by E. M. Moore
I walk out to find Johnny looking around the apartment, nose curled up. I shoot him a look when he glances over at me. His lips curl into a smile though, and with that panty-melting look, who can stay mad at him?
He places his hand around my waist and kisses my temple. “Magnum’s in the car making sure no one’s walking by.”
“We’re in the Heights,” Oscar says. “They’ll look away. Especially now with bodies showing up. They won’t give up Kyla to anyone. Especially not until her fight tomorrow. They’ve been waiting months to see her fight again.”
The usual anxious nerves I get pre-fight don’t swamp me. If I was fighting anyone else but Brawler, I’d be ecstatic.
I want to get back to my regular life. I want to get back in the ring. I just don’t want to get in front of him, someone I care for.
“They’re going to be unhappy,” I breathe out, not looking forward to the shitshow that will follow this.
Johnny looks away. He was the hardest to convince that Brawler had to win. He knows his father though. He knows how evil he can be. Since he mandated this as one of Brawler’s initiation tasks, he can’t just not win.
“Did you talk to your father?”
“Let’s get in the car,” Johnny says, thrusting his chin toward the stairs leading down.
Oscar follows us out, locking his door behind us as we head down to the waiting black car. Instead of sitting in the back with those guys, I slide into the front seat. Johnny gives a short growl behind me, but Magnum’s lips tip up at the corners. Magnum’s driving us in one of the regular cars today, so we don’t have to talk through the small window the divider usually leaves when it’s not up.
I click my seatbelt in place and then turn around in my seat, catching Oscar’s eye while I do. He’s also grinning, which makes me think everyone’s content to gang up on Johnny. I mean, a little. And I wouldn’t call it ganging up on, maybe just showing him how I want it to be, so he can get an idea of what he’s in for if he chooses this.
“Well?” I ask.
Johnny runs his hands through his dark hair. “He was pleased with the pictures,” he says, jaw ticking. It sounds as if there’s a whole other story to that, but I don’t need details. Johnny’s face still looks terrible this morning even though he should be able to see out of his eye better.
Fucking bastard.
“Jiko gloated, so he did his part perfectly. Dad’s looking forward to your fight tomorrow.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m sure he is. Looking forward to money is more like it.”
“It makes the most business sense,” Johnny says, nodding, easily slipping into the gang business persona.
I stare at him blankly.
“What did he say about the body?” Oscar asks.
“He asked me if I’d figured out who did it yet.”
I turn back around in the seat, facing the windshield again. Magnum reaches over to thread his fingers through mine. I’ve had about enough of Big Daddy K. We’re talking about one of his guys’ lives, and he isn’t taking it seriously.
My phone vibrates, and I take it out. Here, Brawler texts.
Since no one has figured out what to say back to Johnny after that remark, I tell everyone Brawler’s already at the gym. I’ll have to have a private talk with him today. I need him to actually fight me. It has to be believable. This route might put me in harm’s way, but I’m already on K’s shitlist. Brawler isn’t.
I’ll have to physically and mentally prepare myself to get beat up. It’s not like this won’t hurt, I just understand it has to be done.
Oscar reaches out to place his hand on my shoulder. “You okay?”
I place my hand over top of his, playing over his fingers. “I’m good.”
He gives me a squeeze and then removes his hand, sitting back in the seat once more. It doesn’t take long to get to the gym from Oscar’s apartment. Magnum does his usual watching the area thing as we walk in, and then he heads through with his bug detector as Finn and Jax come to greet us.
The mood is pretty somber in the gym already. Brawler’s off hitting the punching bag in the corner. It swings on its swivel hooks, the chains clanging as he puts all his energy into hitting the bag. It’s taking a beating, too.
My eyes bulge out of my head. I’m going to be staring that down tomorrow. He’s going to hurt me. It’s not that I can’t inflict damage either, but his fists are like cement blocks. He’s one of the most skilled fighters I’ve ever met, and that’s not to mention the fact that I care about him. I don’t want him to hurt me, and I don’t want to hurt him, but I have to separate the two. At least tomorrow, I do.
“This is a terrible fucking idea,” Jax says, eyeing the big man taking out all his rage on the poor leather-wrapped punching bag.
I try to shake myself out of the fear swallowing me. I can’t let Brawler feel worse than he already does. He’d rather rip out his right arm than fight me, but we’re left with no choice.
I yearn for a day with choices. Opportunities. Moving around at my own discretion. It’s why I’m here after all. Freedom. I just had to give some up for a little while to gain a lot.
I yell at myself internally to get over myself. I’ve been in fights before and this will be no different. I have to treat it like any other.
Brawler moves around the bag. He sees me out of the corner of his eye and stops, lowering his guard. His chest rises and lowers. The ink creeping up his neck stands out like a Picasso on a muted background. I drop my water bottle and towel and move toward him. He waits for me where he is, the bag swinging to my right.
“Kyla...” His voice is a desperate plea, as if I have the power to stop this. As if I have the power to tell him this doesn’t need to happen. None of us have the power right now. We’re all just puppets on a string until we can take it back.
“Let’s give them a moment,” Mag says in the background.
My eyes fill with salty tears.
“That’s it. I’m not doing it,” he says, moving forward to cup my face.
“You have to,” I say, checking the tears as best I can.
“It’s not worth it,” he growls.
I move my hands up his neck. I trace the angel wings, one light and one dark. “We don’t want to become these people, right?” One sacrificial lamb, and one wolf. We have to play the game and play it smarter than them.
“I can’t hit you,” he seethes. “It’s not in me.”
“Tomorrow, it will be. Tomorrow, pretend to be a different person. You’re not you, and I’m not me.”
“Impossible,” he says, shaking his head. “I’d recognize you anywhere. What’s in you is in me, and when two people like that find each other, they can’t just wish it away.”
“You know you have to,” I say. A tear finally escapes, tracking down my cheek. I never thought I’d be begging a guy to kick my ass. It’s true you can find strength in anything. This might be the moment I need the most strength. For both of us. “Then think about the future,” I tell him, grabbing onto that thought and holding it closely. “It’s a means to an end.”
“I thought I was helping you!” He turns and slams his fist into the heavy bag, sending it flying.
“I’ll never forget that,” I tell him. I hold out my hand to steady the bag. “How you walked into that room with no thought of your own well-being. You sacrificed a part of yourself. I get it.”
“And I’ll be giving up another tomorrow the first time my fist lands. I might as well just carve myself into pieces right now, Kyla. There’s no way this is going to work.”
“It will,” I argue, trying to make myself believe it as much as him. “It has to. For the same reason you walked into that room and sat at that table with the people you despise is why I’m going to stand in front of you tomorrow and beg you to hit me. Because I’m doing it for you. If you’re good enough to sacrifice yourself for me, then I’m good enough to sacrifice myself for you. I want to. Do you hear me? I want to.”
His jaw te
nses. It works over and over, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. Eventually, he nods once, conceding with slumped shoulders.
I can’t congratulate myself over this. Both Brawler and I know that crawling back from this will be a feat, but I owe it to him. He gave his all for me, and now I’m giving my all. That’s how relationships work. They’re not one-sided. They’re a mess of love and heartbreak. Of destruction and building back up. After all, the only person who can truly break you is someone you love. If they weren’t, you wouldn’t care enough to get hurt.
I walk away. I can’t stand to look in his pained eyes anymore and know I’m putting it there. I plead with Magnum with my eyes, and he walks over to Brawler while I slip inside the office. Jax stands, but when I lean against the wall and slide to my butt, he sits back in his chair and wheels over. The chair creaks in its quest to get closer to me. He pulls a tissue out of the box on the combined desks and hands it over.
I catch the tears falling and then drop my head back against the door, staring up at the tiled ceiling. Water stains cover the surface. Jagged, brown circles in various sizes. Marked there from who knows how long ago. A memory of a moment in time when something unexpected happened. “Your ceiling is gross,” I choke out.
Jax follows my stare then glances back at me.
My breath hiccups as I try to keep from bawling.
“I love this place. Shitty ceiling tiles and everything.”
I nod, knowing the feeling. That’s why I’m still in the Heights because even though I know things aren’t good right now, I’m better here than I was out there. Because of them. All of them.
“Don’t come to the fight tomorrow,” I tell him on a shaky breath.
“You’ll have to convince Finn, not me.”
“I mean it,” I say, my voice hardening. “Just find a way to make him stay home.”
He tilts his head. “I hope this isn’t because you don’t want us to see you lose.”
“I don’t give a fuck about that.” I wad the tissue up and use a dry section to wipe my eyes again. “It’s not safe. I don’t want you guys near the gang. Promise me?”
“Promise,” Jax says. He leans back in the chair. He’s fiddling with a pencil in his hands, but he tosses it onto his desk, and it rolls over the shiny veneer surface. “For the record, I already thought you were badass, but what you’re doing makes you the strongest woman I know.”
I choke out a laugh. I’m sitting here bawling in his office while running away from something that hurts too much. That doesn’t sound strong at all. “Yeah, right.”
He shrugs. “Suit yourself, but not many people would do what you’re doing. Taking a loss for someone else. Hell, it’s not even that. You’re throwing yourself away for him. To help him.”
“To save him,” I say.
“Well, that diminishes it then,” he says, teasing.
I groan, wondering how I got here with Jax of all people trying to comfort me. It’s so backwards. I mean, I guess he’s trying to comfort me. If he doesn’t mean to, he’s doing it, anyway.
I wipe at my face again and stand. I take a few deep breaths. I know I have to go out there and face reality again even though it would be so lovely just to hide back here. Even if Jax was my company. I throw the used tissue in the trashcan and look at him. “How do I look?”
He observes me, gaze never straying from my face. “Like a beautiful soldier, an avenging warrior.”
“So, Wonder Woman basically?”
“Basically,” he says, and I swear he almost laughs.
He stands from the chair, pushing it back under his desk and then moves forward. He spins me around and then puts his hands on my shoulders. He massages my muscles there. “Now you’re going to go out there, put your Wonder Woman face on, and tackle everything head on. I’ve never seen you do anything less, so there’s no reason to stop now.”
He gives me a hearty shove, and I walk back out of the office, lifting my chin into the air. Brawler is in the ring with Finn. He has his game face on. We all do. I peer around the gym, catching on each of us as we watch Brawler work. Tomorrow’s going to suck for all of us, not just for Brawler and me. We’re the most directly affected, but what affects us impacts them too.
But like with everything that’s happened, we’ll get through this, too.
Oscar swaggers over to me, never missing a moment to make me smile. “If you want, we can just go back to my apartment. I’ll sink myself so deep inside you you’ll forget everything going on.”
I chuckle, almost letting loose a few more tears. “You’re sick, Drego.”
“Too soon?”
I shake my head and then pounce on his back. I wrap my legs around his middle and hug his neck. I give him a sloppy kiss on the side of his head. “To the ring, please.”
“Oh, so I’m your horsey now?”
“You wanted me to ride you, right?”
He chuckles. “Not quite what I was thinking, Princess, and you know it.”
I throw my head back and laugh. I catch Johnny watching us and smile at him. He looks away right after as if I’d caught him doing something he shouldn’t.
I might be losing it. I might be looking for things that aren’t there. However, I could swear he wore a half-smile while watching us.
Maybe. Possibly. I bite my lip and hold on for dear life as Oscar springs to the ring.
33
On the way to The Ring, I have flashbacks. I asked Oscar to be with Brawler, but Johnny and Magnum are with me while we drive to the Crew’s new fighting venue that never got to see its opening night. It’s as if time has rewound, and I’m replaying the chapter in my life that should’ve happened a couple of months ago. Only this time, Brawler will be staring me down from across the ring, not the girl whose name I can’t even remember.
Everything must be working out for the Crew because as we pull up, the amount of bodies waiting near the building to get into the fights triples. They’re coming in hoards, as if a concert is about to go down in the middle of the Heights. Girls dressed in skimpy leather skirts or booty jean shorts hang off guys with saggy pants, backward hats, and t-shirts. The Heights has shown up tonight. For this.
Big Daddy K better be happy. The blow I’m about to walk into says he better be creaming his pants over what’s about to go down.
Johnny and Mag have been pretty quiet since they picked me up. There was no pre-fight training meeting with Jax and Finn like there was leading up to my last fight that never happened. Oscar had already left to be with Brawler when Magnum and Johnny showed up at Oscar’s place. Magnum looks almost the same. Almost. A veiled layer of tension hovers over him. Johnny, however, is tense. His foot jumps up and down in the car, gaze darting out the windows, as we pull around the back to the fighter’s entrance.
“I’ll be fine,” I promise him.
The swelling on his face has gone down, so he mainly just looks like he got his ass kicked instead of tied to a chair and beaten. His skin is probably still tender to the touch. I’ve been there. Bruises like that will linger, even long after the fight is over. It’ll probably be worse for Johnny though. The person who left him looking like that was someone who was supposed to love him, not a pre-ordained match to see who’s more skilled.
“I’ll follow you guys in,” Mag says as he pulls up to the door.
Johnny shoves the car door open and then reaches back for my hand. I place my fingers in his, and he squeezes tightly before leading me out of the car and through the back door. It leads to a narrow hallway and then a back set of stairs. The building they got is practically the width of the entire block. It’s huge. Once we’re up the stairway, the narrow hallways lead to different changing rooms for the fighters. Johnny walks me down to the door that has my symbol on it. It’s the same symbol that’s on my robe. I smile as he opens the room up, and there everything is, laid out and ready for me. Brawler must have done this. My own personal training room. I finger the bra and shorts I’ll be wearing in a little while. A c
ute set. Black with purple trim. It’s too bad they’re about to get bloody. That I know for sure. Glancing up, I notice two doors in the dressing room. Johnny explains that one exits out the back—the one we just came in with—and the other leads to the fights themselves. It’s a cool setup.
Brawler and I didn’t plan out the fight ahead of time. Mostly because it needs to look real. Big Daddy K is going to be out there, watching us with a critical eye due to it being one of Brawler’s initiation tasks. I asked Johnny if he thought it was weird Brawler’s other tasks weren’t set yet, and he told me no. They set them in succession. So, if Brawler beats me, then he’ll get the next one. If he accomplishes that, he’ll get the next and so on. No sense in planning more activities if Brawler loses the first.
I sit on the small bench and Johnny walks over. “Is there anything we can do to make it hurt less? I Googled it, but I couldn’t find much of anything.”
I smile at his concern. “I’m going to take some Tylenol in a little bit and then just have ice ready. Lots and lots of ice. Maybe an ice bath.”
“The rooms only have showers,” Johnny admits, looking at the space as if it will suddenly change because that’s what I want.
Behind us, the door opens, and Mag appears, shutting it soundly behind him.
Before Johnny can offer to rip the showers out and put tubs in, I tell him ice packs are fine.
“Don’t let Brawler see me right after, okay?” I say, flipping my gaze between the two of them so they know I’m serious. “Get me out of there as soon as possible. I have a feeling his acting abilities suck.”
“Done,” Mag says.
Johnny growls. He’s been bitchy and on edge all day, but there’s nothing I can do about it. He knows this is all his father’s fault even though he’d love to blame it on Brawler. It’s too easy to do that. There are always reasons for everything, however hidden they may be. Hardly anyone or anything is black and white. Everything is made up of layers, just like nature. A predator with an alluring shell. Or an angel who looks like the devil.
