(Noah)

I looked to my left and saw Marcos pacing, hands on his hips, suit jacket flaring out behind him like a cape. Seth leaned against Marcos’s desk, coffee in hand, staring at the floor. He was probably still drunk from the night before.

A hot pain seared through my shoulder and down my arm.

“Hang tight,” a voice said. “I’ve… got it…”

I shut my eyes and saw Penny on my bed. Her hands clutched for my arms, shoulders, scratching at my back. The way she hooked her ankles behind me, pulling at me, demanding more.

Fuck.

I heard a metal clank sound and I turned my head. The doctor sat there, glasses down on the tip of his nose. He put a small tray on my stomach and gave me a smile.

“There,” he said. “There’s the bullet.”

My shoulder looked destroyed. I wiggled my fingers and made a fist. I still have movement and feeling. It hurt, but I was going to be okay.

“You’ll be fine,” he said. “Thankfully whoever did this picked a good spot for you.”

“There’s good spots to get shot?” I asked.

The doctor looked at me. “Better than your heart or your brain.”

“Fair enough.”

“How long, doc?” Marcos yelled.

“I just need to patch him up,” the doctor said. “You, uh, have my payment?”

Marcos opened his desk drawer and put cash on it. He then added a second stack, smaller, and said, “This is so you don’t hear the conversation we’re about to have.”

“What?” the doctor asked with a grin.

It still amazed me as to the many people who were involved with Marcos, with the fights, with all the bad stuff in the world. It just proved that everyone not only had their demons, but most people enjoyed their demons. This doctor probably had a successful career. A nice house. Tons of money. Maybe a nice family. But here he was, pulling a bullet out of my shoulder. For extra cash. For some fun and a thrill.

“What the fuck happened?” Marcos asked as he stopped pacing behind his desk.

“She shot me,” I said. “This is all my fault, Marcos. Kill me, man. I deserve it.”

“I just paid ten grand to have a bullet pulled from your goddamn shoulder,” Marcos said. “I’m not killing you, Noah.” He looked at Seth. “I’m thinking about killing you.”

“The woman thing,” Seth said. “You know how it is for me. I’m sorry. I did what you said. I grabbed her. I held her. I smacked her around. You got the picture, right?”

“Yeah,” Marcos said. “What did she have to say?”

Seth looked at me.

“I got nothing out of her,” I said. “She insists she’s just some reporter. Digging up shit on fighting. I don’t understand what the hell…”

“Explain this to me again,” Marcos said. “I tell Seth to kidnap this woman and she ends up in your apartment, Noah. And then she shoots you and flees?”

“I was cleaning up after the fight,” I said. “Truthfully, I was waiting for someone. I kind of had a thing going with a woman. She never showed up. I heard a sound and went to check on it. I went to the office and found Seth on the floor, out cold. There was a broken bottle. A woman tied to a chair. Her face was bleeding. When I took the cloth out of her mouth, she started to scream. So I, you know, shut her up.”

“Good for you,” Marcos said. “Sometimes women need a hand to understand their position.”

I felt my heart climb into my throat. Sometimes I wanted to hit Marcos.

“I started to put the pieces together. So I took her with me. I didn’t know what to do, Marcos. I checked Seth’s phone and saw what he sent you. Seth was out cold, sleeping by then. So I left him.”

“You left him,” Marcos said.

I sighed. I felt the doctor pulling at my shoulder. It fucking hurt.

“I shouldn’t have left him,” I said. “But I was pissed off. The drinking thing, man, I just… I don’t deal with drunks. He was supposed to do a job for you and he gets drunk?”

“Thanks for throwing me under the bus,” Seth said.

“He’s right,” Marcos said.

“What the fuck?” Seth asked. “You know how I get with that shit. Nothing happened. She…”

Seth looked at me.

We had let her go. On purpose. To get information and come back to us.

“That was our woman,” Marcos said. “Something bad is going down. She was the leverage. They key to it. She’s been at two dozen fights this year alone. Buys a couple drinks, looks around way too much, then disappears.”

“You’ve got the resources to find her,” I said.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Marcos said.

“Hey,” Seth said, “maybe she’ll get the hint. You fuck with us, you get kidnapped and smacked around.”

I forced a smile.

The doctor put a hand to my shoulder and pressed a little too much.

I opened my mouth to tell the guy to fuck off.

Marcos opened his drawer and took out a gun.

My reaction time was zero.

Marcos put the gun to the back of Seth’s head and pulled the trigger.

* * *

The first time I met Seth he asked me if I had ever seen someone shot. I hadn’t. He then described to me how his father was killed. His old man owed Marcos twenty grand from some bad gambling decisions and couldn’t pay up. Seth figured the money owed was only around five grand, but Marcos had added his interest and fees, jacking it up to twenty because why the fuck not? It was the fourth time Marcos was looking for the money. There was no other choice but to be killed. Seth’s father even tried to offer Seth up as some kind of payment.

I’ll never forget the story. The way Seth told it in detail. The way he cared yet at the same time didn’t. He never said his father’s name during the entire story. I had no clue what his father’s name ever was.

So Marcos put Seth’s old man on the ground, to his knees, and kept Seth right there to watch. Marcos put the gun to Seth’s old man’s head and pulled the trigger.

What Seth described going out the back of his father’s head was what I saw come out of the the front of Seth’s head. Skull and brain spraying forward, blood everywhere. Seth thrust forward and toppled to the ground. Marcos just stood there.

He shook his head. “I saved him. Then and now.”

I was in shock.

After Marcos killed Seth’s father, he helped Seth. He took care of Seth and they had a lucrative relationship.

Until now.

I caught my breath. “Oh, shit.”

“I don’t accept failure,” Marcos said. “Not now. Not with this.”

I thought about Penny. Just who the hell was she? Who was after us?

“You didn’t have to shoot him,” I said. “This is my fault.”

I started to sit up and felt the doctor press on my shoulder again. I groaned in pain and turned my head, my left hand tight in a fist, ready to fucking punch him.

The doctor had a scalpel in his hand. He put it right to my throat, keeping me down.

“I have a vacation home in Malibu,” he said. “And a girlfriend who needs a bigger set of tits.”

“Does your wife know that?” I asked.

The doctor smiled. “My wife got her tits last year. Now shut up.”

Marcos approached me. On the floor, a few feet away, was Seth. My best friend. A guy who was like a brother to me.

“I’m sorry it’s come to this,” Marcos said. “But I cannot take chances. Not anymore. If Seth is that weak - and drunk - I don’t need him around. You saw how hungover he was. He wasn’t even here. Shit, he was probably still drunk. That’s unacceptable.”

“What does it have to do with me?” I asked.

“She shot you. So… are you as dumb as Seth?”

“I’m a fighter, Marcos. I don’t do the mob kidnapping thing.”

“Well,” Marcos said, nodding to Seth’s lifeless body, “I have good news. You’re getting a promotion.”

“I don’t need one.”

Marcos grinned. “You have a choice. You have twenty four hours to bring me Penny. If you don’t, I’ll shoot you. And trust me, it won’t be in the shoulder.”

Marcos reached down and touched my forehead.

I shook him away.

The doctor then took the scalpel from my throat.

“Change the bandages every few hours as needed. Check for heavy bleeding. You don’t want it to get infected, right?”

I made a fist again. I swung across my body and hit him in the mouth. He flew off his chair and hit the ground. He was lucky I had been on my back and didn’t have my full power. If I had, he’d be paying for a new jaw for himself instead of tits for his girlfriend.

Marcos quickly put the gun to my head. “You’re upset with me, not the good doctor here. Channel that anger. Find Penny. She’s trying to take all of us down. Don’t let her pretty eyes fool you.”

I looked at Marcos and he started to laugh.

“What?” he asked me. “She was the woman you were waiting for. I’m not an idiot. I’m not exactly sure how she got away from you, Noah. But you have more value to me alive, ready and willing to fight. That’s why you’re alive right now. Bring me Penny and my memory loses all this.”

“It doesn’t bring Seth back,” I said.

“But it keeps you alive.”

Marcos then walked away.

I was then back to basics.

Back to survival.

Back to hurting those around me.

Just like before…