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 shop. 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 cheers 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.”

I knew I sounded like a parent instead of Nathan’s younger sister and I hated having to assume that role. For once, I just wanted to be the irresponsible one. I wanted to be the one to stay out all night with my friends and crawl home in the early hours of the morning.

But I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t be that person. I had to be the responsible one. I had to be the strong one. I had to hold everything together.

Nathan stared at the steering wheel and then nodded. “I know. I’m sorry. I lost control and I shouldn’t have done that.” He was quiet for a few seconds, and then he spoke again. “Today is her birthday, you know?”

I squeezed my eyes shut as a lump worked its way to the center of my throat. I knew. I just hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it. Why did Nathan have to bring up something so painful? Normally, we avoided conversations about her like the plague. I guess the alcohol had taken control of his mouth and he’d brought up the central thing that had probably been bothering him all day.

“Is that why you drank tonight?” My voice was calm even though something inside of me—something I’d locked up inside a cage and then thrown into an abyss—was trying to rise to the surface and take hold of my emotions.

Well, I wasn’t going to let that happen. I was going to stay strong.

Nathan looked up at me; the whites of his eyes were rimmed with red. “I was trying to forget about her. It didn’t really work. I haven’t thought about her for so long, and then I was driving through town and I went past that shop, you know the one with all the pastries? And I thought about the time she’d taken us all there on her birthday and, fuck!” Nathan slammed his hand against the steering wheel, making me jump. “I don’t want to think about her! I want to forget that she exists!”

That natural instinct to take care of everyone awoke inside of me, and my annoyance with Nathan dissipated.

I reached over and placed both arms around him. “I know it’s hard, but you have a heart; you have feelings. Of course you’re going to miss her. Of course you’re going to think about her. You aren’t cold and heartless like she is, Nate.”