by Vi Keeland
Leaving even more drained and tired than I felt when I arrived hours earlier, I stop as I get to the door, remembering one more unanswered question. “Whose dog tags does he wear every day? He thinks they’re his father’s.”
Not thinking it could get any worse, her answer betrays even me, sorrow oozing from her voice. Her face. Her every being. “Bought them from a used bin at the Salvation Army.”
***
I drive downtown and walk for hours. Getting nowhere, aimlessly thinking in circles. Finding myself in front of Nico’s gym, I decide I’m more afraid of the consequences of my inaction than the reaction I might receive. Trembling inside, I will myself steady and open the door. The guy at the front door has a face full of cuts, bruises, and bandages, and turns away quicker than I can get my voice out to speak.
But I don’t need for him to tell me if Vinny’s here, because I know. I feel it in my bones, in my blood…the crackle in the air, the unmistakable tension that tells me he’s near. Scanning the room, I turn…it doesn’t take me very long to find him. He’s found me across the room, before my eyes find his. Staring daggers, he takes long strides to make his way to me. Seeing the look in his eyes, my brain tells me to flee, yet my heart has me frozen in place.
“What do you want?” he asks, his words scathing through gritted teeth.
“I wanted to see if you were okay.”
“I’m fine. Is that it?” He folds his arms across his chest, feigning indifference, although I know better. He’s hurt and in protective mode.
“I’m sorry, Vinny.”
“You’ve said that. Anything else?”
“I never meant to hurt you.”
“You didn’t.”
I lower my head. I feel ashamed for what I’ve done, but I have no shame in telling him how I feel. I need him to know. “I love you.” A tear runs down my face.
“If you’re done, you can get the hell out, Liv.” He turns his back and storms away angrily.
Chapter 49
Liv
Whoever said that time heals all wounds obviously never met Vince Stone. I didn’t expect him to call me, certainly not come running to tell me he forgives me. Yet I also didn’t expect it to end this way either. My heart keeps beating, but with each beat it withers just a little more, forlornly unhappy.
“When are you telling Sleezeball?” Ally leans over the back of the couch, her arms dangling as she talks to me while I pack things up from the kitchen.
“The article is due Friday. So I figured I’d see him then. Don’t want to give them any time to do any of their own digging. The story was supposed to run in the paper the day after the fight.”
“What about your trip to D.C.?”
“Flying down Friday night. If all goes well, I’ll be back to Chicago by Saturday afternoon.” I sigh. “I really do want to see his fight. I know he doesn’t want me there, but I want to be there anyway.”
Picking up the vase of dried wild flowers I’d set on the counter the afternoon Vinny brought them to me, I pick one out and dump the rest in the garbage. I’m just not ready to let go of everything yet.
I’ve been packing for a week. My job in New York starts in seven days. I couldn’t save Vinny from being hurt, the least I could do is leave him and his mother to struggle through everything privately. Give them the dignity and respect they deserve to work it out without being in the public eye. Not surprisingly, the results of the DNA test proved positive. Senator Knight is Vinny’s father, but no one will ever know it. Ally and I burned the results and Senator Knight will be happy I’ve decided to keep quiet. He’s so arrogant, he’ll probably even think I did it for him. That his threats scared me into submission.
“What am I going to do without you?” Ally sprawls onto the couch in an overzealous display of drama, one arm thrown across her face theatrically.
“You mean who’s going to drive you places?” I tease.
Sitting upright, her response reminds me just how much I’m going to miss her. “Well, with you in New York, at least now I’ll be bicoastal!”
“You do know Chicago isn’t on a coast, right?”
“Whatever.” She waves her hand at me like the details are just not important.
***
Friday morning, Summer smiles at me as I come out from Sleezeball’s office. Actually, it’s less of a smile and more of a gloat. Oddly, I feel a sense of relief telling the paper that I wasn’t able to connect Senator Knight with Vinny. It’s like closing a door behind heartbreak and pain. I only hope that Vinny and his mother find a way to heal, to get through the agony that years of lies and deceit have caused.
While I pack up the few personal belongings I kept at my desk, Summer sits back in her chair, smiling like a Cheshire cat. She’s won, yet I can’t help feel pity on her for what she had to resort to in order to get to the finish line.
“You know Olivia, you shouldn’t feel too badly. If it wasn’t the story, it would have been something else.” She pauses and I pretend I don’t hear her as I clear out the rest of my drawers. Getting a last rise out of me is just what she wants. “That man is just way too much man for you to handle.”
The need to defend him wins out, even though he’s not mine to defend anymore. “You don’t know a thing about Vinny.”
“Maybe that was true, but I know he came to my apartment a few nights ago. And not yours.”
I take a deep breath, digging deep to quell my rising anger. Closing my eyes, I try desperately to rise above it. But I’m a writer, and closing my eyes just brings the visual of the words to life in my head. And it’s more than I can bear to witness. Unable to stop myself, I take the two steps to walk around my desk to where she’s standing and pull back and smack her square across the face. Her head flails to the side with the power behind my angry slap.
Hand stinging, box in hand, head held high, I don’t look back as I walk out of the Daily Sun Times.
Chapter 50
Vince
Underneath the arena, less than an hour to go until the biggest fight of my life, and I’m fucking miserable. Finding it difficult to pretend to be psyched up for a fight that I know I can’t win, I’m glad for the chaos in the locker room that surrounds a championship fight. Otherwise I’d have to deal with Nico one on one. The fucked up part is I feel worse for doing this to Nico than I do for myself.
Over on the other side of the room, I see him talking to a reporter. He talks about the years that we’ve worked together with pride. He’s a pain in the ass, always has his nose in my business, yet I don’t know where I’d be without him. In more ways than one.
Half an hour before we have to go up for announcements, Nico kicks everyone out of the room. Wrapping my hands, he starts with the pep talk I knew was bound to come.
“You’re better than this guy.”
“I know.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Watch for when he drops his left…”
“I know.”
“And don’t let him take you to the ground.”
“I know.”
“Well if you know everything, what the hell do you need me here for?” Nico jokes, giving me a playful smack across the face.
“Listen, Nico,” I pause, not sure of my words, not wanting to come out all sappy, sounding like a pussy…so I go for simple. “Thank you.”
“I’m your trainer, you don’t have to thank me. I get a cut, remember?” He smiles.
“I meant for everything.”
Finishing the tape, Nico stills and looks up at me. A nod that says more than words ever could. He slaps one arm around my shoulder. “Come on, let’s go kick some ass.”
***
Standing at the back of the arena behind closed doors, I wait as the crowd cheers after the announcer calls my opponent into the ring. Head bowed, I close my eyes, taking in the electricity of the moment. A moment that should be mine. Ten years in the making, and I’m finally here. The doubters never thought I’d make it. Thinking back, n
either did I most days. I spent my life swimming upstream, but sometimes…sometimes, it just got to be too much. So I’d stop swimming and just let the current take me for a ride, never knowing where I was going to land.
Nico clasps his hand to my shoulder as the door opens and I look down the familiar dark aisle toward the center where all the lights shine. “You ready to do this?” he yells to me over the sound of the crowd leaking out through the open door.
“As I’ll ever be.”
Chapter 51
Liv
The plane circles in the air for what seems like the hundredth time and I sit fidgeting in my seat. I’m not going to make it. They need to land this damn plane. A voice breaks into my thoughts, coming from a speaker above me. “Ladies and gentlemen we’re just going to be a little while longer here. We’re backed up and they’ve got us in a holding pattern. It seems our delay out of D.C. has made us miss our ground time here in Chicago and now we need to wait our turn in line.”
A hand covers mine, stilling it, ending my mindless tapping with worry on the armrest. “Relax, we have time. We’ll make it.” Elle’s smile comforts me. A little anyway. There are no words to describe how much Elle making the trip means to me. She did so much more than prepare the legal documents, I’m not sure I could’ve gone through with it without her. Standing by my side the whole time gave me the confidence I needed to know I was doing the right thing. Well, technically, what we were doing wasn’t the right thing, I’m not even sure it was really legal, but sometimes it takes a series of wrongs to come out in the right place in the end.
“Thank you so much for doing this with me,” I say, turning to the beautiful woman sitting beside me. “I know how hard it must have been for you to leave the baby all day. And I’m sure Nico is going to have a whole lot to say when he finds out the real reason you went out of town.” Half teasing with my last comment, I attempt a playful smile, although it comes out what it really is…a sorry excuse at covering my frayed nerves.
“You’ve thanked me a hundred times, Liv.” She smiles. “I’m glad I could help, but really, Vinny’s family. I’d do anything for that boy.” Turning in her chair to face me more directly, her eyes filled with sincerity, she says, “I know you don’t think so now, but everything is going to work itself out. I just feel it. He loves you, Liv. He wouldn’t be so angry and miserable if he didn’t.”
I know she’s trying to help, yet hearing that I’ve made Vinny angry and miserable just tugs at my heart. Seeing my face falter, she continues, “It hurts. I know. But you’re sacrificing a lot to make it right for him and someday, when his hot temper cools down, he’ll see it.”
***
Finally we pull up to the front of the arena. The cab barely stopped, I throw money in the front seat and rip open the car door. It’s quiet outside as we make our way to the entrance. Everyone is already inside. Not a good sign. Elle needs to get to him before it’s too late.
We pass through security quickly and shove our tickets in the hands of the man collecting them and take off running down the hall before he even has a chance to rip them in half and give us our stubs.
“This way.” Elle yells over the sound of cheers coming from the inside of the arena. Grabbing the door to the first entrance we find, the announcer’s voice comes over the loud speaker, filling the air over the sound of the cheering from the crowd.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, in the red corner, standing six-feet tall, weighing in at one hundred eighty-three pounds, the contender for the middleweight champion of the world, with a record of 12-0, looking to make it lucky number thirteen tonight, the ladies love him, the men fear him…I give you Vince ‘The Invinnnnnnciiiiible’ Stone!”
My heart thuds in my chest, beating rapidly in sync with the sound of the crowd cheering wildly and I watch frozen in place as he steps into the center of the ring. As my foot passes over the doorway threshold, barely on the carpet that covers the inner venue, I see Vinny turn, his eyes scanning the crowd, almost looking for someone. Snapping me out of my stupor, Elle grabs my arm and the security guard points us in the direction of our assigned seats. We make it to the front, finding our two empty seats, just three rows back from the cage.
“Sit, let me try to get to him.” Elle yells over the crowd and I do as instructed, my eyes still fixated on the back of the man now standing in his corner. Horrified, I sit frozen in my seat as I catch Elle arguing with yet another oversized security guard. He repeatedly shakes his head no, denying Elle passage as the two men meet in the middle of the ring and bump fists while the referee goes through the rules.
We’re running out of time. Running out of time. I silently plead with God, trying to make a deal to get him to help me. Please, please, just let her through. Let her get to him in time and I’ll do anything. Anything. And then the bell dings…
Eyes glued to the cage, I watch in horror as the two men begin to jump around. Vinny’s opponent striking first, he lands an early shot to Vinny’s right shoulder, but Vinny keeps moving right through it. Landing a few quick snap jabs to the face, Vinny turns slightly to the left, following up with an elbow that crashes into his opponent’s cheekbone, his skin tears at the point of impact.
The two back off a few seconds, both jumping around, looking for an opening of some kind. Finding one, Lamaro lowers his shoulder and charges, plowing Vinny into the cage, in what looks like a failed attempt to bring him down to the ground. But now Vinny’s backed into the corner, and his opponent throws punches at him at a feverish pace. Somehow he’s able to avoid many of them, although not all, as some connect while he tries to break free.
Vinny finally manages to push his opponent back and regroup. But before he can get his left arm back up, Lamaro lands a powerful roundhouse kick that connects directly with Vinny’s face and I watch in horror as his head sails to the side from the sheer momentum of the strike. He’s still standing, but the hit leaves Vinny wobbly on his feet, and his opponent sees an opportunity and lunges in, taking Vinny to the ground, his back connecting with the mat in a loud thud that makes me cringe. It takes my breath away from the impact of the fall and I’m not even the one in the cage.
The two men go at it on the ground, rolling and alternating powerful knees crashing on each other’s torso for what seems like forever, yet in reality is probably less than a minute. And then Lamaro maneuvers swiftly and winds up on top, Vinny’s face to the mat, arm stretched in what looks like a painstaking hold behind him. And I think it’s all about to end, my prayer’s unanswered, Vinny’s going to lose…when the bell dings ending the round.
The crowd goes crazy and two young fans run toward the cage, momentarily distracting the monster sized security guard from Elle’s never-ending pleading. She ducks under his left arm at the moment he tries to catch the two charging fans with his right, and darts to the cage. Nico enters the cage and meets Vinny in the corner, just as Elle reaches them, yelling frantically from the other side of the metal patchwork cage.
The security guard grabs Elle’s arm from behind, just as Nico looks up, catching sight of the grip the hulking guard has on his wife. Looking at Nico’s face, for a second I think there might be an even more brutal fight about to occur as he barks something at the guard who quickly complies, throwing his hands up in surrender.
Anger still rooted in his face, Nico listens as his wife unloads the information she needs him to pass on to Vinny. Shaking his head, I can almost see the steam coming from Nico’s ears. He looks between Elle and Vinny and quickly turns his attention to Vinny, an angry tirade unloading all over his prized fighter.
Seconds tick by and I watch on the edge of my seat, unsure what I’m waiting for to happen. Vinny’s jaw clenches as he listens, then he lifts his gaze and catches sight of me. Neither of us moves, not a blink, not a swallow, not a flinch…and I try to tell him everything without words, will him to trust me, know it’s okay to listen to what he’s hearing. But why should he? He trusted me once, and look what I did when he gave me the gift he offer
s so few.
The bell dings, forcing us to disconnect. Eyes and body refocused on the task at hand, I watch as the two men quickly go at it again.
“Alright, well he knows now. All we can do is hope he believes us.” Elle collapses into her seat next to me.
“Oh my god, Elle. Nico looks so pissed.”
“Yeah, me and Vinny are going to have to go into hiding somewhere for at least three or four decades to give him time to cool down over this one.” She grins, trying her best to make light of the situation. But seriously, she’s going home to one angry man, regardless of how the fight ends.
The first kick catches both of our attention, our focus back inside the cage. We can worry about the fallout later. Vinny pursues his opponent, throwing a rapid series of punches, closing the distance between them as he backs Lamaro into the corner of the cage. Not about to back down, Lamaro lifts his leg, using the cage behind him as leverage and slams his foot into Vinny’s ribs, sending him backward three steps, hindering his approach.
Vinny recovers fast, stepping in with one foot as his opponent comes at him and landing a powerful round house kick to the side of Lamaro’s chest. Recovering swiftly, the two men spend the next minute going blow for blow, literally beating each other to a pulp. Each successive strike coming faster and harder than the last, it’s amazing that either of them is even still standing.
Finally, both unable to keep up the pace of the excruciating battle in the center of the ring, they both appear to back off, putting distance between them. Catching sight of the time clock at the corner of my eye, I watch the seconds tick down, twenty, nineteen, eighteen…
The two men circle slowly, their chests heaving wildly up and down, both struggling to catch their breath before the other. Fourteen, thirteen…
