by JJ Knight
He’s quiet a moment. “You mean as Joanna.”
My old name sends a chill through me. I haven’t heard anyone else say it out loud in so long. “Yeah, that.”
“Let me get some affairs in order with the separation from my father’s corporation, and I’ll hire a lawyer for this,” Colt says. “He’ll discreetly look into what happened to your stepbrother and see if any charges were filed.”
“You mean if there’s a warrant out for my arrest.”
“You think that’s likely?”
I come up to a group of people waiting at a crosswalk and hustle through. “I don’t know. He had to have gone to the hospital.”
I can still hear his bones crunching beneath my punches, and picture him bleeding on the fallen shower curtain.
“But is he the type who would never admit that it was his stepsister? One of those macho men who would claim it was an intruder?”
I make the last turn to my apartment complex. It hasn’t occurred to me that he might not blame me. The situation seemed so obvious. He gets beaten. I disappear. Obviously I did it. Obvious to me, anyway.
But Colt is right. “You think they might think an intruder attacked him and then kidnapped me?”
“How old were you then?”
“Seventeen.”
“You were a minor. Did you ever check the Amber Alerts or missing-kid networks?”
I haven’t. I start to feel hope that maybe I’m okay, that some terrible fate isn’t waiting to catch up to me.
“Jo?”
I realize I never answered. “I never did.”
“I’ll do that myself,” he says. “As soon as I’m sure I can hire someone my father’s estate can’t trace, I’ll look into clearing your name if we need to.”
I’ve made it to my apartment now. “Thank you, Colt.”
“It’s time we got this taken care of,” he says. “Hey, can you ask Buster to send your fight schedule to my team? I want to make sure they don’t book anything on top of one of your matches.”
I want to laugh as I unlock my door. “I think I should be working around you. You are way more important.”
“Not to me.”
I pause on the doorstep. “I can’t wait to have you at one of my fights,” I say.
“I can’t wait to have you after one of your fights,” he says.
A flush of heat spreads through my body. “That will be something.”
“Talk to you before bed?” he asks.
“That’ll be nice.”
“Until then.” Colt’s voice is all low, a rumble that goes straight through me, like an earthquake.
I hang up the phone and press it to my chest. I don’t think life could get any better than this. All my mistakes are about to be rectified. I won’t have to lie about who I am, where I come from. Colt is making all of this possible.
I’m about to stick the phone in my pocket to go in my apartment when a fist knocks it from my hand.
Chapter Six
I act on pure instinct, shoving my elbow into whoever is next to me without waiting to turn to see who it is.
But the blow is expertly deflected, and a hard kick to my back knocks me into my front door. I spin around, ready to face whoever is attacking me from behind.
It’s Annabelle.
“You should pay more attention when you’re walking,” she snarls.
Panic floods me, not that she’s here, but that she may have listened to my conversation. She could have information that could sink me. But I don’t have time to replay everything I said, because Annabelle throws a jab toward my ribs.
I block it and step away from the door so I have more room to maneuver. I have no idea how good a fighter she is, or why she’s here.
I bounce lightly, staying loose to prepare for whatever she might do next.
But Annabelle leans against the brick wall, all casual. I stay in my stance, my brain making calculations about her height, the distance between us, all the little bits of information I will need to take her down, if I need to.
She glances at my raised fists and laughs. “Lani was right. You hold your hands too high.”
I refuse to lower them. “So, you two do know each other.”
“We do now,” she says.
“You’re Annie, right? Colt’s ex-girlfriend?”
“You catch on quick.”
I just watch her. I’m not giving anything away — that I thought Lani was my friend, that I had no idea she knew Colt’s ex-girlfriend. I need to sort all of this out, but right now I have to focus. “Did Brittany send you?”
Annie smiles. “That girl was a wily one.”
A non-answer. “What do you want?” I ask.
Annie pushes away from the wall. “Just doing a favor for a friend.”
But which one? Lani or Brittany?
I assume the favor was to pick a fight. I tense up, ready for her to strike again, but she laughs. “So, did Daddy offer you money to leave too?” Annie asks. She runs her fingers across one of the spindly bushes by my door. “He offered me a lot of money. Fifty thousand smackers.”
This gets me. I was only worth ten. I’m a little shaken by this but keep my face straight.
“I guess you took it?” I ask.
“Colt and I were already on the outs. He’s hard to live with.” She shrugs. “Made sense to cash out.”
This doesn’t match up to his account. He was wrecked when this girl left him. I make sure I haven’t locked my knees, that I’m ready for whatever’s coming. But I’m not certain anymore that she’s here to fight me, even though she attacked first. With the surprise she had on me, she should have been able to do a lot more damage, if she’s fighter trained.
“Not willing to say if good old Pops tried to buy you out too?” She plucks a leaf from the bush. “Lani said you were pretty wrecked over your breakup, but you didn’t seem to have any extra cash.”
So, the two of them have been talking all along.
I keep my breathing soft and even. I’m not giving her any information about me or Colt. My lack of girlfriend skills may have saved me, since I didn’t tell Lani much either.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I feel crushed that we weren’t friends after all. I suck at that more than I ever could have guessed.
“What are you doing here? Why do you care about this now?” I ask.
Annie tosses the leaf into the dirt. “What I didn’t count on after I left Colt,” she says, “is that I’d be shunned by the entire fighter community.” She jerks at another branch, sending leaves cascading to the ground. “That son of a bitch couldn’t keep it together. Everybody blamed me.”
A car pulls up in the parking lot close by, and a neighbor gets out. I lower my arms so it doesn’t look so obvious that I’m ready for a fight. In this neighborhood, people call the cops for a lot less.
Annie watches the lady with a load of grocery bags walk down a path to another building. I take the moment to reach down for my phone and stick it back in my pocket.
“Not sure what you want Colt to do about it,” I say.
Annie glares at me. “He has a lot of people who don’t like him.”
“I expect a lot of people at the top do. You got your money. Move on.”
“Fifty thou doesn’t go far if you don’t have a way to support yourself,” she says.
Not Colt’s fault, I think. “So, do something else.”
“I went back to The Cure.” She says Colt’s father’s name with a sneer. “I told him I’d make a tearful return to Colt and get him back on the fighting path. But he had me thrown out!”
“He’s not exactly a friendly man.”
She laughs. “You got that right.”
Now she’s acting like we’re friends or something. I’m sick of this. My door is unlocked, so I push it open and go inside. I’m about to turn around and secure it when Annie smashes against it, knocking it wide.
I jerk off my jacket and toss it away so I have a better range of motion. I sho
uld never have given up the hoodies. Annie spins around to deliver what should have been a spectacular kick to my face, but I dodge it easily. She falls into the folding chair, tangling her leg.
I guess she’s here to fight after all.
“Bad landing,” I say, and drop my knee on her belly. I’m small, but so is she. We’re probably evenly matched on weight.
But I can sense how much longer she’s trained when she grasps my neck, sending a shrieking pain into my skull. This isn’t a regulation MMA move, so I don’t know it. Or how to defend against it.
Annie knocks me to the ground, but this loosens her grip, and I can move again. I roll into the coffee table and drag her with me. This time when I pin her, I put my knees on her upper arms so she can’t grab me.
“Just tell me why the hell you are here,” I say, my face inches from her.
She laughs again. “We’re coming for you. Enjoy your little moment with Colt, because there’s a whole lot of us invested in seeing him fail.”
Then she lunges up with her pelvis in a feat of strength I’ve never even witnessed before. I tumble onto my head and roll into a chair. Annie is up instantly, and before I can even get to my feet, she’s delivered a series of sharp kicks to my ribs.
I grab her leg and jerk her down, getting a solid jab straight to her eye as she falls. People are going to notice that tomorrow.
We grapple with each other, smashing into the sofa and chairs. Blows rain on my face, but I’m giving as good as I get. I try to get on top of her again, but that fierce strength of hers knocks me backward. This time my head slams against the coffee table, and everything goes black for a second.
I can hear the sound of my own breathing. The scene goes in and out for a few seconds, grayish and fuzzy, like an old television. Annie stands over me, a blurry form.
Get up, I tell myself, and force myself to my elbows.
“That’s enough for now,” Annie says. “But don’t think this is over.” She walks away, and the room is flooded white as she pushes the half-open door wide. She disappears into the blinding light.
I lay back down on the floor. My head pounds from the inside out, like there’s a drum in my skull. I reach behind my head and feel the stickiness of blood. Damn it. I roll over to my belly. Colt is two hours away. Zero is at work. An ambulance is crazy expensive.
I pull my phone from my pocket and dial Buster. He can send Nate to patch me up. This is no different from any other fight. Except this time, there’s going to be one hell of a rematch.
Chapter Seven
Nate and Buster are still sitting around my living room when Colt and Doc Simon make it a couple hours later. I’m lying on the sofa with an ice pack on my head. Nate has proclaimed that I will live. Buster wants to call off the fight on Friday. They’ve been arguing about it since they arrived.
Colt kneels next to me on the sofa. “How’s my Kettle Belle?” He’s in his fight suit, his blonde hair sticking to his head. He obviously came straight from his own training.
“Wishing I got a couple more good jabs in,” I say.
He pushes my hair back off my forehead. “I can’t believe someone attacked you,” he says. “We’ve got to get you moved someplace safer than this neighborhood.”
Buster stands up and moves to the end of the sofa. “This wasn’t a random attack, Colt,” he says. He hands Colt a piece of paper. It’s the membership form for Annabelle Warren.
Colt stares at it in disbelief. “Annie?” He looks at me. “It was Annie?”
“I didn’t know her,” Buster says. “No clue she was someone associated with you. She’s been having Jo train her. Acted like she didn’t have a skill in the world.”
Colt tosses the paper on the coffee table. “That’s it.” He reaches down to scoop me up in his arms. “You’re coming home with me.”
Doc Simon touches his shoulder. “Let me take a look at her first. Let’s make sure she doesn’t need an X-ray or a scan.”
I don’t want to leave Colt’s arms, the warmth of his chest, but he sets me back down on the sofa. “Okay, but I’m putting her in the compound for her own safety.”
“Not with your dad!” I cry.
Colt curses under his breath. “Right. We’ll secure my place here in LA.” He turns to Buster. “Is Brent still around somewhere? He could guard her.”
“I don’t need a guard,” I say. They’re overreacting. “She’s just one girl.”
Doc Simon lifts my head, pushing my hair around to look at the gash. “She got you pretty good,” he says. He lays me down. “Nice cleanup,” he says to Nate.
Nate is hunched over on a folding chair, his unlit cigar clamped between his lips. “I’ve sent worse back into the ring,” he grumbles.
Doc Simon sorts through his bag for his light. He shines it in my eyes. “Pupils are fine. I don’t think she has a concussion. We can take her in anyway, if you like.” He looks up at Colt.
“No,” I say.
Doc sticks the penlight back in his bag. “This isn’t anything major. I don’t see a reason to call off Friday’s match.” He squirts gel on a piece of gauze and applies it to my head. “But I agree that she should have somebody with her. Figure out what’s going on, since it wasn’t random.”
Buster starts pacing the room. “Jo says Annie knows that Lani girl. I’m going to call her in if she comes back. I doubt we’ll see Annie again after this.”
“Is that her address on the form?” Colt asks.
“Fake. I checked,” Buster says. “It’s a movie theater.”
Colt frowns. “What about this Lani person?”
“She paid for three months in cash,” Buster says. “Not sure her name is even Lani.”
I remember something. “That fighter boy Parker knows her,” I say, wincing at Doc’s pressure on my head. “Power Play.”
“I know his trainer,” Nate says. “I’ll give him a call.”
Buster turns to Colt. “What the hell is this about? You do something to Annie recently that would make her come after Jo?”
Colt shakes his head. “I haven’t seen her since the day she left.”
Doc lets go of my head. I’m tired of lying down, so I sit up. Colt fits in next to me on the sofa, his arm around my shoulders. I try to figure out how to say the next part, and take his hand. “Annie said your father paid her fifty thousand dollars to leave you.”
A muscle in Colt’s jaw starts to tick. “Doesn’t that man have any other way of persuading people?” he asks. His free hand clamps into a fist. “He’s at the compound right now.”
Colt looks at Doc. “We should head back. I’m going to confront him.”
“What about Jo?” Buster asks. “I can maybe take her with me.”
I don’t want that. “I’ll go with Colt,” I say. “I guess it’s time for me to have another chat with The Cure myself.”
Colt squeezes my hand. “We’ll see him together. I’ll make Mother come. That’ll keep him in line.” He kisses my fingers.
“I need to pack some things,” I say. I want everyone to leave so I can clean myself up.
Nate stands. “Make sure you get in a few licks this week, if you’re still going to fight Diva Delaney on Friday.”
“We’ll have Killjoy put her through some paces,” Colt says. “If things settle down, we’ll bring her back so she can train again with you before the match.”
“All right.” Nate steps up to me and lays a hand on my shoulder. “You’re a tough girl, Jo. You’ll be fine.”
He and Buster head out together, leaving me with Colt and Doc. “You need to get some things?” Colt asks.
I nod. He tries to help me up, but I push him away. If I’m going to face his family, I can’t act like an invalid. “Give me a minute.”
Colt stays in the living room with Doc while I head to the bedroom. I stare at myself in the mirror, my hair all crazy from the ice pack and whatever else they glued to my head. I’m a wreck.
But I don’t care if The Cure or Colt’s mo
ther thinks I’m pretty, or cultured, or good enough for their boy. I only care that they know he and I are a team. And nobody’s going to break us apart.
Nobody.
Chapter Eight
When I get out of the Mercedes in Santa Barbara, I can feel the effects of the fight. My muscles have stiffened up during the ride.
Still, I don’t let on, making sure I walk with good form up to the front door of the family mansion.
The driver leaves to take Doc Simon around to the gym and drop my things off at Colt’s condo, which is thankfully miles away from here. Colt called his father ahead and insisted on a meeting. Unfortunately, his mother is in San Diego, so it will just be the three of us. I’m not sure if that news makes me feel better or worse about what’s taking place. Even Colt isn’t sure how much she knows about her husband’s actions.
We both pause in front of the oversized door. Colt looks down at me. “You ready for this?”
“I’ve faced worse,” I say. “At least we won’t be in a moving vehicle.”
Colt pulls me to his chest. “I am amazed by you.” He kisses the top of my head, careful to avoid the gelled-up gash.
I smack his belly playfully. “Be more amazed when I throw the first punch at a three-time heavyweight boxing champion.”
Colt chuckles. The sound vibrates from his chest into my skin. It’s comforting, this closeness. We give ourselves another minute, then Colt extracts his key fob from his pocket and waves it at the sensor by the door.
The foyer is how I remember, the twin staircases flanking either side. Instead of passing between them to the kitchen, however, Colt turns us to the right.
Immense double doors, probably twelve feet high, open to a fancy front room that makes me think of The Beverly Hillbillies, a show my grandmother used to watch. The room is formal and cold. And empty.
We pass through it to another set of doors. Colt doesn’t open these, however, but pauses to knock.
Inside, I hear a voice I remember well from the limo ride. “Come in, son.”
It’s The Cure McClure.
His office is like something you might see in an old movie. Dark paneled walls, burgundy wing chairs, a fireplace. An Alaskan husky sleeps on a rug. The dog pricks up his ears when we enter, but then settles back down. I’m not surprised that even the animals in the family are as impassive and unfriendly as the owners. I want to bend down and scratch him behind the ears, but Colt’s father stands up behind his desk and I feel paralyzed.
