The Brawler Read online

  THE BRAWLER © 2018 by Piper Westbrook

  THE HOOK © 2018 by Piper Westbrook (excerpt)

  Cover Design: Jay Aheer

  Interior Formatting: Erik Gevers

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews and certain other noncommercial uses as permitted by copyright law. Pirating intellectual property makes angels cry.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Synopsis

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Preview THE HOOK

  Author’s Note

  Books by Piper Westbrook

  About The Author

  ABOUT THIS BOOK

  He is invincible…until she becomes his weakness.

  Ruthless desperation and a lust for violence made Jackson Batiste the world’s wealthiest and deadliest prizefighter. Undefeated, untouchable, he now faces the fight that could make him a champion of legends.

  Young, reckless, privileged, and forbidden, Aly Greer is the secret to Jackson’s destruction. A taste of her almost wrecked him once. Claiming her could burn their futures to dust. Resisting her is the only way to survive.

  But some battles aren’t meant to be won.

  * * *

  The Brawler is the third book in the End Game series. The game begins in The Penalty.

  Due to subject matter, the End Game series is recommended for readers 18 and older.

  Chapter One

  Gone too fucking long…

  Miami was the place he had depended on for the past four years. It was his refuge…where he slept. Partied. Trained. Decompressed after championships. Lived as a prince who finally knew the vices and virtues of luxury, yet refused to quit fighting dirty with his fists, like the pauper he’d been for most of his existence.

  But Florida wasn’t where Jackson “The Brawler” Batiste belonged. Las Vegas—no, Batiste’s Boxing Club, the single-level concrete gym built on the labors of friendship, favors, and cold six-packs, with the hands of men whose aged Polaroid photographs were stuck with tape, tacks, and wads of chewing gum to a chipped cork bulletin board in the lobby—had possession of his heart.

  Without the place that anchored his entire goddamn life, without the place his soul’s compass had always pointed toward, he’d begun to drift. Now wasn’t the time to veer off the narrow road to victory. He was a man whose wealth could satisfy his greed, but he couldn’t afford to let the international hype surrounding his upcoming pay-per-view fight, his ex-fiancée’s malice, or the pressure to remain America’s undefeated super middleweight champ get to him.

  So he’d found his way back to his uncle’s gym, where it had all begun. He was making the boxing ring his own again. Here, he found his greatest strengths and laid down his every vulnerability.

  In this gym, he followed the establishment’s cardinal rule: No lies, no bullshit. The truth was rarely a pretty thing, and the men who trained and sweated and mingled with triumph and defeat inside these walls never expected it to be.

  Which was why he felt no stirring of remorse or apology when he let out a gritty curse and motioned for his uncle, Pax, to drop his hands. “Got company,” he ground out, making a concentrated effort to relax his stance in spite of the tension pouring over his spine like liquid lead. It wasn’t the tension of channeling his thoughts, instincts, emotions, and maneuvers into a trainer-versus-student session with a man who never gave less than his strongest assault in the ring.

  This sensation was foreign, exotic, and had everything to do with Aly Greer, the woman who knew she had no right to be in his arena but was invading it anyway.

  “Company? Eh, what the hell you talkin’ about?” Pax jabbed his chest, his eyes alight with camaraderie Jackson couldn’t force himself to imitate, then snapped up his chin at his sons, who’d been circling the ring, observing. “The Greers are as good as family ’round here.”

  Dez immediately took to the ring, loose-limbed and ready to remove his father’s battered boxing gloves, which could’ve been as old as Dez himself. His brother, Corbin, remained stationed at one of the posts, looking past J.T. Greer to the woman standing in his shadow.

  Beautiful destruction. That was Aly. Spontaneity and lust and complication packaged in a little-bit-of-nothing dress that appeared too flimsy for a forty-degree December day and cemented Jackson’s belief that he would never see a sexier pair of legs.

  You don’t want to tangle with her again. The word of caution was skating around on his tongue, but he clenched his teeth. For four years it had served him well to see no Aly, hear no Aly. Getting involved, even just to advise his Casanova cousin to direct his curiosity elsewhere, would do him no good. Wild, unwise, and as deep as a puddle of dog piss she might seem, but Aly knew too much. Always had.

  “Big man! Came this way to see Vegas’s king?” Face sweaty, hands taped, Pax hopped off the platform and cut across the room to shake J.T.’s hand.

  Topping six and a half feet, strapped with muscles and both blessed and cursed with a hard face that set strangers on edge, Pax was the harshest opponent Jackson had ever sparred with. Being rescued from a crack house and brought into the man’s household a skinny, self-conscious kid with a stutter had been a terrifying hell with two older cousins to beat his ass, until Pax had taught him to defend himself…to fight for respect.

  Pax rivaled J.T. Greer in height and bulk, but “big man” referred to J.T.’s status. Damn near a baron in this city, he had social influence and a Midas touch when it came to wealth. Investing in BioCures West Energy Corp., one of the country’s most prosperous power companies—a move that had doubled his net worth—wasn’t enough for Greer, who regarded everything in his world as a competition. He and his wife had purchased the city’s NFL franchise, and if the sports section of the Las Vegas Sun was right, the Las Vegas Villains were looking at going into play-offs with a near-perfect season.

  One loss. That was a luxury Jackson didn’t have. He was undefeated—and was bent on staying undefeated. That was what coming home to Las Vegas, reconnecting with his roots, was about.

  “He’s gonna be ready for Eliáš Brazda next month. He’ll make us proud at MGM Grand,” Pax assured J.T., as if Jackson wasn’t pacing the platform several feet away. “He’s looking good. His eyes. They’ve got passion.”

  Jackson spared Aly a fraction of a sideways glance as he crossed to the corner of the ring where Corbin now waited with a towel and a bottle of water.

  “She’s grown up.” Corbin reached to assist with Jackson’s gloves. “What is she—twenty-two?”

  “Twenty-three.” And too fucking innocent for a thirty-three-year-old prizefighter who’d never had a right to touch her.

  Flexing his finger
s, Jackson took the water but ignored the towel despite the rivulets of sweat traveling down his bare chest. The residue of jet lag from last night’s flight from Florida to Nevada had bogged him down this morning, so when he’d showered and thrown on a black hoodie and athletic shorts, he hadn’t given two fucks about style—only the basics.

  He didn’t bother to zip the hoodie as he assessed Aly. The details struck him down. Peaches-and-cream skin. Golden-red hair that felt like weightless silk bunched in his fists. Cleft chin that made him weak to distraction when she frowned. Plump lips that could whisper the sweetest venom.

  Her eyes—a cool, almost metallic gray that made him think of a blade—were different. Shuttered. Guarded. Protected.

  He knew what she tasted like under her clothes. To pretend he didn’t was a lie he lived with every day.

  Yanking the hood over his head, Jackson turned back to his cousin. “Gotten older, yeah. We all did.”

  “Get the sweat out of your eyes and look.” Corbin swore under his breath, shaking his head. “If I suffocated in those tits right now, I’d die a happy, horny man.”

  “Maybe if you’d paid more attention to either of your ex-wives’ tits, instead of other women’s, you’d be a happy married man.”

  “First wife told me I was perfect until the day we said ‘I do.’ Then she started a campaign to change me. Second wife wanted a baby to ‘strengthen’ our marriage, miscarried, went all crazy-ass, then ate her way to three bills.” Corbin shrugged. “My appreciation for the female sex wasn’t the problem.”

  It was if that appreciation was what the first wife had wanted to change or the reason the second wife had hoped a baby would keep their marriage intact.

  “Just know Aly doesn’t need your appreciation, Corbin.”

  “But that’s what this gym is missing. Women like her.”

  “Any woman’s welcome here if she wants to learn how to fight. I don’t think Uncle Pax has changed his mind on that. The fight is what this place is about. Why do you think it’s still standing after forty-something years?”

  “Too stubborn to burn to the ground.”

  Jackson’s eyebrows furrowed under the edge of his hood. “What the fuck?”

  “A joke. Just a joke. Get your head out of the ring once in a while. In the land of the living people joke around.” Corbin exited the ring and smiled at Aly in a way that revitalized Jackson’s need to crush something with his fists.

  His cousins took off for beers and a card game in the lounge—the section of Pax’s gym that had been completely upgraded after Jackson’s first big-money fight had earned enough profit to make his uncle-slash-trainer a financially comfortable man in his own right.

  Aly approached the ring, wrapping her hands around the bottom rope. There hadn’t been so little distance between them in four slow-motion years. She’d trusted him then, and he’d used that trust to hurt her.

  When a man was against the ropes and had only one desperate shot, he had to take it.

  “The prodigal play-boyfriend returns.”

  Play-boyfriend. It had been her nickname for him when he’d been a teenager and she a coltish chatterbox, admiring him as though he were an older brother but convinced that she loved him. If he hadn’t been so focused on being her father’s protégé, he could’ve avoided tearing Aly apart.

  He could’ve avoided hurting her in a way that froze solid any affection his bastard heart could hold.

  “I stayed off your territory, as you’d asked.”

  Jackson hadn’t asked—he’d yelled and threatened, so hostile that he’d been certain she would never come back to this gym.

  “You’re here now.” The words scraped his tongue like sandpaper on gravel. The water offered no relief, but he drank anyway.

  “Dad and I have a lunch date. This pit stop was his idea—I had no say.”

  “Could’ve told him no.”

  “Could’ve told him a lot of things, Jackson.”

  Jackson screwed the cap onto his water bottle, bent to set it on the stool in exchange for his gloves. “Sounds like a threat.”

  “But it isn’t,” she said solemnly, reaching through the ropes impatiently for the gloves. When he crouched and let her help him secure them, she pressed those luscious lips together before speaking again. “Your four years in Miami haven’t changed the fact that J.T. and Joan consider you the son they never had. Their admiration, pride, respect—you have it. I’m not vindictive enough to take that away from them. Or you.”

  “You don’t owe me protection. If they ever ask me whether we crossed the line, I’m going to tell them the truth. I won’t lie.”

  “Noble of you. But what I owe you is a word of gratitude.” Was that sarcasm or sincerity? “What you said to me that night left an impression. What happened—worse, what could’ve happened—then was as much my fault as it was yours.”

  “As much? Seventy-thirty,” he said, straightening and then for a moment sliding his eyes shut against the recollection. Aly had been so persuasive, unraveling every strand of his resistance…

  She tugged on the rope, and the guard over her emotions slipped. Apologize to me. Give me back the dignity you stole.

  Those words she would never tell him, but she didn’t have to because he’d already found them in her eyes. A boxing ring could make anyone vulnerable—even Aly Greer.

  “How are you, Aly?”

  “You know me—every day’s a party.”

  “J.T.,” he said to the man who’d begun as his mentor but was now his friend, “if you want to talk, get a couple of punch pads and get in the ring. Can’t take a break—got a fight to train for.”

  Aly released the rope as her father accepted a pair of pads and took to the corner steps in a dark suit complete with gold cuff links and a handkerchief that probably cost more than the materials purchased to build this gym’s original structure. “I’m going to the lounge. Dez and Corbin might have something interesting to say. Escort me, Pax?”

  Jackson’s stare followed her. Silently he warned her against getting in over her head because she wasn’t a kid anymore and his cousins—one married and the other twice divorced—had noticed.

  But she didn’t turn back.

  “Good to have you home,” J.T. said in his Texas drawl, raising his hands and gesturing for Jackson to punch.

  “Being in Vegas is good for my mind.” Jackson focused less on speed and more on crisp jabs and technique. “Fight night is what it’s about, but there are people who helped me get to this point. I’m going to make time for them.”

  “Mean that?”

  “‘No lies, no bullshit,’” he said, quoting the sign mounted over the gym’s exit. The words governed his life. Anyone who wanted a spot in his circle had to live by those words; he refused to tolerate neither lies nor bullshit.

  J.T.’s bald pate glowed under the white-gold lighting as he nodded. “I can appreciate that. When Waverly and Veronica brought you to the family, and I got you started in investing, you offered to reciprocate my wife’s and my kindness.”

  An offer J.T. had brushed off with a jovial smile on a face that, of a certainty, had limited experience smiling. Just make fucking sure none of those fights knocks the knowledge out of your head, son.

  But Jackson knew J.T. was a man who never forgave a debt and never forgot a favor extended to him.

  “Christmas is coming. I want peace in my family, and there’s a way you can help me achieve that.”

  Jab. “How?” Jab, retreat, jab. “I heard about what went down with Waverly this past summer. The porn and what she was doing with a coworker. And I heard Veronica resigned as GM. Neither of those problems has anything to do with me, my friend.”

  “Right. I’m in this damn ring to talk about Aly.”

  Jackson missed his target and swore. Rolling his shoulders, he resumed with two words echoing in his brain. Concentration. Accuracy.

  “I’m accepting that offer, Jackson.�
�� J.T. lowered his arms, and Jackson halted. “My daughters have embarrassed me, kept secrets, sacrificed the integrity of our team and the game to go after what they wanted. But at least Waverly and Veronica know what they want. They know who they are now. They grew up to be strong, decisive women. I can’t help but treasure that.”

  There it was again—vulnerability. This was a father’s plea. Jackson couldn’t imagine—would never know—what it meant to love someone unconditionally even as they devastated you and what you valued most.

  Aly’s laughter, entwined with Corbin’s, rang out from the lounge. Jackson felt his jaw tighten with envy he didn’t want.

  Touch her and I’ll rip off your balls and shove them down your fucking throat, Corbin.

  “The Villains are heading to the play-offs with a better record than the team has ever had. We withstood Waverly’s training camp indiscretion in the preseason. We’re still getting past Veronica’s choice to give up the general manager position to have a relationship with our quarterback. There’s no room for screwups in the postseason.”

  “You’re assuming it’s Aly’s turn to get on the media’s bad side, J.T.?”

  “She’s already there. Not because she made an unpopular decision for some personal convictions, but because she’s careless.”

  “C’mon. What are you saying?”

  “Businessmen make assessments. I’ve assessed that she’s a liability—bad for my franchise. What she needs is the right person to get through to her.”

  That’s not me. If I was unselfish enough to tell you why, you’d agree.

  “Give her some of your time. Distract her. Just through the play-offs, then Joan and I will redirect her attention.”

  “Fire her ass, you mean?”

  “Aly’s sabotaging her reputation, and she’ll drag the Greer name, the team’s name, down with her.” J.T.’s frown deepened the creases on his ruddy face. “Unless you stop her.”

  Chapter Two

  It was her own fault.

  If Aly were in the mood to be fair, she’d admit that no one had coerced her to give her mother access to her house.