God of Pain novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Crowd Chants

"Don't follow me," Cormac said at the window, and climbed out into the dark.

I followed him the next night.

I told myself it was because he had lied to me about the work.

I told myself I wanted to know exactly what kind of man I was hiding behind.

I did not tell myself the other reason.

"You are out of your mind," Nellie said, pulling a black hoodie over my head.

"That place is a freezer full of men who bet on teeth."

"You said your cousin works the door."

"My cousin works the door at a place that's allegedly not a fight club."

"Can he let me in?"

She sighed and pulled out her phone.

"If he lets you in, you stay in the back and you don't talk to anyone, and you promise me you won't do anything Livia-ish."

"What's Livia-ish?"

"You'll know it when you do it."

We took a cab to the Southie docks at nine o'clock.

The warehouse was a long grey block of cold storage with its windows painted over.

A line of men in jackets waited at a steel door.

Nellie's cousin was a thick, tired man with a clipboard who looked at me, looked at Nellie's text, and sighed exactly like Nellie.

"Back wall," he said. "Hood up. And you didn't see me."

Inside, the cold hit first, and then the noise.

A hundred and fifty people packed the floor around a square of rope and floodlights.

The air smelled of sweat and beer and wet concrete.

Men leaned over a rail with fistfuls of cash, shouting numbers.

I pushed up against the back wall, behind a pillar, and found a gap between two shoulders.

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