REBEL: #4.5 The Beat and The Pulse Read online

  REBEL

  #4.5 The Beat and The Pulse

  Amity Cross

  REBEL (#4.5 The Beat and The Pulse) by Amity Cross

  Copyright © 2015 Amity Cross / Nicole R. Taylor

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All song titles, song lyrics, products and brand names mentioned in this book are the property of the sole copyright owners.

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  Cover Design © Amity Cross / Nicole R. Taylor

  Chapter 1

  Charlotte

  This had to be either the best or worst idea I’d ever had.

  The jury was still out on which it was going to be.

  I sat in my car, watching the stream of people coming and going from the warehouse that was ablaze with light and sound. Usually, it was illegal raves I came to bust up with an army of cops at my side, not a highly organized underground fighting racket.

  In the daylight, I went by the name Detective Charlotte Croft, but out here in the wilds of Melbourne’s seedy underbelly, I was just Charlotte or Charlie for short. If anyone in that building found out I was a cop, I’d be gutted from head to toe. Cops were not welcome in a place like this.

  What had brought me here, then? Truthfully, it was part insanity and part desperation. I needed a big break to get my stalled career moving again or just give up and drown.

  I’d joined the Victorian Police right out of high school at eighteen and had excelled through the ranks…all the way to detective by twenty-five. It was young, but I’d earned it—an impressive feat considering the whole force was one big boys club. I’d endured my fair share of crap from drunken idiots during my time on the beat and more than a fair chunk of it at the station. Making detective hadn’t stopped any of it. In fact, it had just gotten worse. I constantly had to prove myself or fall behind into irrelevance, and irrelevant cops got the shit cases. The hypochondriacs and the crazies that wore tinfoil hats. The high profile drug busts and murder investigations were handed to the men with the biggest balls and being a chick…apparently I didn’t have any. Not even any of the metaphoric ones.

  Being a female detective was harder than walking the streets on a Saturday night, which is how I found myself outside of the most notorious underground fighting racket in the whole of Melbourne. Hell, the whole of Australia. The Underground was dripping in bad news. Busting this open would be the best thing my career had ever seen. Fuck, it would be the best thing to happen to anyone’s career.

  Too bad I was conducting this investigation off book and without backup. If my boss found out I was here unsanctioned…my head would be on the chopping block. I already knew what would happen if I pulled this off. The risk seemed justifiable to me.

  Getting out of the car, I joined the stream of people that were filing into the place that was known as The Underground. Fitting name, considering what it was.

  Inside, the warehouse was pumping.

  The moment I stepped within the walls, I was transported to what felt like another planet. The Underground was a place like no other…and attracted a crowd to match.

  Bookies were taking bets, punters were lining up around the cage that was nestled amongst a ring of bleachers, the bar was packed, and I stood in the middle of it all…absolutely awestruck. The level this operation was being run at was unbelievable. There was no way this could go on without a good chunk of the force being paid off. Not only cops but politicians, lawyers, the Melbourne Fire Brigade. Big money rolled around this place. It had its own bloody economy.

  If I was going to crack open The Underground and expose it for what it really was, I had my work cut out and then some. What in the bloody hell was I thinking?

  There had to be at least four hundred punters crammed in here, and that wasn’t including staff and fighters. I couldn’t believe everything I was seeing. I didn’t know if I should be mesmerized or appalled. The further I ventured into the warehouse, the more my eyes were opened. I decided it was a little of column A, and a little of column B.

  I stood out with my tall stature and pale blonde hair, and people turned to look as I passed. Noticing a few groups of women done up in makeup that was an inch thick and tops that clung tightly to their artificial breasts, I began to understand why. There was a kind of woman that frequented here and it was neither highbrow nor classy. Trashy was more like it. People were staring because they were trying to decide what category to place me in. Easy or hard.

  The men were trying to work out how easily they could get into my pants, and the women were gauging how easy it would be to cancel out their competition. I’d find no friends here, not that I was looking.

  Pushing through the throng, I jammed myself against the fence, staring into the cage. It was a crude contraption with a concrete floor. No padding, no safety net…just a wire fence and a couple of beefy looking blokes that acted as security. There was nothing safe about it. When my gaze settled on the brown stains all over the illuminated floor, which were obviously dried blood, I swallowed hard.

  “What are the rules?” I asked a guy standing to my right.

  He looked me up and down and began to laugh. “Rules? There are no rules, sweetheart.”

  I raised my eyebrows, glancing back to the dried blood.

  “You look a little lost,” the man said, beginning to crowd my personal space. “You wanna—”

  “No, thank you,” I snapped, moving back into the crowd, away from the creeper. No rules? I wondered how many fighters were hospitalized, or worse, killed in there.

  Moving through the crowd, I found a space further along the edge of the cage, a sick fascination drawing me to the sidelines. The air was thick with excitement, an animalistic electricity…and it was catching.

  Curling my fingers through the chain-link, I surveyed the faces around me, trying to see who carried more weight, who was in charge, and who was calling the shots. So far, it all looked pretty evenly split between the punters and the fighters. It was a very ‘them and us’ mentality. The gods and their subjects.

  My attention was pulled to the side as a man entered the cage, positioning himself in the middle of the pool of light. He was in full referee garb, a cordless microphone in his hand, and when people began to notice him standing in the center of the ring, they began to fall silent. He raised the microphone to his lips and practically roared into the thing.

  “Welcome, one and all, to The motherfucking Underground!” Cheers and whistles erupted around me, the air alive with energy. “This is our first bout of the evening, and fuck, do we have a good one for you.” He pointed to his left, where a section of the cage swung inwards. “He’s the meanest son of a bitch out there, he’ll fuck you up with a single blow to the head…then he’ll stomp on it. It’s Crowbar!”

  The crowd roared and feet thundered on the bleachers behind me as the first fighter strode into the cage.

  He was all muscly and mean looking, his face hard, his eyes dark with pent-up energy. As he did a lap around the cage for added effect, I realized he had old bruises peppered all over his torso. Yellow splotches that must only be a few days old. How often did these guys fight?

  “And now…” My attention was pulled back to the announcer. “Please welcome the man the ladies throw themselves
at, the king of the cage, and the animal himself…Rebel!”

  Sound erupted around me, cheers, whistles, and the thundering of feet against the bleachers increased ten-fold compared to what they gave Crowbar. Whoever this Rebel was, he seemed to be the crowd favorite around here. Obviously, I’d picked a good night to come crack this joint open.

  Then he stepped into the light, and I understood what all the fuss was about.

  Rebel stood tall and proud, a cocky grin on his face gave away that he was soaking up the attention like a sponge. He wore nothing but a pair of black shorts with a white Everlast logo stitched at the front. His feet were bare, his legs, and from the waist up. I’d never seen a man as beautiful and powerful as the specimen that stood in front of me. The crowd dropped away, and all I could see was him. Bloody hell, I was having a visual orgasm.

  Crowbar was something to look at but Rebel…my gaze was drawn to him like a magnet. There was something about the guy that commanded attention and respect. His body was spectacular, all hard muscle and sinew, his jaw was hard and sharp, his dark hair short and messy…and his eyes… Well, no doubt he’d be able to pin a woman down in more ways than one.

  I glanced around at the crowd and saw how he commanded them. He was adored by all. The women were falling over themselves, shouting obscene come-ons. Do me Rebel! Fuck me hard! Let me suck your cock! The men were hero-worshipping the guy and the ones who weren’t were openly envious. I could see it in their eyes. The lot of them. Rebel was king in this place. The man of the moment.

  The two men toed their lines, and before I had time to collect myself, the fight began.

  It was all twisting bodies glistening with sweat, grunting, and blood. A total doodle-fest. A battle of who had the most testosterone.

  Fists collided against flesh, knees and feet smacked into torsos, and when Rebel heaved Crowbar over his shoulder and flung him like he weighed nothing, I almost had to cover my eyes. Then he simply got up and kept going. There were no rules, huh? I could see that. Both men wanted to win, but the difference was Crowbar was desperate and Rebel wasn’t. Rebel made beating a man half to death look easy.

  Holy fucking hell.

  Rebel clocked Crowbar in the jaw, the smack of his fist audible over the din, and I found myself flinching as the guy’s head snapped to the side. He fell to the ground, his temple smashing against the concrete. Blood dribbled from his mouth, his expression dazed, but he placed his palms against the floor and pushed.

  My eyes were opened, alright.

  I glanced up at the fighter known as Rebel and froze. He was staring right at me. So much for a low profile.

  He began to move, not even glancing at Crowbar, who was trying to struggle to his feet. The bout wasn’t over until he tapped, but he didn’t seem to care. Rebel was…I was enthralled. I’d never seen a man fight like that, not even in all my years as a beat cop. He fought like his life was on the line. He fought like a predator.

  And he was coming right for me.

  Chapter 2

  Rebel

  My fist slammed into flesh and the crowd roared.

  This. This is what I was born to do. I was a fighter through and through. Had to be. I hadn’t had one of those fancy, normal upbringings with home-cooked meals and a safe bed to sleep in at night. I learned how to fight the moment my parents died, and I had been fighting ever since. Junkies, fucked up foster parents, bullies, thugs, and petty thieves. I’d fought them all.

  They called me Rebel for a reason. It’s not just the name I take when I step into the cage at The Underground. It’s the name that life gave me when I rebelled against it.

  So fuckin’ what? I got dealt a shit card and I just had to deal with it.

  The Underground housed some of the meanest fighters out there. If they couldn’t or didn’t want to go pro, or just wanted something a little more violent without the rules and regulations, they came here. Motherfucking illegal, but it was better I fought in the cage than out there on the street. In here, I could earn real money for using my fists instead of using them to keep my life. Either way, I could die doing this shit, but in this cage, I had less of a chance of kicking the bucket. In the cage, it was only fists, not guns and knives.

  With it being the first bout of the night, I was full of energy, adrenaline running hot and hard through my veins. My opponent was Crowbar, and the few times I’d fought him he’d made it good. There was a great deal of grappling and blood when we were pitted against each other.

  Swinging with my right, I clipped past his guard, and my knuckles collided with his temple. I felt the shock of the blow shoot up my arm, but I was so amped up and high, I hardly felt it. Crowbar fell, his head cracking on the concrete. The fucker would be down for more than a minute. I could end the fight right now, or I could have a little more fun and wind up the crowd. Management liked it when I milked the audience. They wanted a good fucking show and I was more than capable of delivering.

  So, I prowled, giving the fucker time to get his shit together and get back on his feet for another go.

  That’s when I saw something shiny. Something pretty fucking beautiful. Something I’d like on my cock.

  She was standing at the edge of the cage, her pretty, blonde hair shining like fucking gold in a sea of shit. Her expression was full of lots of things, but all I saw was awe. If that was a good thing or not, I didn’t really care. All I saw was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in this cesspool, and I wanted her.

  Her gaze rose from Crowbar and met mine. I narrowed my eyes as her baby blues looked straight through me. She peeled me away layer by layer, and fuck me if I didn’t want to haul her out back and go at it right now.

  The crowd roared as I pulled my attention away, circling to the opposite side of the cage as Crowbar forced himself to his knees, spitting blood on the concrete. One more lap and then I’d make sure that fucking angel, and every man and woman in this shithole, knew what I wanted. She was mine tonight. It was hands off or get the shit kicked outta you.

  Prowling around the cage, I kept my eyes wide, looking for the blonde woman. When I saw her standing by the fence, her expression still as stunned as before, I curled my fingers in the chain-link and stood before her, my chest heaving.

  Yeah, that’s right sugar, I thought, smirking at her. I pick you.

  I held her gaze, her blue eyes piercing mine, and lifted a finger. I pointed right at her, the crowd still going crazy. Her brow furrowed as she frowned, but I backed away, flashing her another cocky smile and turned back to my opponent who was getting back up for round two.

  Women only came here for two things. One was to support their man, and since she didn’t seem to have one of those, it must be for reason number two. She wanted to get with a cashed up fighter. Luckily for her, I wanted to get in her.

  My fist slammed into Crowbar’s face, splitting his eyebrow open, and he slipped. He fell onto his shoulder—hard. I heard a loud pop, and a split second later, he was howling in pain. His shoulder was dislocated, the bone pressing unnaturally against his flesh. He grimaced, practically foaming at the mouth, and slammed his good hand on the ground.

  And just like that, the fight was over.

  Chapter 3

  Charlotte

  I watched as Crowbar was carried out of the cage on a stretcher, clutching his shoulder in agony.

  Rebel had just left the ring without a care, not even worried that he’d just dislocated a guy’s shoulder. He’d pushed through the crowd and disappeared, not even stopping to talk to anyone who approached him. Arrogant, much?

  Shaking my head, I pulled my black leather jacket tighter around myself, suddenly wondering if this was a good idea. I knew it’d be rough but not this rough. Rough wasn’t the right word…brutal. Yeah, brutal, but I was a cop and had seen much worse shit. Nothing could top some of the call-outs I’d attended. Road accidents, domestic assaults, home invasions and the worst…murder scenes. It was rough out there, and you had to be tough enough to cope with seeing the w
orst humanity had to offer. Some of the shit I’d seen would scar a regular person for life. What was some cage fighting compared to that? Nothing.

  Glancing around, I saw hordes of people crowding the bookies and collecting their winnings, the losers who’d bet on Crowbar were huddled around the bar drowning their sorrows. Faces were turned away, talking about the fight and what they’d won, and for one glorious moment, they weren’t looking at me.

  Weaving through the throng and around the bleachers, I cased the rest of the joint, taking note of the lay of the land. There wasn’t much else to see in a place like this. At the opposite end to the bar and the bookies stations, there was a double door that led to another area. Two security guards leaned against the wall, arms crossed over their chests, talking animatedly to one another. This must be where the fighters went before and after their fights. It also had to be where they kept the money and the paper trail. That was where I had to go.

  Pulling my mobile phone from my pocket, I pretended to check my texts while keeping one eye on the crowd. Nobody was looking at me. When I glanced at the security guards, they weren’t even watching the doors, which were propped open. All I had to do was dart forward, slip through, and I’d be in.

  Sounded like a plan to me. And if I was caught? I hadn’t thought that far, but I wasn’t about to let my opportunity slide. Stepping forward on light feet, I was through the door and into the empty hall beyond.

  There was a lot of noise coming from the far end. Slamming lockers, male and female voices…the sound of running water. That must be the change rooms for the fighters. I was definitely not going in there. That would be like a lamb going to the slaughter.

  Not knowing how much time I’d have before someone found me lurking, I edged forward, checking each door along the hall. Coming across what looked like an office, I opened the door and peered inside. It was dark and unattended. If I was going in, I’d better go now.