Never Forfeit: A Street Fighter Romance Series, #2

By Lexy Timms

When people treat you like they don't care, believe them…

Maya's gone, and I'm determined to do whatever it takes to get her back. 

 

Her family might be powerful, but they're not enough to scare me away from the woman I love. Even if it means joining forces with my worst enemy. I know traveling across the country to break her out is risky.

 

I refuse to abandon her.

 

It's going to take all my skills and all my wits to free her, but she's too important to me—and the world—to let go of so easily...

 

A Street Fighter Romance Series

• Next Battle
• Never Forfeit
• Near Control

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dark Shadow Publishing
• Release date: May 17, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223735939

Lexy Timms

"Love should be something that lasts forever, not is lost forever."  Visit USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR, LEXY TIMMS https://www.facebook.com/SavingForever *Please feel free to connect with me and share your comments. I love connecting with my readers.* Sign up for news and updates and freebies - I like spoiling my readers! http://eepurl.com/9i0vD website: www.lexytimms.com Dealing in Antique Jewelry and hanging out with her awesome hubby and three kids, Lexy Timms loves writing in her free time.  MANAGING THE BOSSES is a bestselling 10-part series dipping into the lives of Alex Reid and Jamie Connors. Can a secretary really fall for her billionaire boss?

Book preview

A Street Fighter Romance Series

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Next Battle

Never Forfeit

Near Control

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Never Forfeit Blurb

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When people treat you like they don’t care, believe them...

Maya’s gone, and I’m determined to do whatever it takes to get her back. 

Her family might be powerful, but they’re not enough to scare me away from the woman I love. Even if it means joining forces with my worst enemy. I know traveling across the country to break her out is risky.

I refuse to abandon her.

It’s going to take all my skills and all my wits to free her, but she’s too important to me—and the world—to let go of so easily...

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Contents

A Street Fighter Romance Series

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Never Forfeit Blurb

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

A Street Fighter Romance Series

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Chapter One

Zak

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I checked my phone for the fifth time, wondering where the hell she could have gotten to. Freddie slapped me on the shoulder, wobbling slightly.

She’s probably just gone home, man, don’t worry about it, he assured me, his voice slurred from all the booze he’d put away this evening. I shook my head. I knew she wouldn’t have just taken off on me like that, and I was determined to get to the bottom of it.

She just went to the bathroom, and then she vanished, I muttered. She would have told me if she was going home...

She was probably just tired after the fight, he pointed out as we waited for the cab to arrive. I was too drunk to drive right now, and I wanted to make sure I had a reason to return to this place if something had happened to Maya.

I was already starting to worry, even though I knew I shouldn’t. She could handle herself; I had already seen that earlier this evening. After the way she had taken on those fights and won, I should have been worried about anyone who might come into contact with her, not the other way around. And yet...

The cab took me back to our place, and I tried the door—it was locked. I knocked, but there was no answer. Calling again, I held the phone to my ear and listened to it ring. I tried to strain my ears to see if I could hear it inside the apartment, but there was nothing. And she wasn’t the kind of girl who would lock me out without any explanation.

There wasn’t anyone I could call to find out where she might have gone. She didn’t have friends or family I could get in touch with—not people who she would have wanted me to talk to, anyway. I couldn’t blow her cover like that. It wouldn’t be fair, and I didn’t want to risk dragging them into it.

It was okay. It was okay, I had to tell myself that. I had to keep myself from panicking. I remembered what she had told me before, about getting those calls from a number she didn’t recognize. Did they have something to do with it? Would they have known where to find her? They couldn’t have guessed she was going to be at the fight tonight, no way, and she wouldn’t have told anyone about it. She didn’t have anyone to tell here, anyway.

I wracked my brains trying to think of anyone I could contact to find out where she was. Her landlord? That was the only other person who knew she was in Detroit, as far as I knew, but I doubted they would know anything. I tried the door again, but it was locked tight. It hadn’t moved since we’d left together.

She hadn’t come back here.

A cold dread started to creep up my spine. Something had happened to her. I was sure of it. Something had happened to her, and I needed to find out what.

I flagged down a cab and headed back to the bar, where I found the staff locking up. I caught one of them before he left, lowering my voice to make sure nobody else overheard me.

That girl who was in here before, I asked him. Did you see her leaving?

He frowned and shrugged.

Lots of people have been in and out here all night, he replied. I don’t keep track of all of them.

I grimaced and looked around, searching for anyone I could ask for information about what had happened. Maybe she had just wandered off—had she been that drunk? Tipsy, maybe, but she could hold her booze, she wasn’t flat-out on her ass or anything.

Not drunk enough to get lost. But maybe drunk enough not to be able to put up a fight if someone came up to her and started causing trouble...

Hey, Zak!

I turned to see a face I recognized—Leyland, one of the regulars at the fighting ring. He strode toward me, a grin on his face.

That was your girl fighting tonight, wasn’t it? he asked, and I nodded.

Yeah, did you happen to see her after the fight? I asked him. If he had recognized her, then he might be able to give me a little information about where she had ended up or what had happened to her.

He stared at me for a moment, as though he couldn’t work out why I would be asking.

I thought I saw you with her—well, before she left, I mean.

Before she left? I asked, ears perking up. You saw her leave?

Yeah, she was with a couple of guys, he remarked, chuckling. She looked pretty out of it. Celebrating pretty hard for her first win, I guess...

A couple of guys? I demanded, eyes widening. Who did you see her with? Did you recognize them?

I thought I saw her with...what’s his name, the guy you were fighting the other week, Leyland remarked.

Ben? I prompted him, and he snapped his fingers and nodded.

Yeah, that’s the guy, he replied. She was with him.

My stomach twisted. Shit. Ben? What the hell was Ben doing near her? The thought of him within twenty feet of her was enough to make me feel sick. I knew he wouldn’t have intended anything good for her. He might have tried to play like he was innocent, but I knew him too well to believe it.

Would she have left with Ben? Surely not. She wasn’t stupid. She hardly trusted anyone outside of me. She had a hard time believing people weren’t out to get her, and I knew she wouldn’t have given him the time of day. Maybe he was trying to move in on another girlfriend of mine? Was he making a habit of this?

I started to trace the way out of the bar, glancing this way and that as I tried to work out where she might have gone—where she might have been taken. Leyland had said that she looked pretty drunk, but she had been coherent the last time I had seen her. Had she been drugged? Had someone slipped something into her drink to make it so she couldn’t fight back?

There was only one way out of the bar, and it opened on a street. If she had been with two guys, maybe nobody had looked at her twice, just thought she was some drunk chick being helped home.

I knew she wouldn’t have left without me. She was jumpy enough as it was, and a few beers wouldn’t have been enough to wipe her out. She wasn’t in any state to be wandering around, not while she was as anxious and on-guard as she had been, let alone with someone like Ben, who she had good reason to fear.

It had been an hour, maybe two, since I had last seen her, and I was cursing myself for not keeping a closer eye on her. I should have known to keep her close to me. On a night like this, especially—a night where she had been the center of attention. She might have drawn the attention of people who hadn’t realized she was in Detroit, people who worked with her father.

I shouldn’t have let her fight. Yes, I thought it would do her confidence good, but it might have put her in the firing line of people who meant her ill. I couldn’t imagine what kind of price was on her head, if she really had her hands on the cure for fucking cancer. That was worth a whole lot of money to a whole lot of people, and I hated the thought of what they might do to her to get their hands on it.

The panic was starting to set in. I wasn’t used to worrying this much about someone, to caring this deeply for someone else’s safety. With Rachel, I hadn’t even cared what she had been doing when she was out—I knew she wouldn’t do anything she didn’t want to, and I knew nobody would want to steal her away from me. I knew she was safe in this city, but I couldn’t say the same thing for Maya, not right now. Not for sure.

There were still people milling around on the streets, and I wished I could just relax like the rest of them were. But I couldn’t. Not until I found her and brought her home, where I could fall asleep with her in my arms.

My eyes searched the crowds, looking for her, for a flash of her hair, her smile, anything, but I couldn’t find her anywhere. Okay—don’t freak out. I tried to remember what she had told me about living in Detroit, if she had mentioned anything that might have hinted where she could have gone...

My eyes were drawn to a dark alleyway, and my stomach flipped when I remembered a conversation I’d had with her just a few days ago.

I hate having to go the long way around, she had told me, making a face. I always take a shortcut if I can find it...

She might have taken that shortcut. She might have run through there to get away from them. I could imagine her doing everything she could to put distance between them, trying her hardest to escape, even if they had drugged her...

I stared into the darkness of the alleyway. I didn’t know why, but something was telling me she was in there. I wasn’t sure exactly where they would have taken her, but I was going to have to start somewhere, and this seemed to be as good a place as any.

Clenching my fists, I felt my muscles tense as I headed toward it. I didn’t know what or who I was going to be facing tonight, but I knew I would take on every single one of them if it meant I could get her back in one piece.

I had never been so sure of anything in my life. I peered into the alleyway, pulling out my phone so I could get a better look at anyone who might have been waiting for me. I squinted into the dark, trying to figure out if there was anyone ready to pounce. Ben might have taken her to try and lure me; he knew there was no way I would have left her to deal with him alone.

I was going to find out, one way or another. I stepped forward, and made my way into the darkness, swearing to myself I wouldn’t come out until I found her.

Chapter Two

Maya

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My head was throbbing as I lifted it up, trying to open my eyes—but they felt as though they were weighed down by dumbbells. Where was I? What had happened? And why did every part of my body hurt at once?

I could remember the fight—the fights, actually, all of them. Taking on one opponent after another, winning each and every one. And then...the bar. With Zak and some of his friends. His hand on my knee beneath the table, his smiles, meant only for me. I had been planning to head home with him, when I had gone to the bathroom and...

Oh. Oh, shit.

My eyes snapped open, and I looked around, trying to make out where I was, but wherever I happened to be, it was so dimly lit I couldn’t make anything out at all. Where the hell was I?

I was sitting in a chair, on the far side of a darkened room – I could make out light around the door, picking out the shape of it, but everything else had been plunged into darkness.

Where had I been taken to? What were they going to do with me now that they had me here? A million questions swam inside my head, my brain working overtime to deal with the shock of where I was and what on Earth was going on.

I inhaled deeply and tried to steady my nerves, attempting to remember everything Zak had taught me. He had always made it clear that the first thing to remember in any situation was to keep my head. Panicking and freaking out was only going to make this worse. There had to be a way out of this. I just had to find it, search for a little chink in the armor of this place and get back to Zak.

Was this about the fight? Maybe. I wasn’t sure. Maybe someone had seen my potential and wanted to snuff it out before it got a chance to bloom—but if that was the case, why would they have brought me here? Wouldn’t they have just finished me off the first chance they had gotten? None of this made any sense, none of it, and my head was pounding as I tried to piece it all together.

Could it have something to do with my family? The thought nagged at the back of my mind, a threat more than anything else. I had to hope they wouldn’t have done something so drastic right off the bat. I was still scared shitless of what my father was going to do when he got his hands on me again, but for now, at least, I could try to assure myself there was no way he could have known I was in Detroit.

What about the calls I’d had earlier in the week? The ones that had just hung up on me with no explanation? This could be something to do with them, couldn’t it? Shit. I didn’t even want to think who they could have been. Someone trying to intimidate me, to throw me off, maybe because they couldn’t risk me doing any better than I already was.

Because I was starting to thrive here, and I was sure there were people out there who would have done anything to keep me down. Anything to make sure I didn’t get any further than I already had. And this city was probably full of people who would have sold me down the river the first chance they got, if it meant getting an in with my father, a chance to lay hands on his sizeable fortune.

I tested the bindings that held my hands to the chair. They were stiff and dug into my skin. Whoever had taken me, they knew what they were doing. It seemed professional. But what did they want from me now that I was here? Was this a way to get a ransom out of Zak?