In the Dark with the Duke by Christi Caldwell Page 0,8

thrust back into the world he’d sought to bury.

“We’ve got ’im,” Bragger repeated as if Hugh hadn’t heard the first pronouncement. Because neither Bragger nor Maynard—nay, no one in these streets—could ever expect Hugh to feel anything more than a vicious bloodlust for revenge. “Angus located him.”

“How?”

“’eard from ’is contacts on the street that someone was settin’ up a new fight club. The bastard ’ad already gotten started recruiting fighters.”

“Dooley.”

“Aye, Dooley.”

And while his partner talked, Hugh’s gut churned.

Long before Hugh had returned to the rookeries, the men who’d become his partners, Bragger and Maynard, had begun hunting down the ones responsible for the hell they’d endured and seeing they paid with their lives . . . or by suffering other, worse fates. They could have been the most profitable club of any kind—gaming or boxing—in London, and yet all their funds, collectively, had gone to getting the answers and information to take down the five ringleaders of the Fight Society—four of whom had fallen.

And whenever they needed more funds for their search? They dragged Hugh out as the main attraction he was. It was a role he hated, but a task he completed for everything his partners had done for him.

Fighting and more fighting. That’s all there ever was or would ever be as long as they remained buried in the past of the Fight Society.

But now? It was Dooley’s turn to pay for his crimes.

All because he’d come back to carry out the same evil he’d once perpetuated against them. Because it was never enough. The world craved a good fight, and because of it, there was always coin to be earned and a surplus of men willing to sell their souls to perpetuate that violence.

And I’m no different . . .

For once they had the information they sought from Dooley, Bragger and Maynard would kill him, and then they’d move on to the final leader of the Fight Society, who would also pay the price with his life. It was a revenge Hugh, savage bastard that he was, should gleefully take part in, and yet, God rot his soul, he couldn’t.

Vomit singed the back of his throat, and he swallowed convulsively.

Bragger gave him an odd look. “Are ya listenin’ to me? ’e’s ’ere.”

Hugh peered once more at the window, and made one more attempt to avoid the revenge no doubt being meted out. “I thought I saw someone lurking—”

“It’s a damned patron,” Bragger said impatiently. “Let’s go.”

Let’s go.

There it was.

An order.

And the decision was made for him.

Hugh and Bragger started through the arena.

Neither man stopped until they’d made the steep climb to the private suites above the ring.

The office was none other than a training room. With ropes and metal bars covering the walls and windows, it had more the look of a torture chamber. But then, torture was synonymous with fighting.

“Savage?” Bragger asked impatiently, prompting Hugh to move once more. He eased the door open and slipped inside.

All at once, Hugh’s past rose up to meet him.

The man, as finely dressed as any lord, lay prone on the floor, blood covering the whole lower part of his face, a steady stream leaking from his right nostril and running down his fleshy jowls. His rounded cheeks had already been painted a palate of blue-and-purple bruises. And yet, even nearly obscured by Maynard’s handiwork, Hugh recognized him.

Recognized him all these years later.

After he’d slipped out of his cell and nabbed his purse, Hugh had hightailed it from the rookeries and thought never to see Dooley or any of those connected to the Fight Society again.

Because that had been the hope. That was what had given Hugh the strength to carry out that act of evil in a ring full of rabid spectators.

And his stomach pitched and roiled, threatening to revolt just as it had on that long-ago day.

“Savage . . . ? . . . Savage . . . ?”

Hugh snapped back to the moment and found Bragger giving him an odd look. “Ya all roight?” he asked out of the side of his mouth.

No. Hugh managed a nod. “Aye.”

Just then, Maynard buried his boot in their old handler’s ribs.

Dooley released an animallike cry, one that harkened to the days when they’d been in the midst of battle and Dooley had been the one on the sidelines.

And it was surely some deficit of Hugh’s character that as Bragger smiled, Hugh had to fight the urge to look away from the merciless beating being doled out. That lack of relish