on his third or fourth whiskey of the evening. Maybe a man who chased away his morning hangover with another bottle.
But he still looked tough, lean and wiry and wound tight enough to turn this situation violent over any slight, real or imagined. Knox dragged his gaze back up to the man’s eyes and quirked an eyebrow. “You look better than I expected.”
Boyd stared back at him. “Are you finished?”
“You wanted me to loosen up. Isn’t that what you always said?”
“This isn’t a social call, Knox. I’m not here to catch up with an old training buddy.” He paused. “It’s business.”
“What sort of business?”
“A proposition for you and your boys.” He gestured for one of his men to take his shotgun, then held out both open hands as he stepped closer to Knox. “I got a little place down the road—drinks, girls, the usual. But fights are the real moneymaker.”
The shape of the trap clarified. Boyd wanted ringers for his dirty fights, men who could take enough of a beating to make it look good before going down hard—or putting someone else in the dirt. “Doesn’t seem fair, does it?”
“Fair’s just like everything else—open to interpretation.” Boyd shrugged. “I’ll give you a decent cut, for old times’ sake. We’re talking about a lot of money here.”
“I’m not interested in money.” Knox held the man’s gaze. “We need a decent night’s sleep, not a beating.”
“Yeah?” Boyd glanced over, presumably at Conall, who was likely ashen-faced and swaying on his feet. “I don’t think any amount of shut-eye is gonna fix your boy, there.”
Knox didn’t let himself look. The sight would only stoke his anger. “And you think a fistfight will?”
Wordlessly, Boyd jerked up his sleeve. The inside of his scarred forearm bulged where something had been implanted beneath the skin. Knox watched, uneasy, as the sick green glow of a flashing light bled through the man’s flesh.
“It’s not pretty,” Boyd admitted. “It burns. Itches, too. But it gets the job done.”
Knox tightened his fists until his nails dug into his palms. A bootleg implant was a blunt instrument, flooding the body with drugs to mitigate the most common effects of degradation without precision or discernment. The sustained release was easier on the body than just pumping your veins full of the shit people traded on the street, but not by much. And not forever.
No wonder Boyd looked like a man who’d climbed into a bottle. The bottle had climbed into him.
As a long-term solution, it made Knox’s skin crawl. But for a couple of weeks, to hold them over if they started to fall apart …
He jerked his chin at the implant. “Where’d you get it?”
“I know a guy. Are you in?” Boyd’s wide grin made it clear he knew the answer already. “Two fights should do it. Don’t want to get greedy.”
For Conall, Knox would fight. Hell, for Conall, he’d lose, if Boyd demanded it. “How long do those things last?”
“Two weeks, give or take.”
“We’ll do it for ten of them.”
Boyd laughed. “I can’t even get my hands on ten at once, Knox. Two.”
“Four,” he countered. “For four, I’ll fight. And I’ll get one of my men to do it, too.”
Boyd pretended to consider it, then nodded. “That’s fair. You better put on a damn good show, though.”
“You want us to win or lose?”
“Haven’t decided yet.” Boyd turned away, and his men fell out of formation. “My place is just down the street—the Loaded Barrel. Be there in an hour. Bring your ladies along, too.”
“It’s a deal.”
Boyd’s satisfied grin as he looked back was far from comforting. He melted into the dark, his men like shadows following him, and Knox turned to his team.
Gray let out a low growl. Conall leaned against Rafe, who was holding him up with one arm braced around him.
Rafe’s dark eyes were furious and determined. “I’ll do it.”
“Or we could split.” Dani already had a knife in her hand, running her thumb along the hilt as if the repetitive motion soothed her. “With a short pit stop to stab your old friend in the face and cut that implant out of his arm.”
“Dani.”
“What, Nina? Some people need stabbing, and that guy’s a prime example. I can tell.”
“She’s not wrong.” Knox rubbed a hand over his face. If they still had Mace, he might have risked it. Though if they still had Mace, Conall never would have gotten this bad. “But we don’t know how long he’s had that thing implanted already, and we can’t exactly