Strong Hold

by Sarah Castille

  But then I remember another time emotion threatened to overwhelm me and how it felt to have my heart ripped out of my chest. I remember how I came to be at Redemption and why I need to move forward. Not back.

  6

  Zack

  Zack watched Shayla from across the gym, wondering if she realized just how many male fantasy buttons she pushed. Or did she know how many dudes were surreptitiously watching her teach striking techniques to a group of avid tween girls, several of whom looked like they shopped at the same grunge gym wear store as her? He couldn’t get over her 180-degree change of style since he’d last seen her in Glenwood, but he liked the badass clothes that teased a man with glimpses of her beautiful body while at the same time warning him away.

  He knew he shouldn’t have gone to see her at work last night. Her slap at the gym had made it abundantly clear that she hadn’t forgiven him for walking away. But what was he supposed to do when he saw her icing her head after every session? Or walking out with a visible bump? Nobody at the gym seemed particularly concerned, but then they probably didn’t understand the danger of a head injury the way he did. If she’d been his, he would have been in the car and breaking every speed limit to get to Redemption to look after her.

  But she wasn’t his. She was Damian’s wife. Tall, blond Damian with the square jaw and lean, dancer’s body. One year after Zack had left her in that cheap motel, he’d made the mistake of going to New York to find her, only to discover that her brother, Matt, hadn’t lied to him the night Zack had finally worked up the courage to call.

  She belonged to another man.

  Even today, he couldn’t believe she had so quickly replaced him. Had Damian offered her all the things Zack couldn’t give her? Money, stability, a nice house in a cozy suburb, and a normal, middle-class family. Did he buy her expensive presents, take her to fancy restaurants, and buy her pretty clothes? Was he worthy where Zack was not?

  Why hadn’t she waited for him? Just one year. Zack could have given her everything she wanted and the one thing he knew no man could give her like he could. Love. With every ounce of his soul.

  “I’ve got all the stats you asked for this morning,” Torment said, coming up beside him. “You want them emailed or in hard copy?”

  “Email is fine.” He glanced over at the man beside him, assessing his size and strength against his own. Even in professional circles, Torment was a legend from his underground fight days. He had only ever lost one fight, and that was when his competitor hit him over the head with an illegal set of brass knuckles and almost took his life. Every fighter dreamed of the chance to face Torment in the ring, but rumor had it only his closest friends at Redemption were given that opportunity.

  “She’s a solid fighter.” Torment folded his arms, leaned against the wall beside Zack, nodding in the direction of Zack’s gaze, which was, as it had been since he walked in the door, fixed on Shayla. “Probably the best female fighter at Redemption. She’s got a good grounding in both striking and grappling techniques. You’ll see from her stats that she’s lost her last four fights, but we’re coming up with a plan to get her over the hump. I’m confident she can make it happen. But frankly, I’m surprised MEFC is interested in her right now.”

  MEFC wasn’t interested, but as one of their top recruiters, Zack was expected to scout for new talent as well as entice top amateurs into the MEFC fold. He had already sent in his report letting his bosses know their original target, Blade Saw, wasn’t ready for the pros and not worth the early investment. Usually, he would head out of town after the report was done or the targeted fighter signed, but now that he’d found Shayla again, he needed a reason to stick around. With female fighters in high demand, assessing her potential was a good excuse.

  Torment obviously wanted to know why Zack would be interested in a fighter who had just lost her last four fights, but Zack didn’t rise to the bait. “How long has she been with the club?”

  “Four years,” Torment said. “She started out taking karate and judo classes and moved on to jiu-jitsu. When I saw her potential, I encouraged her to work on striking and start fighting. She was phenomenal right out of the gate. Very focused and intense.”

  Zack forced himself to look at Torment although it meant tearing his eyes away from the woman he had thought he’d never see again. “Any idea what happened in those last fights?”

  “I’m sure you know that sometimes strength and technique aren’t enough. If there’s something going on in a fighter’s personal life or inside her head, it comes out in the ring.”

  Personal life? Zack’s chest tightened at the thought of Shayla with her husband. Jealousy had been a huge problem for him when he and Shayla were together, fueled in no small part by his insecurity about his trailer park roots and his dysfunctional family.

  “That was the case for me,” Torment offered. “I worked through a lot of issues in the ring over the years.”

  “We all do.” Zack’s mother, an abuser of any substance that would help her forget her own traumatic past, had overdosed when Zack was twelve years old, and he had always felt some measure of responsibility for her death. If he’d been smarter, tried harder to be good, spent more time looking after his sisters, done more to keep his abusive father away… His mother had needed him, and he’d let her down, just as he’d let down his sisters, Viv and Lily, who had needed Zack to protect them from their alcoholic father until he drank himself to death. Every time he wasn’t there to intervene was another black mark on his soul. Even after he had been granted guardianship of his sisters and they were no longer at risk, the need to help and protect them was there, as if it were hardwired into his brain.

  During those tumultuous teenage years, he had wanted to protect Shayla, too. She was the one person he would not fail. But his determination to keep her safe had landed him in detention again and again for picking fights with guys who even looked at her the wrong way. If not for a school counselor who had suggested he take up MMA at a local gym to relieve his anger and frustration, he had no doubt he would eventually have landed in jail.

  “If something is going on with her, she’s keeping it close to her chest,” Torment said. “She doesn’t share much about her past or her personal life. Even Sadist hasn’t been able to get much out of her over the years, and he can get just about anyone to talk.”

  Zack’s gaze flicked back to Shayla. She was cooling her class down on the mats while talking to a tall Ken-doll-type dude with a square jaw, blond crew cut, and too much tan. He seemed overly familiar with her, putting his hand on her arm, then her shoulder, patting her on the back, and leaning in close. Too close to be a friend.

  “Who’s that?” He braced himself for the answer he didn’t want to hear.

  “Her personal trainer, Stan Roberts.” Torment shot Zack a sideways look. “He’s one of the best. He took her on because he believes in her.”

  Zack took an instant dislike to Stan, who didn’t seem to be able to keep his hands off Shayla. It didn’t make any sense. He and Shayla weren’t together anymore. And it wasn’t like he had lacked for female company over the years. Before the Okami fight, he’d had everything—fame, fortune, and countless women fighting for his attention, few of whom he’d ever seen more than a handful of times and none of whom had filled the emptiness inside him.

  “You think she has what it takes to go pro?” he asked.

  “You’re the recruiter,” Torment said. “You tell me.”

  Recruiter. Not fighter. Even after three years in the business, he still found it hard to be on the outside looking in. Recruiting was as close as he could get to the sport without stepping into the ring, but after the Okami fight, he knew he could never cross the ropes again. No one understood his decision. His boss, Kip Matthews, head of MEFC recruitment, pressured him constantly to return, as did his fans and fellow fighters. But there was only one person who had ever truly seen him, one woman who w
ould have understood his pain.

  “I didn’t think you’d come.” Zack smiled as the little girl made her way along the path at the top of Devil’s Hill where he’d been waiting for the better part of the hour. He didn’t know what he was doing here, especially after taking a beating yesterday afternoon from her brother. Matt hadn’t believed that his eight-year-old sister had taken his bike for a joyride and had pinned the blame on Zack instead.

  She sat beside him, her knees still bandaged after her fall yesterday, long hair falling over her shoulder. She was a cute kid. And she smiled a lot. No one in Zack’s trailer park ever smiled.

  “You said you’d be here.”

  “I guess I did.” He’d offered to teach her to ride down the hill before his encounter with Matt, and a promise was a promise.

  “And I thought you might need some bandages after what Matt did to you. I had some in my dance bag. I get hurt a lot in ballet.”

  She didn’t look like a ballerina. Sure, she was skinny enough and pretty, but the ballerinas he’d seen on TV were tall, graceful, and willowy with poufy skirts, and their arms looked like they were blowing in the breeze.

  “I’m okay.” The cuts and bruises Matt had given him were nothing compared to the beatings he got when his dad came home drunk from the bar.

  “No, you’re not.” She peeled the paper off one of the bandages and carefully placed it over the cut on his forehead. Zack didn’t like to be touched, and it had been years since he’d let anyone tend his cuts and bruises, but when her fingers brushed over his skin, his body stilled, a calm settling over him like nothing he’d ever felt before.

  Before Zack even realized he had moved, he was halfway across the gym toward her, thinking how that day on the hill wasn’t the first time she had wanted to help him but the only time he’d let her. Over the years, he’d pushed her away when she had tried to look after him, whether it was bruises from fights or slipping grades because he had to work to support his two younger sisters. In his mind, it was his job to look after the important women in his life. Not the other way around.

  “Shay.”

  She looked up, startled. “Zack. I thought you were gone.”

  He’d thrown her off. Well, that was something. At least he had some effect on her.

  “I still have work to do at Redemption.” Although chasing after Shayla to find out what had happened in the years since he left her wasn’t technically work, he had enough leeway with his job that he could spin things to suit his personal agenda.

  “This is Stan, my personal trainer.” She nodded at the blond dude beside her.

  “Slayer.” Stan grabbed Zack’s hand and pumped it up and down. “It’s an honor. I followed all your fights. That night you fought Paul Renardo in Denver… I was there. Greatest fight ever. Can I get a picture?” Stan pulled out his phone, and Zack posed with him for the obligatory selfie before Shayla sent Stan to tend to her class.

  She waited until he was out of earshot before turning on Zack. “What are you doing here?”

  “Recruiting.”

  Her lips pressed into a thin line. “I mean here on this mat, talking to me. Obviously, I’m not in the running, and if you’re looking for friendship, any chance of that was obliterated when you walked out the door seven years ago.”

  Zack winced. He had always regretted how he’d handled the situation, but after bumping into Matt outside the local drugstore where he’d gone to buy condoms for their first night together, it had seemed like the right thing—the only thing—to do.

  “You’re destroying her life, you fucking selfish bastard.” Matt shoved him against his car. “She was accepted to apprentice in New York, and she’s going to turn it down tomorrow to go to San Diego with you. I always knew you’d drag her down, you worthless piece of shit.”

  “What the hell?” Zack shoved Matt back, something he would never have dared to do before he started training at the local MMA gym, but a few years had made all the difference.

  “The ballet company in New York is everything,” Matt spat out. “It’s the best in the country. Dancing with them could launch her international career. It’s what she’s been working toward since she was three years old, and you’re taking it away from her. There is nothing for her in San Diego. They have a small, unknown ballet company that offers her no real prospect for advancement. She’ll be nothing. All that work. All the hours, the pain, the tears, the damn money we spent, the sacrifices we made. All. For. Nothing.”

  Matt punctuated each of the last three words with a shove, but for the first time since Zack had started MMA, he didn’t fight back. Shock stayed his hand. Why hadn’t she told him? But even as he asked himself the question, he knew. She was afraid he’d make her go to New York. And that was exactly what he was going to do.

  “I knew about the New York offer,” he said. “Matt told me. I did what I had to do to get you to go.”

  She stared at him aghast. “So you lied? About Seattle and the coach…”

  He shook his head. “I never lied to you. I did have a visit from a top coach in Seattle that day. He did make me an offer, and he was heading back to Seattle that morning, but I could have gone the next week, and at that time, Seattle wasn’t where I thought I needed to be to make it in MMA. But Matt said you planned to turn down your offer the next day. I couldn’t take the risk. I needed you to hate me enough that you would want to be as far from me as possible. In New York.”

  Her hands balled into fists, and her voice thinned. “That wasn’t your call. And doing it that night? You certainly gave me a first time to remember. If you think I’m going to thank you, it’s not going to happen. It was the wrong choice for me, and not just because I didn’t get to make it.”

  He bristled under her anger, but before he could respond, Stan returned with Shayla’s class in tow. “This is Slayer,” he said to the group of girls who looked to be no older than twelve. “He’s one of MMA’s biggest stars.” He rattled off all Zack’s accolades, and the girls’ eyes widened. “If you ask nicely, I’m sure he’ll show you a few moves.”

  Shayla shook her head. “I’m sure Slayer is busy, and we have—”

  “Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease.” The chorus of young voices rose above the noise in the gym.

  “How can you say no to that?” Stan flashed his snow-white smile, and Zack had to fight the urge to relieve him of a few of his teeth.

  Shayla shook her head. “We’re actually done for the day—”

  “Pleasepleasepleaseplease.” The little girls pleaded until she gave a grudging nod. She’d always had a soft spot for kids.

  “We were going to learn how to escape a choke from the guard today, but we ran out of time,” she said to Zack with a shrug. “Maybe you could show them how’s it done.”

  Zack grabbed the opportunity and bit back a smile. “I’ll need a partner, and you just volunteered. On your back.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and he was damn sure he heard the softest growl. Lips pressed tight together, she lay on the mat in front of him, knees bent but together.

  Zack raised an admonishing eyebrow and gently pushed her legs apart. He’d always enjoyed winding her up. “Open for me.”

  Her cheeks heated, and she bit her bottom lip, the way she’d done at fourteen when she had wanted to kiss him but was too shy to ask. By sixteen, she wasn’t shy at all, and his resolve had been tested every time they were together. Much like now. Damn, she was sexy. His blood rushed to his groin, and he shifted his weight, regretting that he hadn’t worn a cup.

  “Like that’s ever going to happen again,” she muttered under her breath. “You made it pretty clear how you felt about me when you left me alone in that run-down hotel.”

  “If it helps, this isn’t easy for me either,” he said quietly. “You made it pretty clear how you felt about me when you hauled ass out of town only two days later.” He grabbed her shir
t, rolling them before his body overrode his mind and gave way to the heat between them. With one hand, he pulled her down until she was lying on top of him, her cheek against his chest, her hips pressed tight against his, an exquisitely painful pleasure that threatened his self-control.

  “You can’t have it both ways,” she murmured softly, her breath warm against his skin, despite the T-shirt between them. “You can’t be upset because I left town after you walked away. I was going to go to San Diego for you, Zack. To support you while you tried to build your career as a fighter. To help you. I could have deferred New York. But you never gave me a chance. You never wanted my help. You lived your life like a martyr, making selfless choices without letting people save you in return.”

  Her heart pounded a rapid beat against his chest, her body soft and warm. She still fit perfectly against him, as if they were made for each other, as if they had always been one person, not two. In that moment, the years that separated them seemed only minutes, the pain of loss only the smallest nick and not the brutal slice of a dagger that had torn a gaping wound in his chest.

  She wiggled against him, seeking an escape, and he bit back a groan. Damn her. Damn her bitter truths and her sweet body and the betraying longing of a wounded heart.

  “If you were mine, I wouldn’t let you do this with another man.” He grabbed the back of her shirt and pulled his elbow around her head, holding her in place for the submission. “I called Matt once a few years back. He told me you were married. How does your husband stand it?”

  “We aren’t together anymore.”

  Zack’s chest constricted as he tried to process her words, and he made the critical mistake of loosening his grip.

  “You should always try to escape at the earliest possible moment,” Shayla said to her rapt audience, bridging up quickly to slip her head free. Twisting into half guard, she scissored her legs around him, taking advantage of his distraction. Only instinct and muscle memory saved him from being submitted by an amateur, honed after years of drills and dozens of fights. He rolled and mounted her, straddling her hips in a dominant position. A blush crept up her neck, her lips parting, but when he looked in her eyes for arousal, all he saw was pain.