Wrong Side of Town wm-3 Read online

  “You’re a damn firecracker, aren’t you?” I tilted my head to the side, just watching her watch me.

  She held her tongue, but there was defiance in her eyes that excited me. The girls I hung out with weren’t like this. They’d never dare challenge me knowing who I was. They talked when I wanted them to, spread their legs for me when I wanted them to, and left me alone when I was sick of them throwing themselves at me. In this town when you had power, it attracted girls to you like you were some kind of fucking God.

  Even though Estella was scared of me, she wasn’t afraid to face me with some bravado—as false as it was—and I liked that. Besides, the girl was fucking gorgeous. Her hair was long, honey-brown, with a messy effect that made me think she’d just gotten out of bed—and boy, was it a turn on to associate her with a bed. Her amber eyes made me feel like I’d just taken a shot of whiskey.

  Even the way she dressed intrigued me. The baggy jeans and plain sweater hid her tall and willowy figure, but I imagined she had an amazing body beneath the loose clothing. It was completely different to the way the girls I hung around with dressed like. They let their tits and ass hang out in their skimpy and low-cut clothing. Estella’s easy going style was a nice change from what I was used to.

  “Let me tell you something, darlin’.” I took a measured step away from her to escape her scent that was doing funny things to me. “Next time you run into a Madden, hold that feisty tongue of yours. The boys will do a lot worse to you than give you a jacket.”

  Deep red splotches appeared on her cheeks, and she tossed her long, wavy hair behind her shoulder. “Don’t threaten me. I work at the community center; I’m around people from bad backgrounds all the time. You chose your life. You wanted to be this way. You’re an idiot and idiots don’t scare me.”

  Despite my better judgment, I took a step towards her again and grinned. “Nice bluff, Stelle, but I can see the fear in your eyes.” I placed a hand on her chest, and she quickly pressed her back against the wall. “I can feel your heart racing. I can see how scared of me you are. Fear is a weakness and it’s your fear that gives me power over you, so let it go.”

  For a moment I thought I’d freaked out her out into silence, but her lips tightened as she stared at me straight on. Her gaze was almost blank and instead of feeling like I’d made my point, I suddenly felt unsettled.

  “Fear isn’t a weakness; it’s what makes us human.”

  When I’d come out here tonight after finishing up a bike late at the garage, I’d never in a million years expected this. I’d never expected to run into a girl who wasn’t afraid to speak her mind, despite being scared of me.

  We didn’t break eye contact—I couldn’t. It was like this girl had reached into my mind and taken ahold of a part of me that I was still trying to figure out. No one had ever done that before.

  The sound of an approaching car made us glance towards the street. A red Civic was slowly driving down the road, and from the way Estella stiffened, I could tell this was her brother.

  “I guess your ride’s here.” The sound of my voice seemed to rouse her and she turned back to me with wide eyes. “I’ll see you around, Stelle.”

  Her eyes never left me as I stepped back into the shadows. When the Civic pulled up, she hurried towards it but paused once she opened up the door. She briefly glanced back and sought me out in the darkness, but I knew she couldn’t really see me.

  Still, it felt like a current had shot through my entire body, leaving me momentarily stunned, as I watched her search for me. Finally, she gave up and got into the car.

  My eyes followed the beat-up car as it drove past and disappeared down the road. Letting out a long breath, I pulled another cigarette out and lit it up.

  As I inhaled the smoke, it settled amongst my throat and lungs, calming me. My heart rate went back to normal as I leaned back against the wall, trying to forget about Estella’s whiskey eyes.

  She was something else, that Estella. She was something I wasn’t used to; something I’d never experienced before.

  It was like my life was on this set path already determined by my brothers, and all of a sudden Estella had run me off the road into a ditch. That’s how I felt right now. That’s what the effects of being close to her did to me. Now, I had to claw my way back into the real world and return to my life.

  Feeling pissed at myself for letting a girl affect me like that, I started to head back to the garage that I ran with my brothers. My bike was back there and I had a fight to get to.

  “Who was that?”

  The voice came out of nowhere, but it was as familiar to me as my own. My brother, Tyson ambled towards me. He was twenty-two, only two years older than me, but sometimes I felt like he was the younger one. He was so reckless, so stupid, and took orders from our eldest brother, Ryder, without question.

  Sure, I listened to Ryder too, but lately I’d been starting to wonder if Ryder was really making the best choices for us. Just because he was my big brother didn’t mean he was always right.

  I tried to look unconcerned as I took another puff of my cigarette and looked at Tyson squarely. He was a lot leaner than I was but, man, was he was fast. During fights he’d be running circles around the other guy.

  “Just some hooker,” I lied. “Told her no, so she found some other guy.”

  Tyson leaned forward eagerly, rubbing his hands together. “How much was she asking for?”

  Fuck. Of all the stories I could’ve made up, I had to pick the only one my brother would actually care about.

  “Two hundred bucks.”

  “Fuck off! I could get the works for one-fifty.” Tyson looked outraged as I handed him my cigarette and he took a long puff from it. “Besides, she wasn’t even dressed decent. Amateur.”

  “Yeah, I think she was.” I swallowed, a bitter feeling in my mouth.

  There was a part of me that wanted to protect Estella. She was so innocent, so naïve, and I didn’t want her drawing unnecessary attention to herself. Don’t ask me why I cared so much. I had no fucking clue.

  Tyson looked excited as he lightly punched me on the arm, bouncing from side to side. “You ready for the fight tonight, little bro? Gonna win us some big bucks?”

  I shrugged, watching Tyson flick the cigarette onto the ground and pull out his phone. “Did they give a time and place?”

  He nodded. “Yep, the field past the Wilkins’ house in an hour.”

  Shit. One hour. That was all the time I had to mentally prepare myself to beat the crap out of some sad son of a bitch.

  That’s what I did. Once a week without fail, I fought in amateur fights originally set up by my boys and the Allbrook Gang. Over the years, the fights had become bigger, any guy wanting to make some quick cash entered—even if he had no ties to either gang—and the stakes were higher. There was a lot more money to gain if you won and a lot more money to lose if you got your ass beat.

  Ryder had been one of first guys to start fighting, but over the years he had resigned himself to a coaching position and I had taken over as his key player. There weren’t many fights I’d lost—in fact, only three in my entire amateur career. Lately, I was winning all of them. Guys would come from out of town just to fight me, but I handed them their ass on a platter and sent them packing.

  For this reason, Ryder loved me. He loved me because, just like Tyson, I followed him without question. With the three of us as a unit, no one dared to try and stand up to us.

  See, the thing was, we weren’t just in the Madden gang, we were Maddens. We were the three Madden brothers, and Ryder had been the one to start the gang. No one dared question him. He was the authority around these parts and I was his muscle. With me by his side, everyone gave Ryder the respect he demanded.

  “C’mon, little bro, get your bike and let’s get the hell outta here. We don’t wanna be late.”

  Tyson was already climbing onto his bike, and I nodded towards the garage that was a few feet away. “You go on. My bike’s in the s
hop. I’ll get it and follow you.”

  Tyson folded his arms across his chest and shook his head. “Not happening, little bro. I’m under strict orders to guard you ‘til we get there.” He unfolded a hand and patted his back pocket as though to reassure me. That was where he kept his gun.

  He’d started carrying it around with him everywhere ever since a bunch of the guys from the Allbrook gang had tried to knock me off before a fight. Since then, Ryder made sure that someone was always with me before every fight just in case anyone was stupid enough to try the same thing again.

  See, the thing was, a lot of money was spent on bets. Since I was the key fighter and I rarely lost, the competition tried to play dirty and get rid of me before the fight even began. That way, I was a no-show and they won the money without even raising a fist. Amateur fights were a dirty business.

  “Fine,” I said with a shrug, “wait here. I’ll be back.”

  “Uh-huh,” Tyson said, inclining on the bike as he waited for me.

  I walked past him and around the corner to where the garage stood next to some ugly ass warehouse building that was run-down. The garage was where me and my brothers worked during the day fixing up cars and bikes. We had to keep up some sort of façade that we worked respectable jobs. Like that was fooling anyone. Everyone knew who we were and what we really did. The Madden gang was synonymous with drug dealing, amateur fighting, and crime.

  On the other side of the ugly ass warehouse building was the community center where I’d just met Estella.

  Just the thought of her, sent this strange feeling shooting through me, like I’d just injected myself with adrenaline. I was a fucking moron. In my world, it was ‘bros before hos’. I had to stop thinking about some random girl and start focusing on the fight that was to come.

  My bike was parked just outside the shop—a 1999 Suzuki Hayabusa. The Hayabusa was my baby. It was my life. All the money I made from fights had gone into buying it, then restoring it, and now maintaining it. The Hayabusa was my lifeline.

  I climbed on and kick started the engine. The bike came to life beneath my hands and despite everything, I smiled. I smiled because this bike was just about the most important thing to me. Apart from Dylan.

  There was a helmet hanging off the back of the bike, but I never wore it. Helmets were for pussies and I figured if I died then I died.

  I drove around the corner and found Tyson exactly where I’d left him, except his bike was idling now and he was gearing up ready to go. He threw me a sly grin as I came up beside him and I knew what that look meant. He wanted to race.

  Throttling the engine, I nodded my head at him and sped off. I could hear him coming up behind me but his bike didn’t sound as smooth as mine. I’d put a lot of love into my Haybusa and I knew she would never lose in a race.

  There was a cold chill seeping through my body as the wind whipped past me, frigid and unyielding. I’d forgotten that I’d given my jacket to Estella, and now I was freezing my ass off.

  Lesson learned: don’t ever get on a bike unless you have a jacket on, moron.

  Tyson easily fell behind and once we were out of the town and heading down the lone, long road to the Wilkins’ farm, I shifted into fourth gear and sped up even more. The usual thirty minutes flew by and we reached the outer lying field within twenty minutes.

  By the time I was pulling up beside the other bikes and cars parked along the side of the road, I could hear all the noise coming from somewhere in the field. That’s why the location of the fights changed every week. We weren’t afraid of law enforcement—I think they were more afraid of us—but we still didn’t want to take too many chances.

  Tyson pulled up next to me and shot me a glare as he turned off the engine and got off his bike. “Not fair. Wait until I get this all redone. Bigger sprockets on the front, smaller ones on the back, and this baby will be whipping your ass, little bro.”

  “Yeah, sure. I’ll believe it when I see it.” I rolled my eyes at him as we headed into the field. Tyson kept going on about his bike, but the conversation wasn’t enough to distract me from what I was about to do.

  Have you ever been in a situation where you know what you’re doing isn’t right, but you’re so used to doing it that you don’t know anything else? Yeah, that was me. A big, tough Madden who couldn’t even break away from his shit hole of a life.

  I wanted so badly to get away from all this, but we needed the money. That’s the only reason I did what I did, why I followed Ryder blindly, because at the end of the day this was how our family survived—from me beating up some guy to the verge of his life.

  Sometimes I made myself sick. That’s why I tried not to think too much about what I was doing. That’s why I drowned my thoughts out with alcohol. But Estella had said something that had hit a nerve. She’d said that I’d chosen this life. If only she knew the reality of it; that I didn’t feel like I had a choice anymore—that I was just going through the motions to survive.

  If only she knew that this life had chosen me.

  We reached the clearing and found the source of the noise. There were over a hundred people here tonight. Some people had driven their bikes up here, denting the tall grass at various points.

  Ryder was standing at the edge of the circle and caught my eye. A huge grin spread across his face, and I was once again reminded of how similar we looked. Tyson had similarities to us, but Ryder and I looked so alike, it was freaky.

  Same height, same build, same features, same dark eyes. Fuck, we even had the same eye color—the brown was so dark that they looked black.

  “Hey, little bro,” Ryder called out as he headed towards me. He was the one who’d started calling me that; Tyson just followed suit. “How’s my champ doin’? Ready to bust some balls for me?”

  I nodded. It felt like there were thick clouds in my brain. I shook my head to clear them away.

  Ryder frowned as he stopped in front of me, and shot Tyson an accusatory look. “You okay? Did something happen?”

  “Nah, everything’s fine. No problems, Ry.” Tyson sounded nervous as he spoke. He was probably worried that he’d get into trouble with Ryder for not taking care of me.

  “Didn’t ask you, Son.” Ryder’s eyes bore into me. “Are we cool, Vincent?”

  I nodded again. “Yeah, yeah, it’s all good.”

  “Good.” Ryder’s grin returned and he clamped an arm over my shoulder, steering me towards the cheering crowd. His voice was low as he spoke into my ear. “You’re fighting some noob tonight. Big guy. Huge muscles, but I reckon he’ll be slow. Conor dug up some dirt on him. He has an old shoulder injury from football. He’s a goner. Stupid cunt.”

  I didn’t respond; only nodded to acknowledge that I’d heard him. Instead, my mind was trying to process the information Ryder had just given me. The guy had a bad shoulder, meaning he had a weakness that I could exploit. Ryder was right about one thing though. The guy was a stupid cunt.

  You didn’t fight if you had a weakness. A weakness was the one thing you didn’t need because as much as you tried to act all tough and shit, in the back of your head, that weakness taunted you. It was like a voice right inside your skin reminding you that you weren’t good enough—that you would never be good enough.

  “Is he one of the Allbrook’s?” Tyson was asking Ryder as people parted to let us through to the center of the circle.

  “Yeah, he’s one of the new fighters they’re backing.”

  “Stupid move,” Tyson said.

  The cheering grew, and people were patting me on the back and calling out my name. My ears were deaf to what the crowd was chanting. It was like I was somewhere else, looking in from the outside. I felt disconnected from my own body. I wasn’t myself. I was somebody else. I wasn’t about to beat up some poor guy; the monster inside me was.

  Ryder’s voice was in my ear. “You ready, little bro?”

  I barely managed a nod before he was pushing me into the center of the circle with both hands, and deafening c
heers met me. I stumbled, blinking as though waking from a dream.

  Strange faces swam in front of my eyes.

  I had to get my head in the game. I had to win.

  I had to stop thinking about a life that I didn’t have. I had to stop thinking about a girl from another world.

  This was my world, and in this world I was the king.

  Chapter Three

  Estella

  “You okay, Estee?” Nathan asked as we drove down the long road that connected Penthill and Statlen.

  I shrugged, not really in the mood to talk after the bizarre night I’d just had. I was still reeling from the shock of running into a member of the Madden gang and living to tell the tale. Except, I didn’t think I’d be telling anyone because the circumstances that I’d met Vincent under had been pretty mortifying.

  Apart from the fact that I’d spent fifty percent of our encounter in a state of horrification, the other fifty percent I’d been distracted by Vincent’s good looks. I wasn’t shallow or superficial, but it was hard to ignore how attractive the guy was.

  The way I felt around Vincent unsettled me. At first I’d thought I was just scared by him, but really fear had nothing to do with it. Instead, it felt like something had awoken inside of me—that alone scared me more than Vincent ever could.

  “Estee, come on, talk to me.”

  I caught the slur in Nathan’s voice, and turned in my seat to stare at him in disbelief. “You’ve been drinking.”

  Nathan visibly swallowed. “It was just a couple of glasses after dinner and—”

  “Pull over, Nathan.”

  “I’m fine to dri—”

  “Pull over!”

  Nathan swore under his breath but did as I said. The car slowed to a stop and we were both as quiet inside as it was outside. The darkness stretched out in front of our eyes—expansive and never-ending, just the way I felt inside.

  Nathan was the first one to break the silence. “Estee, I swear, I’m not that drunk.”

  I fixed him with a steely glare. “You know how I feel about you drinking. I can’t stop you from doing it, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. And there is no way you are going to be driving me anywhere while you’re intoxicated.”