“It’s him, isn’t it?” I gestured down the corridor to where Lockwood was facing-off with my friends.
“Yeah. It is.”
I turned to glare at Pat, hoping he could feel the torture of my gaze penetrate through his rhino thick skin. He hadn’t stitched me up, he’d ripped a massive fucking hole through any shred of trust I might’ve had.
How could he keep something like this from me?
He held his hands up in defence, but his face showed no remorse, only crinkles of mirth from the way his eyes wrinkled as he spoke. “After your last fight, with all that talk, this is the showdown the punters wanna see. You’ve got nothing to worry about, lad. You could beat him with one hand tied behind your back.”
I could beat Pat too. A prospect that was looking more inviting by the minute.
“A heads up would’ve been nice.” My blood was boiling already.
“If I’d told you he was back in town, you’d have gone off like a bloody firework and kicked his ass. Probably got yourself thrown into jail for the pleasure too. At least this way everyone gets to see you pound his face in, and you get paid for it. It’s a win-win.”
I couldn’t concentrate on what Pat was saying over the pounding in my head. All I could see was him acting the big man down the hall. All I could focus on was getting into his face and knocking him the fuck out.
“It’s a fucking set-up. Finn was right.”
“It’s business!” Pat raised his voice and waved his fat finger in my face. “And it’s money. The people out there want this fight. You bragged about it yourself at your last match. This is what we do, lad. We give the audience what it wants. We take their bets, and we go off laughing all the way to the bank.”
Some things were worth more than money.
Trust.
Pride.
Love.
“He hurt my girl.”
“And now you’re gonna hurt him.” Pat chuckled to himself and muttered under his breath that it was a genius idea to get Lockwood on board. Whether it was genius or a fucking fool’s mission was yet to be seen; for Pat, at least.
So, I guessed Lockwood already knew he was fighting me. I was the only one that’d been kept in the dark and I wasn’t happy. I didn’t like being lied to. I wouldn’t stay in the dark and on the back foot for long though.
I let Pat walk out first, wandering off to talk more bollocks to his cronies. I waited for him to be far enough away, then I kicked the door off its hinges and marched down to where Jensen stood shouting his mouth off. He spun around when he saw me coming towards him. I was surprised he stayed rooted to the spot and didn’t bolt like the pussy he was. Mind you, he had his crew behind him to make him feel like a somebody. It was a different story when he was on his own. Then, he was a nobody.
“And here he is. The man of the hour. The shitty king of Sandland.” Jensen was back to his ballsy self, giving me all the bravado he could muster. He was fucking delusional. “Disappointed?”
“To see you? Always. I thought you’d have learnt your lesson by now, Lockwood. I’ve beaten you once before and I’ll do it again.” I kept moving forward, getting into his space to piss him off.
“You got lucky. But let’s face it, I’ve beaten your ugly ass more times than you can count. I bet you still wet the bed thinking about all the fucked-up shit we did to you in school. Is that why Harper’s dating you now? Does she feel guilty about what her brother did to fuck up your head? She always was a soft touch for a sob story. She’s gonna love it even more after tonight when she’s nursing your wounds.” He turned to laugh at his friends like what he’d said was fucking funny. He’d be laughing through his wired jaw after I was finished with him. He spun back round to face me, keeping the sly smirk on his face. “If you think the right-hook I gave her was good, you should see what I’ve got planned for you.”
I snapped, lurching forward, feeling like my whole body would implode if I didn’t hit him right that second. I never wanted him to say her name, and the memory of him putting his hands on her made me vicious, totally unhinged with the intensity of my thirst for revenge. Whoever said it was gonna be a blood bath was right, I was gonna rip his fucking head off.
Ryan jumped in front of me like he was taking a bullet to save my life.
“Save it for the ring, mate,” he growled into my ear as he kept himself in between me and the grinning cunt who was begging to have his whole face rearranged. “Use the anger. Channel it. Own it. Don’t let it own you. If he gets under your skin, he’ll win. You can’t let that happen. He needs to go down.”
I listened to what Ryan said. I didn’t want to rein it in, but I knew I had to. For now. There was a better way to get my revenge, and Ryan was right. He always made sense. I had to own this anger, use it. Focus on the end goal and show everyone in that room that no one messes with Brandon Mathers or his woman. Years of deep-seated hatred, anger, and fury would be the fuel I needed to bring this to an end once and for all. After tonight, I never wanted to see another Lockwood in my face ever again.
Jensen backed away and headed back to his side of the corridor with his mates. Zak, Finn, and Ryan formed a wall around me and kept giving me their pep-talk, bigging me up, but I couldn’t hear them. I’d started to faze them out. I was pumped, ready, and heading into that fucking zone.
Just as the announcer started speaking to the crowd over the sound system, I heard the vibrations from the guys’ phones chiming in unison, pulling me out of my headspace.
“Fuck, I forgot to turn mine off,” Zak said as he pulled his mobile out of his pocket. The other two swiped their screens, and when they read their messages, I saw the change in their expressions.
“What does it say?” I asked, knowing they were about to hit me with bad news.
“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.” Zak was a little too quick replying. He shoved his phone back into his pocket and looked anywhere but at me. This was fucking bad.
“Ryan? What did it say?” I glared daggers at him, watching my best friend battle inside himself over whether to tell me or not. He didn’t want me to know what it was, but he would never keep a secret. He was always honest. But it was Finn who eventually broke the stand-off.
“It says, tell him to throw the fight. If he doesn’t, we’ll hurt the girl.”
Harper.
They were threatening Harper.
“And you still think this is Don Lockwood?” I pointed down at Ryan’s phone as I spoke.
“That’s what the records say.” Zak was a whizz at these things. If he said it was linked to Lockwood, then it was. I trusted him one hundred percent.
“It’s an empty threat. He’d never hurt Harper. We wouldn’t let him anywhere near her.” Ryan sounded so sure, but I knew better than anyone, if someone wanted to hurt you, they would. It didn’t matter how well protected you were. There was always a way.
“This ends tonight.” I smacked my fists together, more than ready to take him on. No one threatened us and got away with it. First, I was gonna take out Jensen, and then I was going after Daddy Lockwood. The days of me cowering because of anyone from that family were well and truly over.
“Are you still gonna fight?” Zak asked me, and I frowned. I couldn’t believe he needed to ask me that.