Retracing her steps, she slipped into the bar again, intent on retrieving her purse and telling Lou she’d gotten sick in the bathroom so he’d send her home. Despite his own lack of hygiene, he was a stickler about his employees not spreading germs. If a flu epidemic went around, there’d be no one to serve beer and stale pretzels to the fine folk of Alabaster for a week.
Her original plan of packing up and leaving Louisiana behind sprouted again in her head. She’d give it serious thought tomorrow. All she wanted to do tonight was go home, have herself a good cry, and find solace in the only male guaranteed to never betray her: Murphy the Cat.
…
An all-out riot could have broken out at the bar that night and Aiden wouldn’t have noticed without the other cooler telling him about it over their comm-link.
It was a typical Friday night. The people were packed in like sardines, the juke pumped out one deafening song after another, and the flow of alcohol was constant. But the only things Aiden saw and heard were the betrayal in Kat’s eyes and the hurt in her voice. They played on a constant loop in his head like a form of psychological Chinese torture. Then every once in a while, Sully’s opening line to him filtered through to add the icing on his shit cake.
“It’s time we play by my rules, kid.”
He trusted Sully and Vinnie even less now than he had before. Their impromptu visit to Lou’s earlier had almost caused him to snap. The only thing that kept him in check was Kat’s presence and not wanting to tip her off as to who they really were.
Once she’d finally gone inside, though, he’d gotten in their faces and demanded to know what the fuck they were doing there. When he’d ducked them back at the fight last Saturday he had a feeling he’d be seeing them again, but he figured they’d wait to corner him at the tournament, not stroll up to him in the parking lot at Lou’s. Whatever they wanted, he knew it couldn’t be good.
He’d been right.
Turned out Vinnie was a bit of an MMA buff, which was why he thought he recognized Aiden in Kat’s apartment that first night. Once he saw his tattoos, namely the one of his last name, and the way he fought, Vinnie’s memory had been sufficiently jogged. Sully, brilliant bad guy that he was, came up with a genius plan to make a shit ton of money…by gambling on Aiden’s next opponent and having Aiden take the fall.
The blackmailing bastards had been busy all week putting bugs in people’s ears about who Aiden was and his record back in his fighting days. If things panned out the way they hoped, the majority of the crowd tomorrow night would be betting on Aiden to win and anyone who still wasn’t sure would have time to change their minds when they saw Aiden lead in points in the first two rounds. The more people that bet on him to win, the bigger the odds. So anyone who bets on him to lose will rake in the dough.
Though he wasn’t planning on this tournament re-launching his career, the idea of losing at all, much less on purpose, grated on him. But he hadn’t even given it a second thought. He agreed to go down in the third round like they wanted. Anything to prevent Sicoli from tossing Kat into a hell she already survived. She might hate him at this point, but that didn’t change his stance on helping her. Nothing would.
As she’d driven away earlier, his instincts pushed for him to go after her. To make sure she got home okay at the very least. If he allowed himself the luxury of wishful thinking, he’d go fix things between them and tell her how he truly felt about her.
But he couldn’t. It would only string her along even further when he knew he couldn’t trust himself not to hurt her worse in the future.
I knew you had secrets… I thought I could trust you, Aiden. If that’s even your real name.
Godammit! Aiden slammed his fist on the bar, the vibration like pins shooting up his arm. He couldn’t leave things like that. The thought of her believing that everything between them had been a lie gnawed at him. Just because he couldn’t offer her more didn’t mean that what they’d already shared hadn’t been real. He had to talk to her.
“Anders,” he called through his comm to the other cooler, “something’s come up. I gotta go.”
“The Barrow brothers just walked in looking drunk and ornery. What am I supposed to do if a riot breaks out?”
Aiden was already pushing through the back door. He strode toward his bike while digging the keys out of his pocket. “Other than keeping the employees safe and out of the way, let them burn the place down if they want, Johnny. Lou’s got insurance.”