Wrong Turn, Wrong Guys

Liora’s POV

The rain came down in freezing sheets, soaking right through my thrift-store sweater in a matter of seconds but I kept my head down, my chin tucked hard against my chest and practically forced my boots to keep moving across the flooded pavement.

My legs felt like lead after a brutal twelve-hour shift at the diner but tonight felt especially miserable. I wiped rainwater from my forehead, exhaling a long breath that instantly turned to white mist in the cold.

All I wanted was my bed. Just a flat surface, a dry blanket and maybe a solid eight hours of unconsciousness. Was that really too much to ask the universe? Apparently, it was. Because I was completely lost!

I had taken a shortcut to avoid the frat row on the main Kingsborough University campus. I hated walking past those massive mansions with their blaring bass and drunk entitled rich kids spilling out onto the lawns.

I just wanted a quiet walk to my dorm room but this stupid shortcut had led me straight into the labyrinth of the old industrial park on the outskirts of town where every alleyway looked exactly the same with owering brick walls, rusted fire escapes, overflowing dumpsters and absolutely zero streetlights.

“Great,” I muttered out loud, my voice swallowed instantly by the roaring rain. “Just freaking great. You have a 4.0 GPA, Liora, but you can’t navigate a simple grid system.”

I shivered, wrapping my arms around my chest as a harsh wind whipped down the narrow alley. My feet ached with every step and my backpack, heavy with a week’s worth of library textbooks and my private journal banged rhythmically against my spine.

I turned another corner, hoping to see the familiar glow of a campus security light but nstead, I just saw more darkness, more shadows and more garbage. Then came the voices.. At first I felt a massive relief. People meant directions and directions meant my bed.

I quickened my pace, splashing carelessly through puddles, heading toward the sounds vibrating off the brick walls ahead. But as I got closer, the relief completely vanished, replaced by a cold knot twisting violently in my gut. These weren’t the sounds of late-night pedestrians or drunk college students. It was an aggressive, roaring crowd.

I slowed my steps, pressing my shoulder flat against the wet brick of a crumbling warehouse and crept toward the edge of the building and cautiously peeked around the corner only for my breath to catch in my throat.

It was a literal underground fighting ring! Right there hidden in the hollowed-out belly of an abandoned shipping yard surrounded by cars with their headlights beaming into the center. Dozens of people were packed tightly together under canopies, screaming and exchanging wads of cash. In the middle of the blinding lights, two massive tattooed men were beating the absolute living hell out of each other.

I watched in horror as one guy landed a wet punch straight into the other man’s jaw. Blood sprayed through the rain and the crowd went absolutely insane, cheering like animals. The violence was so incredibly brutal that it made my stomach violently heave.

“Nope,” I whispered to myself, pressing my hand flat against my chest to calm my racing heart. “Not my circus.. not my monkeys. I am getting the hell out of here.”

I didn’t wait around to see who won. I pulled my head back, spun around on my heel and tiptoed back the exact way I came. I just needed to find the main road so I hugged the shadows, keeping as far away from the noise as humanly possible.

I took a sharp left down a completely dark narrow corridor between two massive corrugated metal shipping containers and was halfway down the dark path when I heard the thud of meat hitting asphalt.

I stopped dead in my tracks and pressed myself instantly against the rusted side of a container, holding my breath.

“You really thought you could just avoid us, Mickey?” a voice came through the narrow space.

The voice was smooth, cocky and dripping with a dangerous kind of amusement. “Did you honestly think we wouldn’t find you?”

I carefully edged my face toward the gap between the containers with my eyes adjusting to the dim light bleeding over from a distant streetlamp. There were three guys standing in the alley and one guy bleeding on his knees in the mud.

I recognized the three standing guys instantly even in the terrible lighting. You couldn’t go to Kingsborough University without knowing exactly who they were. The Kensington brothers.. campus royalty and billionaire heirs. They were untouchable and arrogant rich psychos who treated the entire school like their own personal playground.

Declan Kensington stepped forward. He wasn’t wearing a coat just a black t-shirt that clung to his muscular chest in the rain and he looked entirely too happy to be standing in a dirty alleyway. He pulled his leg back and delivered a brutal sweeping kick straight to the kneeling man’s ribs.

The man let out a painful gasp and collapsed into the muddy puddle.

“Please,” the man wheezed, clutching his side and spitting blood onto his own shoes. “Please. I just need another week. I swear to God, I have the money. Just one more week.”

“A week?” Declan laughed as he leaned down, resting his elbows on his knees, looking the bleeding man right in the eyes. “You told us that a week ago, idiot. Do we look like a charity to you?”

Jasper Kensington stepped out from the shadows. He was taller, broader and radiated an intense authority. He didn’t even look angry.. just looked tannoyed like this bleeding man was nothing more than a tedious errand cutting into his evening schedule.

“We don’t do extensions, Mickey,” Jasper said.

His voice was deep, commanding and completely empty of any empathy as he checked his silver watch, looking bored. “You borrowed the money and you made a promise. Now you pay it back. It is a very simple and straightforward concept. Why are you making this so difficult?”

“I don’t have it!” Mickey sobbed, desperately crawling backward in the mud. “Elijah cleaned me out! He took everything from the tables last night! I have nothing!”

At the mention of Elijah’s name, the atmosphere in visibly shifted. Silas Kensington finally moved.. the youngest brother. He had been leaning silently against the brick wall the entire time, his hands shoved casually into the pockets of his trench coat.

He stepped into the light with his jet-black hair was plastering to his forehead by the rain. His face was entirely blank in an icy and emotionless mask while his silver-gray eyes locked onto the pathetic bleeding man on the ground. Silas didn’t look angry but rather calculating.

“If you don’t have our money,” Silas said with chillingly calmness, “then you have no further use to us.” Silas didn’t even look at his brothers when he gave the order. He just stared down at Mickey like he was examining a bug. “Break his fingers, Declan. Let’s see how well he deals cards when his hands are shattered.”

Declan grinned, cracking his knuckles loudly. “My pleasure.”

My stomach dropped into my shoes. I couldn’t watch this.. I couldn’t be here. I needed to leave right now before I witnessed an actual felony. I carefully took a step backward, desperately trying to retreat into the shadows of the shipping yard but I forgot about the garbage.

My boot came down squarely on a shattered glass beer bottle hidden in the shadows.

‘Crunch.’

I froze as every single muscle in my body locked up in terror. I didn’t even breathe. I just stood there completely paralyzed in the darkness.

All three Kensington brothers snapped their heads precisely in my direction.

Declan dropped his fists and Jasper’s broad shoulders tensed, his blue eyes narrowing as he scanned the dark corridor but it was Silas who found me as those terrifying icy silver eyes locked exactly onto my hiding spot behind the edge of the metal container.

“Well, well,” Silas murmured softly. “Looks like we have a rat in the walls.”

“Hey!” Declan called, taking a fast, aggressive step toward the shipping containers. “Who’s back there? Come out!”

I spun around to run, my wet boots slipping dangerously on the asphalt. The heavy strap of my backpack slid off my wet shoulder and I scrambled to catch it, fumbling blindly in the dark but the weight of the textbooks pulled it completely out of my grasp and it hit the muddy ground with a splash.

Jasper was already moving fast, his long legs eating up the distance between us. “Grab them!” he shouted.

I left the bag, turned and sprinted as fast as my exhausted legs could possibly carry me.

Suddenly, the night air was entirely ripped apart by the shrill wail of police sirens as red and blue lights shone against the dark brick buildings, reflecting wildly in the puddles.

“Cops!” someone screamed from the direction of the fighting ring. “Raid! Run!”

Chaos erupted as the roar of the fight crowd turned into a panicked stampede. Car engines roared to life, tires squealing against the wet pavement and people poured out of the shipping yard in every single direction, running wildly into the streets.

I used the fleeing bodies as cover, pushing my way aggressively through the panicked crowd. I scrambled over a low chain-link fence, scraping my hands on the rusted metal and dropped down onto a wet grassy embankment and then ran blindly through the pouring rain, my lungs burning, my legs screaming in agony entirely fueled by adrenaline. I didn’t stop running until I finally saw the familiar glowing streetlights of the Kingsborough University campus.

I stumbled onto the main sidewalk, bending over and resting my hands heavily on my knees. I gasped aggressively for air, coughing as the cold rain hit the back of my throat. I was safe and I made it but my bag and journal were gone…!