the underground circuit. We knew each other, but fortunately I was never stupid enough to get involved with him professionally.
“Bash?” He said, finally recognizing me.
All my interactions with Mangold showed me that he wasn’t in the leg-breaking business because of a love of violence. There was enough of that in the ring. No, he was in the money-making business whenever possible.
I had no doubt in my mind that we could work out a deal.
“I heard about Warwick. My condolences.” He turned to his two enforcers and dismissively waved for them to put their pistols away.
I nodded in thanks.
Mangold knew that I left fighting to exclusively work for Warwick. With as much of a loose cannon as Warwick was, it wasn’t much of a reach for him to put me in his will.
“How much is Delvin in for?” I asked.
“Ten mil.”
“Jesus!” Olivia scoffed, then glanced at me. The expression on her face was that of complete shock and utter disgust. “I didn’t know it got that bad!”
“Your father’s debts were so high that the only way he was going to pay them was by cashing in on either yours or his wife’s life insurance policies,” Mangold replied coolly.
“The failed attack on himself was just to avoid suspicion.” My eyes narrowed and expression darkened. Simmering anger poured into me.
“Did my father come up with that plan?” Olive swallowed down a wave of nausea. She desperately wanted to be wrong, to think that, despite his heartlessness, Delvin wasn’t that cruel.
Seeing the anguish on her face Mangold paused for a moment, then slowly nodded.
“That fucking bastard.” I growled. All this time, the man who put all this into motion just to save his own ass was right under our noses. “Twenty million to end the contract and you give me enough evidence to convict him.”
Sylvester considered the offer. “I’ll need a day or two to remove myself from the equation, but yeah. I can dig up what you need to put him away.”
We worked out the rest of the agreement, then shook hands.
“Bastien, are you alright?” Olivia asked as we were making our way out through a back entrance that Sylvester told us about. She looped her arm around me to help me walk straight. “You don’t look so good. I think we need to get you to a hospital.”
“I’ll be alright,” I said, feeling my limbs getting heavier. “I just need to…”
Then I heard Olivia cry out for help as everything went dark. The last thing I felt was hitting the ground.