Before - Bethan-Kris Page 0,1

Martha Mae to feel as though she was burdening him when he knew her sad reality. Nobody else would help her today—certainly not another tenant. She did her very best to not call the cops on her granddaughter because that almost always never ended well for anybody involved, and it was just yet another strike against a troubled teenager that needed help more than she needed the law. Nonetheless, he’d known the time before he left his apartment, and he was quite aware of the minutes passing him by now.

And the fact he was going to be late for work. On a very important night when he really couldn’t afford to be late if the warning his boss gave him the evening before was any indication. It was a thirty-minute bus trip from his place in Harlem to the bar in the Kitchen where he worked, but shit ...

Martha Mae’s worry showed on her forehead where the wrinkles were more apparent than ever when she said, “She stopped answering my calls through the door twenty minutes ago.”

Well, Jesus ...

Lev spun on his booted heels and headed for the old lady. “Why didn’t you start with that, woman?”

She tittered and waved her small, frail hands to usher him inside her apartment as she replied, “I will next time.”

Right.

Next time.

There was always next time.

• • •

Lev shouldered through the group of young men lingering in the back hallway of the bar to where the crowd began to spread out nearer his boss’s office at the far rear. His task was made quicker by the fact he towered higher than most of the men waiting in the space as he topped out at six and a half feet tall with shoulders that could fill a doorway easily, and a demeanor that screamed he wasn’t to be fucked with. It was hard to miss him coming into a place, all things considered.

And life had taught him to make sure everybody knew he wasn’t easy prey before anything else. Made things a hell of a lot simpler for him, honestly.

His main job at the bar was keeping a drink in every hand that could buy one. It was his side hustle when the fights came up that kept him motivated enough to run six miles every morning and to use the gym across from the bar where a lot of the underground fighters in Hell’s Kitchen liked to train. Usually, after his work was done in the early mornings because it was the only point he had the time to do so.

Everyone in the hallway separated like the sea had parted to let Lev through when he moved down the hallway toward his boss’s office. Except for the guy at the end who didn’t look old enough to even stand inside the back of the damn bar. Right in the middle of the hallway, he crossed his arms at Lev’s approach. He never understood his boss’s need to have open fight nights where anyone could put their name in for a bid to fight when all it did was invite the stupidest fucks off the streets who only needed cash and nothing more.

Then again ... wasn’t that what all of them needed?

He sure did.

“Move your ass,” Lev told the guy as he approached. “Before I move you.”

Stupid didn’t move.

In fact, he folded his arms and held his ground.

Because he was stupid.

“Hey, asshole, I was here—”

“Shut that hole in your fucking face before I fill it with my fist, yeah? You’re going to move, and if you’re really smart—but I doubt you are—you’ll head out of here entirely. You’re about forty pounds underweight, and they’ll use you as filler tonight between the main fights. You know what happens to the filler in the ring, kid?”

At least this time, the guy had the decency to give Lev a second look. Which meant he had to tip his head all the way back to stare up at the man towering over him wearing dark-wash, ripped jeans and a black leather jacket that had seen better days but a hell of a lot of nights just like these. Stupid also had the nerve to swallow—a good sign of the fear he really didn’t want to be showing in a place like Nickie’s.

Fed by the underground, corrupted by a variance of organized crime figures that regularly made their way through the door for meetings, entertainment, or whatever else Lev’s boss could offer, and controlled by a code this young man