Jersey Six - Jewel E Ann Page 0,2

this gym. Oh god …” A hard lump formed in his throat. He wasn’t lost anymore. And he wasn’t a nameless nobody.

CHAPTER TWO

The stench of sweat and leather mingled with antiseptic, packing a punch of its own for anyone who walked through the door of Marley’s boxing gym. In just over two decades, it went from a popular gym that churned out some well-known professional fighters to a haven for the worst criminals, human monsters, and housing for the occasional homeless person if Marley took pity on them.

However, everything changed for the worse when Marley died.

Laminated member passes evolved into simply showing a concealed weapon to gain entrance. Nobody dared to walk through the door without a loaded gun or one hell of a respectable left hook.

A constant string of profanities danced to the thud, thud, thud of gloves beating against bags or fists ripping flesh while lawless sparring stained the rings with shades of red.

“Who’s Fuck Face over there?” Judd wiped his bloodied lip while climbing the ropes to find his unsteady legs after the only female member dropped his ass in under thirty seconds.

Jersey Six shrugged, ripping the tape from her hands. “Your gold tooth?” She nodded toward her feet.

Judd glanced behind him at the blood-covered gold crown on the mat. His tongue made a quick inspection, poking through the gaping hole in his already gnarly smile. “Jesus Christ, Jersey. Ya ain’t gonna give me a break, huh? Thanks a lot.”

“Mouth guard. Dumbass. And stop saying ain’t gonna.” She kicked the tooth closer to him, knowing he wasn’t working with enough brain power to consider the simplest of precautionary measures—not that she could point fingers with her eighth-grade level of education. But she knew mouth guards saved teeth, and “ain’t gonna ain’t going to college.” A Dena Russell quote. Jersey’s attention shifted to “Fuck Face” looking around the place like a lost tourist. Jersey had no idea how he managed to get through the door.

Hopping down, she rolled the tension out of her shoulders and headed toward the back room to wash up.

“Excuse me?”

A cringe distorted Jersey’s face, making the rest of her body tense in response. No one said excuse me at Marley’s. He might as well have bent over and asked to have a dick shoved up his ass. “You’re clearly lost.” She turned. “Can I make a suggestion? If you want to leave with four working limbs and your asshole intact, I suggest you slither back out the front door without attracting any more attention.”

“I used to train here.”

Jersey’s unkempt eyebrows slid up her sweaty forehead while she released her tangled, black hair from its ponytail.

He cleared his throat. “Obviously, no one would still recognize me.”

“Obviously.” Jersey inspected him. “Fuck Face” wasn’t an exaggeration. The guy’s face looked like the lone survivor of an atomic explosion. Layers of thick, pearly scar tissue made his blue eyes appear sunken into his skull. It crawled down his face and along his neck like dry, cratered earth. His gray hoodie and matching sweatpants hid most of his body, but the burn-like scars covered his hands as well.

Maybe he had trained there. Members of Marley’s wouldn’t have the money for a cosmetic surgeon if their bodies were distorted like the one standing before her.

“I need a place to stay.” He held out his hand.

Her gaze held his desperation-filled eyes.

After a few seconds, he let his hand drop. “I wouldn’t want to shake my hand either.” He scratched his dirty-blond head—the one part of his body that looked somewhat normal. She thought he might be in his thirties, maybe forty or so. It was hard to tell with his skin severely scarred.

“I don’t shake hands with anyone.” Jersey shrugged.

“I need a place to stay.”

“You said that. I’m not the owner.” She turned.

He grabbed her arm. Jersey didn’t think. She just reacted.

Smack!

“Fuck Face” hit the floor with a thunk. A few chuckles drifted from the distance. There were no heroes at Marley’s Gym. No one stopped a fight, saved a life, or blinked at death.

“Chris …” He groaned, planting his hands next to his head, peeling himself from the grimy concrete. Blood oozed from his nose. He wiped it with the hood of his sweatshirt, unsteady on all fours. “My name is Chris.” He lumbered to his feet, bringing him nearly a foot taller than Jersey’s five-seven stature. “I wasn’t trying to frighten you.”

She grunted. “Frighten me? You didn’t frighten me. You grabbed me.”

Chris flinched. It was hard to notice with