Since my conversation with Graham earlier, the demons aren’t just screaming. They are begging to be let loose.
People have many ways of dealing with their issues. Some days, it feels like they can’t escape the heaviness in their chest, the intrusive thoughts that are far from harmless.
Depression. Mania. Anxiety. Anger. They’re all cunts who poke their heads out at the worst damn time. Sometimes they’re always there. Never-ending, relentless mental demons that taunt, haunt, and torment every minute of the day.
There’s the right way to handle shit, and there’s the fast, albeit temporary, way.
I prefer the latter. I drink like a fish, snort too much cocaine, spend as much time with my dick buried in a woman as I can…and I fight. Because a bottle doesn’t ask questions. Drugs quiet the whispers. Sex is mindless.
And fighting? It gives the mania and anger an outlet. Dispels the tension knotting in your muscles and the endless fury boiling in my veins. With every blow received, I’m reminded I can still feel something besides constant rage and regret. And every one delivered…it’s like I can breathe again.
Tonight, I plan to indulge in all of it because the grief, the guilt—the motherfucking anger are just too damn much.
I keep replaying the conversation with Graham, thinking about the text. My entire family is together right now. They’re sitting around the table, happy and celebrating, while I pull into the old parking garage of the illegal underground fight club and put my car in park. And why?
Because I can’t be in the same room as Maxwell without wanting to unleash it all.
My head falls back against the seat with a thud. The weight on my chest won’t budge. I scrub my hands over my face, hoping to claw it out.
I hate how I feel. Loathe that I’m letting everyone down. But more than anything, I’m embarrassed and fucking pissed I was ever put in the position to feel this way, and I despise myself for placing blame where it never belonged.
Absently scratching my brow, I blow out more frustration and grab my bag from the passenger seat as I open the door to my car. Time to swap mental carnage for something I can bleed out.
My footsteps are the only echo cutting through the parking garage as I head toward the elevator. I step inside and press the combination of numbers that will take me to the lowest level of the underground club. The undergroundfightclub.
It’s literally underground. Several floors beneath a popular dance club and an exclusive, members-only club where the dancers do a lot more than dance if you pay the nearly hundred grand a year membership fee, and the equally illegal casino, owned by the Lucchese family. Most know them as successful business owners, including many clubs, throughout Manhattan.Those with common sense know they’re Mafia.
Several people are milling around the locker room area when the elevator opens. A few nod their head at me, and I return the gesture. I’m not around as often as the rest of them, but I’ve made an impression—gained a little respect, so they recognize me when I make an appearance.
The guy I’m fighting tonight lingers outside his dressing room, talking to a couple of the girls who work here. He’s new around here, so maybe he hasn’t gotten the memo that the girls in this part of the club aren’t like the ones above. Though I know for a fact, they don’t care either. They like the attention and will indulge in whatever we ask of them after hours.
He tosses me a cocksure smirk, talking trash as I walk by.
I chuckle, not acknowledging him. The guy has an impressive win-loss record and more experience than me. The odds aren’t in my favor. That’s fine. I don’t come here to win.
Because win or lose, I always get what I came for. Pain. Delivered and received. Physical, raw, brutal agony to take my mind off…everything else.
I push open the heavy metal door to my dressing room and toss my duffel bag on the long bench that sits in front of several black lockers. The zipper buzzes as I peel open the bag, the metal teeth grating like everything else in my life.
I change clothes, then thumb my nose after a very unhealthy line before I grab the tape from my bag. After wrapping the black elastic around my wrist and hands and rotating my wrist to determine if it’s to my liking, I start on my fingers.
“If your brother finds out you do this, he’s going to kill me.”
I flex my fingers as I turn to face my guest. Will Lucchese is my brother’s bodyguard, though I have yet to understand what a Mafia guy is doing playing bodyguard to anyone outside his world. “He would have to give a damn first. Why aren’t you making sure he’s at home, tucked away from anyone who might want a piece of his billions?”
“You know damn well I don’t really watch him. I make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid, and I watch Casey. Once he picked her up, I came here.” He snatches the tape from my hand and begins twisting the black wrapping around my other wrist. “He cares, Jagger. You know he fucking cares.”
My shoulders lift with ambivalence. “Maybe. He’s the one who taught me how to fight in the first place.” It’s true. As much as I bitch about being ignored by my brother growing up, he did spend some time with me. Specifically, after I got suspended from school for fighting when I was sixteen. Our dad lost his shit. Graham came home, hauled me to his car, and dragged me to the gym. Apart from music, the ring became my outlet.
“He was teaching you to channel your anger in a controlled environment, dickhead. Not jump into a steel cage and bare-knuckle brawl like an asshole.”
I wave my taped hands at him. “Hardly bare knuckle. Besides, it’s your place.”
He scrubs both hands over his face, muttering under his breath. “It’s not my place. It’s Dom’s. How the fuck did I end up dealing with you?”
“You saw me in the cage one night and decided to meddle.” I toss the rest of my tape back into my bag and zip it, then begin my warmup as if he isn’t here. It’s easy for me to tune people out. If it were an Olympic event, I’d take gold. When I tune out, it’s just white noise and bone-deep fury.
It’s justmybullshit I can never get away from. Nothing works as well as I’d like, so I indulge more and more. Trying to shut it all the fuck down. If only for a minute.
