"Don't be nervous." Micheal whispered to me as we walked down the hall.

"I'm not nervous." I denied.

"Then why do you look nervous?"

"Because I am nervous, Micheal!"

"Why are you nervous, November?"

"Oh, I don't know." I mumbled sarcastically. "Could it be because you guys are dragging me along to meet a man who kills anyone that he doesn't know? Romeo Barsille has a reputation for murder. He's an Italian mobster from one of the most notorious crime families in Florence, that's all I know. Or maybe it's because no one is telling me anything and Cage has said nothing about letting me go."

"You still think that's an option?" Nick asked, overhearing our conversation.

"Of course!" I said, trying to make myself believe it. "Cage said he would. Well, I mean, he didn't exactly say it...I kinda just assumed. But I think my assumption is correct. It better be. I hope it is. Oh my God, what if it's not? What if I'm stuck here with you guys for the rest of my life?"

"The horror." Heath rolled his eyes.

I followed them down another hall. We were still in the building, but we were going underground. It really was an ingenious idea. They lived under the grid of Chicago, below the sewers where no one bothered to look. No wonder they had been able to survive for ten years. Not that I should be praising Cage Vickers or anything, but he was brilliant as Micheal said. To make it to the top and stay there for as long as he did earned a certain level of respect, even from me.

This morning was unusual. After last night, I thought that...I don't know what I thought. I didn't know what to think. Of course I should have expected the cold shoulder from Cage Vickers. He was a criminal king. He didn't do nice. That morning, Cage barely said two words to me. Despite every reason I tried to smother myself with, I was a bit hurt. To get so close to a man who shut everyone and everything out only for him to turn me away stung.

But I should have known better. Cage acted like a normal man last night, but that was only for last night. Today, he was back to his cold exterior. However, knowing that he was capable of something other than cruelty was an advantage I could use.

"How good are you with a knife?" Nick asked.

The look of horror on my face must have been amusing to them because they all laughed. Cage was walking ahead of us, talking on a phone. He turned around and flashed a cold glare at one of us, I couldn't quite make out who. Nick's startling comment was more than enough to make me panic about my impending doom.

"It's okay, November-"

"Nothing is okay, Micheal." I blinked back tears. "I haven't seen my sister for two whole days, no one is telling me anything, and I missed the season premiere of Pretty Little Liars. With all of these luxuries, I hope you have Netflix- I am missing an eyebrow!"

Nick suddenly stopped walking to pick up a bullet he dropped. Since I was behind him, I crashed into his back. My nose was crushed in the process. At that point, I nearly did start crying. Micheal's laughter didn't help at all.

He had been nice enough to pick up some clothes that fit me last night. I think it might have been Cage's doing but I didn't ask. Also, I didn't understand where Micheal had gotten the clothes from. Did he just walk into a Wal-Mart? Did he rob a mannequin? Who knows. The leggings were too big for my twig legs and the leather jacket was more badass than I was, but I wasn't complaining. It was a relief not to wear Cage's clothes anymore. His smell was driving me insane. Seriously, I needed to find out what kind of shampoo Cage used.

Also, Micheal was nice enough to buy me a packet of Captain America stickers. I don't know what he was trying to accomplish, but whatever it was...he accomplished it. I stuck one on the back of Cage's coat when he wasn't looking. It was still there and made me snicker when I saw it occasionally. Strangely enough, no one ratted me out.

I sidled up to Cage's side with a grin that I knew was creepy. "When this is over, you wanna go to Taco Bell?"

The death glare from Cage was enough to make me rethink my decision to pester him. "No, November. I don't want to go get Taco Bell with you. I'm a billionaire. Let's go to Belgium and get waffles. Or Italy for pizza. Or perhaps Paris for some-"

"One helicopter ride was traumatic enough." I said dryly. We went down a staircase. How long had we been walking? It felt like years. "I've had enough traveling for a lifetime."

"Oh, princess." His voice was soft and tinted with amusement that I hated. Cage pulled open a thick metal door, allowing me to go first. "You haven't seen anything yet. This entire world can be yours, if you make it happen.''

"I don't want the world, Cage. I want to go home."

Cage didn't answer. Or perhaps he didn't want to. I was under the assumption that we could work out a decision that allowed me to go back to Ivey. As uneasy as his silence on the matter made me feel, I clung on to my last shred of hope that he had enough decency to let me go. I will not stay with the Crows. Our lives and morals were too different.

This entire experience was beyond my control. With all the insanity that had happened in the past two days, I was slowly trying to prepare myself for the impossible. Or what seemed impossible to the average, tax-paying, law-abiding human like myself. However, nothing could make me ready for what I saw next.

A crowd of fifty or so people were gathered around a pentagonal-shaped ring that was perimetered with a wire mesh that had tiny criss-cross patterns. A bright bulb illuminated most of the spacious dirt area. There was a table with a deep red cloth with ten chairs, empty, behind it. On one of the walls was a picture of two swords crossing each other and a bunch of crow silhouettes flying away.

There was a low murmur that went around, and an occasional gasp. Other than that, complete silence. When they noticed us, people instantly parted to make a path to the table.

And in the middle of that ring were two men, in the middle of a fight. Not a cage fight, not a wrestling match, not a vanilla pudding fight with a lot of screaming women, and not even a sex fight.

They were throwing knives at each other.

''I'm outie like a bellybutton." I whispered and tried to slip away, but Cage pulled me back by my wrist.

"Cage!" I tried to fight out of his grip. My heart began to pound when the realization set in. It was a gambling ring where people bet on which fighter would get hurt the most before the round was up. Money exchanged hands, lots and lots of money. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck. I nearly lost it when a knife one of the men threw suddenly hit his opponent right in the thigh. A loud shriek of pain rang out, followed by some laughter and a low murmur as the people who bet on him collected their money.

Other than it being completely illegal, I also suspected that the two men in the ring weren't there willingly. It made me sick to my stomach, to know that one of the reasons why the Crows were so rich was because of this. How twisted can they be? How twisted could Cage Vickers be? This was so wrong.

"Stop!" Cage ordered.

The two men in the ring lowered their throwing knives and stepped back, a look of utter relief on their sweating faces. One of the men, a big burly thing with tattoos written in Russian down his thick back, had a knife sticking up from his arm and a couple more on his chest. Everyone fell silent as we walked up to the table. I felt a small wave of scrutiny thrown in my direction. Terrified, I hid behind Micheal. I felt like throwing up.

The man with the tattoo began to pluck the knives out of his body like it was nothing. So did his opponent. A women in leather pants began to wipe up the blood and give them bandages.

Horrified, I didn't realize Cage had pulled me up to the table until I caught a woman's eye that was watching us. She had straight blonde hair that reached down to her waist and black eyes, in her early thirties or so. There was a dragon tattoo that crawled up her neck. She was wearing a short black dress that showed off all her curves. A look of distaste cast in my direction made me feel even worse about being here.

Everyone stared at Cage, but also at me because I was a new face and they seemed to be the type of people that got their kicks out of cruelty. Looks of surprise and perusal shared, as well as a few murmurs. A man in a business suit with knuckle tattoos pointed at me and snickered to his friend. Man, almost everyone had tattoos. I wonder if Cage did too- ugh, why was I thinking about him again?

"November, sit." Cage growled in my ear. He took a seat in the middle of the table and gave me a warning look that I totally ignored.

"Cage, no-"

"Sit down."

"No." I snapped angrily. I didn't care who was watching or what they thought. I needed to get out of here. Keeping my voice low, I turned around so my back was facing the crowd. "Are you serious, Cage? I've seen enough. I can't sit through that. You're using humans as animals. You are gambling with their lives, Cage! Throwing knives? What kind of sick shit are you into? There is a limit to what I can tolerate, and watching them kill each other for your amusement is not one of them. You're a monster. I'm leaving-"

He grabbed my arm gently, as if wanting to cause no pain. For a man as ruthless as everyone said he was, Cage didn't quite match up to my expectations.

Cage had a temper, but so did I. Unfortunately for me, I was never the kind of person who thought of the consequence before doing the action. Some part of me was hoping this was all some big joke, still. I didn't want to come to terms with the fact that Cage Vickers might be as cruel as everyone said. I wanted to believe he still had some good left in him. That's why I didn't think it would be such a bad thing to storm off. As I began to walk away, something grabbed my wrist.

And no, this time it was not his fingers. Cage had grabbed my wrist enough times that I knew how his hand felt like. Instead, something cold bit down in a circle on my skin.

Stunned, I looked down to see a metal handcuff around my wrist.

"Cage!" I mumbled angrily, trying to tug myself out. As small as my hands were, they were still too big to slip through. He smirked a beautiful smirk and sat down again, this time dragging me down with him. Giving up, I plopped down onto the vinyl seat. Micheal, Nick, and Heath took seats on either side of us. There was one seat left that was next to Cage. He held the other end of the handcuff but it wasn't around his wrist.

As people began to make their bets again, two new fighters arrived into the ring. One looked strikingly similar to Micheal and the other was a scrawny bald man with a face tattoo of a spider. On their bare chests was a mocking red target painted in red. They seemed to be willing fighters, at least. I wonder how much money could be worth getting thrown knives at.

The occupant of that empty seat arrived a moment later.

Romeo Barsille.

He really wasn't as bad as I imagined from how the media described him. Almost as ruthless as Cage Vickers, Romeo and him had been in business for about seven years. As far as anyone knew, Cage was the only person he contacted. Romeo worked alone because of trust issues. He had risen to the top of Italy's crime ring after his father died and took over the business of the Barsille crime family. They manufactured synthetic drugs and sold them overseas to petty buyers.

Romeo was wearing a white suit and his coarse black hair was gelled back. Complete with a mustache and a thick golden ring on his index finger, he suited his criminal position perfectly. Cage stood up, letting go of the handcuff.

"Nice to see you again, Romeo. Where's Juliet?" Cage said with a smile. They did a weird brotherly handshake that made Nick laugh under his breath, but I think he might have been laughing because of the Captain America sticker that was still on Cage's back.

"Caught the flu. She will be better." Romeo had a thick Italian accent. His dark eyes travelled past Cage's shoulder and over to me, where I was subtly trying to slip the handcuff off. When I noticed them staring at me, I subtly scratched the corner of my eye with my middle finger. "And that is your Juliet, is she not?

Juliet? How the hell did Shakespeare play a part in all of this, I wonder?

Cage was amused even though he did not smile. "Of some sorts." He said quietly. Cage slipped back into his seat and Romeo sat next to him. "She's feisty. I'd watch out if I were you, Romeo. Such a big mouth for such a small thing."

"Ah, yes." Romeo said delicately. "It is nice to meet you, darling."

"Thank you." I smiled. "It's not nice to meet you at all, sir."

Romeo didn't get mad. In fact, he chuckled and turned to Cage. "I now see what you meant last night."

Cage smiled in response. I smiled too, but it was a forced one that he knew was a mockery. Romeo laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. Slumping down in my seat, I tried to make myself smaller. People were still staring at us. They must be high class criminals as well to be in the presence of Cage Vickers. They looked the part too, all swagger and intimidation and tattoos.

The room fell silent when Romeo stood up. "I will place ten thousand on Germany."

Cage didn't bother standing up. "Fifty grand." There were a few gasps around the room. I stared at him in shock. The Crows ate, slept, and rolled in money but where there no limits? This wasn't a high stakes game of poker. They were betting on knives and human lives. Hey, that rhymed. "On Ukraine."

The one that resembled Micheal looked visibly startled. I guess he was Ukraine.

Romeo took out a thick perfumed cigar from a wooden case and lit it up. "Ready to lose?"

"In your fucking dreams." Cage smirked. "You may begin."

The small chime of a bell rang three times. The two fighters began to circle each other, a whole bunch of knives clutched tightly in their firsts. Horrified, I forced myself to stare at the table instead of the ring. It was like a game of dodgeball...but with knives.

I jumped when a grunt of pain came from the ring. Just a quick peek wouldn't hurt and then I would go back to reciting the numbers of pi. Ukraine had been struck in the thigh with one of the silver knives. It wasn't deep but still bled like crazy. The sight of blood trailing down the man's leg made me nauseous.

Germany threw a knife that Ukraine dodged skillfully. They kept trying to connect to the target painted on each other's chest. It was a sickening game of who would disappoint the betters first. Cage leaned forward, his eyes dark with focus as he stared at the ring. Again, I tried to make him let go of the other end of the handcuff without catching his attention. Everyone else but me was watching the two men in the ring.

Another small murmur was followed by a grunt of pain. This time, it was Germany who was struck, very close to the bull's eye on the painted chest target. Could they actually feel the pain of the knives? Or was it all adrenaline and the lust of money that made everything worth it? The hairs on the back of my neck rose when one of the knives that was thrown missed the opponent and rattled the cage.

"Micheal." I leaned over and poked his shoulder, thoroughly disgruntled with what the Crows found enjoyable.

His eyes travelled over to me for a second and then back to the ring. "Yes?"

"Can you take me out of here- Cage, if you tug on my wrist one more time, I'm going to hide all your can openers so you won't be able to open a can anymore!" I turned back to Micheal, annoyed. They were both laughing at me. Another mumble of pain came from the ring. "Micheal, please. I'm going to throw up. This is gross and wrong- Cage! Stop!"

He suddenly stood up. Romeo asked him something but I was too horrified to listen. Ukraine had a knife stuck right in the middle of the target. A cheer rose up from the crowd as money began to trade hands. Nick threw a black bag to Romeo, who smirked at Cage, who ignored Romeo, who stared at me- just kidding, that's so confusing. All I knew what that everyone was talking to everyone and it was making my head spin.

"Come on." Cage's hand supported my back as he led me out the door. Ukraine was bleeding out onto the floor. At least it was over. Micheal watched us walk out with a frown. I caught his eye and cast him a desperate look. Through all of this, I had come to trust Micheal the most. "November-"

We stopped right outside the door, in the hallway. When the door closed and cut off all the noise from the other side, I pulled myself away angrily. My heart was pounding in my chest, a rhythm of complete shock and panic. Cage watched me silently, his eyes expressionless and his mouth in a thin pressed red line.

"Uncuff me." I tried to make myself sound firm but it came out as a whimper.

Cage smirked. "I'd rather not. It's quite enjoyable-"

"Are you kidding me?" I shrieked in an involuntary high-pitched squeak. Dangling the cuffed hand in front of his handsome face, I used the other to pull him down to my height. "I'm not going to wear this for the rest of my life, you immature bird! This is the ugliest bracelet I've ever seen- did you rob a police station? Why do you have handcuffs, anyways? Where's the key? Get this thing off me! Hey, that rhymed."

"I lost it.'' was his infuriating response.

"You lost what?"

"The key."

"The key?" I repeated in horror. "You lost the key? Why- how? Cage! You lost the key to these handcuffs? Cage, this better be a joke. Get them off me. I look like I was trying to do bondage for the first time. It's ridiculous. I'm not even handcuffed to anything. These are ugly. You should have at least spray painted them pink or something."

Cage pretended to check his pockets. "Nope." He shrugged. "Can't find them."

"Oh, yes you can!" I yelled. Cage leaned against the wall as I began my panicked assault on his clothes. He had so many pockets, it was almost silly. My fingers touched something metal and cold. I pulled it out, triumphant, only to realize they were bullets.

I also pulled out some candy wrappers, specifically green Jolly Ranchers, a whole bunch of lint, a couple of more bullets, and a piece of paper that had someone's address on it. Cage didn't bother stopping me, but his beautifully infuriating face showed amusement.

He flicked my chin with his thumb as I patted his chest pockets a few more times. Okay, so maybe I was doing it not only because I needed to find the key, but also because Cage had such a nice body. It was fun to mess around with him like this, I'll admit. My heart was still beating hard and fast. His mere presence made me nervous. "Is this necessary, November?"

"Absolutely." I plucked some more candy wrappers from his pants pocket and handed them to him. "Nobody likes green Jolly Ranchers, Cage. You're disgusting."

As if on cue, Cage reached into his back pocket and pulled out a green Jolly Rancher. He unwrapped it and popped it into his mouth, making me cringe. The smirk on Cage's face almost made me too intimidated to continue searching his clothes. "Cage, please." I mumbled angrily.