“We’ve sparred before, Moll. I know what you’re bringing to the table. I don’t need a recap.”
Molly continues to bounce on the balls of her feet. Her eyes narrow. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
I cock my head to one side. “Talk to me after I get you out of that place without an incident with your ex.”
“Chicken shit,” she shouts, daring me.
I’m not falling for it. “Look, you patch up the bitches, and I’ll do my job and protect your ass from a fucking psycho. Besides, it’s not easy sparring with you when I have a boner the size of Texas.”
“Yeah, right,” she teases, turning her gaze downward to check.
“Don’t fucking tempt me or I’ll take you right up against this wall.”
That quiets her down. When the staff entrance bouncer finally shows up, I cradle her elbow and guide her into the warehouse.
She points out a room with a first aid sign on the door. “This is where I’ll be between fights.”
“Okay.”
She takes out a small over the shoulder first aid kit from her medical bag and leaves everything else in the room. “Let’s go. I’m supposed to be ringside in five.”
In the main fighting area, Molly goes over to the organizer, a five foot nothing shady-looking sleazebag of a guy. I take a quick look around. Beyond the fluorescent lights of the ring, the place is dark, dirty, dingy and outdated. A loud as fuck shithole filled with men and women, screaming and shouting although no one is fighting in the ring yet. I cough from the scent of stale cigarette smoke hanging in the air. And something’s burning in frying oil. The idea that they might serve food in a dump like this screws with my iron stomach.
A slight headache presses against my temples. With four exits and a crowd too large for the space, it’ll be near impossible to manage all the risks. The only way for me to keep an eye on her is by staying at her side the entire time. Which means I have to be ready if anyone tries to approach us from behind.
It’s chaos.
There are definitely some bikers in the crowd too. I see patches belonging to Satan’s Saints, Los Diablos, and a few Mongols around. On a regular day I’d eat this up for breakfast and ask for seconds, but as a bodyguard, shit just got a fuck ton harder. Everywhere I look, there are spots and nooks for someone like Jett to hide in plain sight, which is no help at all.
A match starts as I catch sight of Molly standing ringside, so I head over to her through the dense crowd. Her eyes are glued to the fight already going down.
“Can you do your nursing stuff in the first aid room tonight?” I shout across to her, but it’s not near loud enough. I get closer, close enough to smell the fruity body wash she showered with, and ask her again.
“Can’t,” she answers, shrugging me off without a second thought or backward glance, and shoves off the throng of people crowding the ring. Her makeshift nurse’s station is a spot on the bench filled with female fighters waiting for their turn in the ring. I knew this job wasn’t going to be a cake walk, but for all I know, this Jett motherfucker could be a few feet away, watching and waiting for an opening. Knowing that’s a possibility, I stand directly behind her, dwarfing her tiny frame. When she senses me there, she leans back into me pressing up against me from her hips to her shoulders like the temptress that she is.
Then she turns and glares up at me. “Can you focus when I’m doing that? Because I can’t do my job either, if you’re on my like white on bread.”
“I’ll have to make do,” I tell her frankly. “The place is packed, and your stalker friend can make an appearance anytime, if he isn’t already right under our noses. You get to stick to my hip until I tell you to do otherwise, got it?”
Molly rolls her eyes. “I have a job to do.”
“Same here.”
“For fuck’s sake, Tate,” she shouts. “I still have to work here. You can watch my back from six feet away…as in get the hell over there and give me some breathing room.”
I’m not about to leave her on her own, but the organizer waves her over to the cordoned off section beside the steps leading up to the ring. One of the women from the first fight is hit so hard in the face, she’s cut above her eye and is bleeding everywhere. The blood covers half her face. When it starts to look like the bleeding won’t stop, the referee calls the game in the other fighter’s favor.