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sneered at Mario. “You’ll pay,” she mumbled around her guard.
    Mario grinned, but even beneath that she saw uncertainty as he darted a gaze to Amadore, who loomed over the front counter, his face aflame. “I warned you, Mario. You hurt her—”
    Aspen threw a right cross at the distracted man.
    His hand flew up and blocked. He angled to the side and countered.
    Her mind had left the ring, and that’d cost her some blood. She wouldn’t make the mistake again. And now, she had to pay back this player. Besides, she was tired of Amadore protecting her. The men here needed to know she could hold her own. If she’d proven that in Iraq, she could do it at Amadore’s Fight Club, too.
    Tracking him around the ring, she deflected several aggressive—and stupid—moves. Mario was running on his victory. He’d die on it, too.
    He raised his knee—she shifted, turned slightly, and rammed her elbow down on the meaty part.
    Mario flinched and dropped his guard.
    Aspen threw a hard right. And connected.
    His head snapped back, but he was already in motion. A left jab. Right. Light glinted off the glass-front door—the glare flared across Mario’s face. Then Aspen’s. Both looked toward the front, ready to holler at whoever had forgotten to pull the curtain to prevent such a distraction.
    “Hey,” Mario shouted. “The bwind.” His mouth guard made him sound like he had rocks in his mouth.
    “Sorry, sorry”—Luke, the new hire, rushed and secured the curtain. The streaming sunlight wreathed a tall, muscular figure before the light vanished. Aspen blinked, and when her gaze hit the reception desk in the open-area gym, she froze.

    Four    

Amadore’s Fight Club
Austin, Texas
    C an I help you?”
    Distrust and disgust stared back from a face that said trouble was best left outside. If Cardinal were the guessing kind, he’d peg this guy as the Amadore whose name stretched across the painted-black window gracing the storefront. Built like a barrel, with hands as big as two ball-peen hammers, the guy had hair that had once been jet black and curly. The proverbial Italian Stallion. And by that no-mess greeting, the stallion had things to protect.
    Musty and dim, the fight club had all the glamour and odor one would expect. Light dribbled through the spots where the window paint had flecked off the large panes lining the front of the old warehouse.
    Dust danced on the light beams, as if locked in their own boxing match.
    Cardinal brought his gaze back to the guy who waved off a scrawny kid. “Looking for someone.”
    “We ain’t a date joint,” the burly guy said.
    Amusing. “Good, I’m looking for a guy.”
    A shrug of the massive, well-muscled shoulders. “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” The man almost grinned. “We don’t judge.” He slowly looked Cardinal up and down. “Well, most of the time.”
    Cardinal cocked his head and met the man’s entirely too pleased eyes. “Look, someone asked me to meet him here. A—”
    Thwump!
    The burly guy jerked his attention to the ring where two fighters, wearing headgear and other protective gear, were heavy into a match.
    Thwump!
    “Hey!” The burly guy stalked to the other end of the counter. “Mario! What’d I tell you? I’m warning you, punk!”
    The guy in the ring held up his gloves in a show of submission.
    “Angel, eyes up. Focus!” Scowling, the burly guy backstepped, still watching the match in the ring at the center of the gym.
    Cardinal could understand why.
    “Up, watch—that’s right!”
    A woman—had the big guy called her Angel?—bounced around the mat, going toe-to-toe with a bully of a guy. And holding her own. He’d half expected her to be laid-out flat after the way that guy swung.
    A hard right. She deflected and threw her own.
    “Whoa,” the scrawny kid mumbled from the other side of the counter.
    “She’s good,” Cardinal said.
    The man’s head snapped toward him. “What?” he barked. “What’d you say about my