“Nora.” My voice is deceptively soft, but inside I’m a mass of conflictive emotions, even resentment toward my sister for sitting here, watching me have to kiss her filthy boyfriend’s tattoo. But seeing the lifeless expression on her face, I just know the girl across the table from me, willowy and frail, pale and not really happy, isn’t really my sister.

Reaching for her hand on the table, I’m saddened when she doesn’t let me hold it and instead shoves it under the table with a little sniffle. We stare at each other for a moment in silence, and it strikes me that the sight of that black scorpion almost crawling into my sister’s eye is the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

“You shouldn’t be here, Brooke,” she says, her eyes on the men and Riley and Melanie, who wait in stunned silence by the door. When our eyes meet again, I’m shocked by the animosity in her gaze, openly lashing at me.

A sudden anger seizes me too, and I narrow my eyes. “Mom wants to know if you liked the Australian crocodiles, Nora. She loved the postcard you sent and can’t wait to see where else you’re heading to. So? How were the crocodiles, sister?”

There’s a world of bitterness in her voice when she answers. “Obviously I wouldn’t know.” She wipes the back of her hand across her nose and looks away, scowling at the mention of Mom.

“Nora…” Lowering my voice, I signal at the empty Japanese restaurant containing the Scorpion and the three goons, who watch us from the sushi bar. “Is this honestly what you want for yourself? You have your whole life ahead of you.”

“And I want to live it my own way, Brooke.”

There’s a bunch of defensiveness in her tone, so I try to keep from sounding aggressive. “But why here, Nora? Why? Mom and Dad would be heartbroken if they knew the things you’ve gotten yourself involved in.”

“At least I keep them from knowing the truth!” she snaps out, and this is the first spark of life I actually see in her gold eyes.

“But why would you do this to them? Why would you drop out of college for this?”

“Because I’m sick and tired of them comparing me to you.” She glares, then starts making a mocking voice that resembles our mother when she whines. “‘Why don’t you do this like Brooke?’ ‘Why don’t you find something meaningful to do with your life like Brooke?’ They just want me to be like you! And I don’t want to. What’s the point? You missed all the fun growing up so you could be this hotshot gold medalist and now you’re not only not an Olympic medalist, you can’t even sprint anymore.”

“I may not sprint anymore but I can still kick your ass right now,” I angrily lash, hurt beyond words at what she’s telling me.

“So what?” she continues. “You were the best track athlete in college. Everyone couldn’t stop talking about how talented you were and how you were going to make it. That’s all you did and talked about, and now look at you! You can’t even do what you loved and will probably end up like mom and dad, living in the past, with your stupid old gold medals still hanging in your bedroom!”

“For your information, I am happier right now than I have ever been, Nora! If you’d only paid a little attention, you’d realize that my life went on, and to places I didn’t even imagine I’d ever be. You want to be independent? We get it. Go for it! Just be independent on your own, not on some man who makes me lick his gross tattoo so I can see my sister!”

“I like it that he’s protective of me,” she shoots back. “He fights for me.”

“Fight for yourself, Nora. I promise it will give you tons more satisfaction.”

Nora sniffles angrily and wipes her hand across her nose, glaring down at the tea light as a silence falls between us. I drop my voice once more.

“Are you doing coke, Nora?”

My sister seems to take to the fifth amendment and doesn’t respond, which only serves to double my concern and frustration.

“Come home, Nora. Please,” I plead, my voice a whisper so only she can hear.

She touches her nose with the back of one finger, and then brings her glare up to me as she continues brushing that finger across her nostrils. Sniffling. “What do I want to go home for? So I can be a has-been at twenty-two like you?”

“I’d rather be a has-been than nothing at all. What are you accomplishing now? Don’t you want to finish college?”

“No, that’s what you wanted to do, Brooke. I want to have fun.”

“Really? And you’re having loads of it? Because I don’t even see your smile has any place on your face anymore. You might not like the fact that I failed to reach my dream as much as I do, but I am over that. I happen to like where I am now, Nora. It’s not where I planned to be, true, but I have so many other things. Better things. I have a great job, am working with amazing people, and I’m in the first relationship I’ve ever had in my life.”

“With Riptide?” she sneers. “Riptide doesn’t do relationships, sister. Women fling themselves at him everywhere he goes. He goes through them like his opponents, and fucks them all and barely asks for their names. I saw him before you got here. Don’t forget I’ve been in this scene longer. One day he’s going to look at someone else, and you will even be his has-been girlfriend too!”

“And your precious Scorpion will want you for all eternity too? Nora, the man you’re with doesn’t look right,” I hiss, stealing a look at him past my shoulder. He smiles a satanic smile as if he’s hearing every word, and suddenly I am consumed with the urge for my man to get up on the ring with this asshole and kill him. And I have no doubt that Remy will. Knock him within an inch of his life. Maybe then will Nora want to leave this sucker.

“Benny’s good to me,” Nora explains with a little shrug. “He takes care of me. He gives me what I need.”

“You mean coke?” I lash out in pure fury.

Her eyebrows furrow, and I instantly regret that I made her go on defense-mode again.

A tense silence lengthens between us, and I clench my hands on my lap until my nails bite my palms as I try to calm down and reason with her gently.

“Please, Nora. You deserve so much more.”

“Time’s up!” A hard clap from the bar alerts us, and Nora flinches, which just confirms what I’ve suspected. She doesn’t want to be home, but she doesn’t want to be here, either. She feels like she has nowhere to go, and she can’t leave because she’s got more coke up her nose than I even want to think of. Shit.

“Unless you want to kiss the scorpion again, say goodbye to her now.” Scorpion stands threateningly at my side, his eyes glimmering in that snaky yellow-green color that tells me how much he would love to humiliate me again.

Nora stands, and a sliver of panic runs through me at the possibility of not seeing her again. I push to my feet, experiencing a gamut of perplexing emotions. I want to hug my sister in my arms and tell her it’s going to be all right, and at the same time I want to freaking punch her for being so stubborn and stupid.

Instead, I go around the table to hug her, ignoring the way she stiffens as I turn my lips to her ear and speak soft as cotton to her. “Please let me take you to Seattle. At the end of the New York fight, meet me at the ladies’ restroom and I will have two tickets home. You don’t have to stay there, but you need a time out to think this through. Please.” Pulling away, I look down meaningfully at her face.

A shadow of alarm touches her expression, then she nods, sniffles, and swings to leave, the sight of her retreating back heading into the back exit making me feel like I’ve just lost something very dear to me already.

With a sinking in my gut, I feel Scorpion’s beady green eyes on me as I head to Riley and Melanie and leave, and I can’t shake off a feeling of complete and utter dirtiness in myself.

“Does anyone have any mouthwash with them? I feel like I’m getting a rash,” I ask as Riley drives us back in the Escalade.

Mel frowns thoughtfully. “I can’t determine why what you just did felt so sickeningly wrong, when it wasn’t a big deal. I mean, I’ve kissed grosser men in grosser parts of their anatomies, you know? What you did was no big deal.”

“It’s a fucking big deal!” Riley rants from behind the wheel. “Brooke, I hate to break it to you, but Remington is going to find out about it and he’s going to get majorly, MAJORLY BLACK!”

My stomach clenches, and I shake my head as I struggle for calm. Me kissing that filthy tattoo is something I sincerely never again want to remember. Never. Again. “He’s not going to know if you don’t tell him, Riley. Let’s all relax, why don’t we?”

“What’s he talking about?” Mel asks, genuinely perplexed. “Black what?”

“These men will make sure he knows, B. And they’ll make it painful,” Riley insists.

A frown pinches into my face as I wonder if that’s what they’d intended to do when I arrived. Was this all planned out to make Remy find out? Shaking my head, I look at Riley’s accusing light eyes through the rearview mirror from where I’m riding with Mel.

“What did you expect me to do, Riley? I don’t have fists like that bastard does, and I have to use other means to get what I want, and what I want is for my poor sister out of that living turd’s grip!”

“Jesus, I hope to god she’s worth it.”

“She is, Riley. She is. She’s going to show up after the New York final match. She’s my sister. I’d kiss the sidewalk and lick a toilet to make sure she’s all right, you have to understand!”

“That’s so gross, Brooke,” Mel squeals, laughing.

“Rem is like a brother to me, B. This is going to…” Riley shakes his head and seems to get out all of his anger on his hair, raking it with his fingers. “Let’s just hope he doesn’t find out that you…” He shakes his head again, fisting another handful of hair. “He’s done tons of shit for me. For my family, when my parents got ill. Remy is a good. Fucking. Man. He doesn’t deserve…”

“Riley, I love him.” The words just tear out of me out of my pain and frustration of having kissed his enemy. “Do you believe I’d ever deliberately hurt him? I don’t want him to get involved in this because I love him. Can’t you see? I don’t want him to go black because of me. God!”

Riley breaks at a stoplight, then seeks my eyes in the rearview mirror again, his lips pursing as he nods. “I get it, B.”

I feel instantly vulnerable and revealed, and squirm in my seat. “Please don’t tell him. Not just about tonight’s debacle. About the other part.”

He nods in silence, and once we’re all walking to our room, I add, “Riley, thank you for taking us.” He nods, and when he walks off, ignoring Melanie, she shoots tons of invisible knives in his direction with her eyes.

“That guy gets on my nerves.”