by K. M. Scott
“If only I hadn’t been gone from your life. You deserved so much better, honey. I would have given you that if I could have. I would have, Serena.”
“I know. I know it wasn’t your fault, Mom. I know that now. I do. I guess I’m just crying because I can’t believe that after all these years you’re finally right here in front of me. I’d forgotten what you looked like it’s been so long. I look so much like you.”
She smiled and wiped her tear-stained cheeks. “You’re more beautiful than I’ve ever been.”
“Maybe that’s why Daddy always liked Janelle more. She looks like him.”
“How is your sister? Is she happy? I’m sure your father was more than pleased with himself when he married her off to that Charles person I read about. His millions didn’t hurt either, of course.”
I didn’t know how to answer her questions. I didn’t want to lie, but to say Janelle was happy seemed at the very least not entirely truthful. Then again, her idea of happiness and mine had never been the same.
With a sigh, I said, “She’s happy to be married to someone like Daddy. I don’t think she’s in love with Charles, but that didn’t seem important to anyone at the time.”
My mother furrowed her brow. “I’m happy you escaped that kind of arrangement, Serena. I just worry it’s coming. I know your father.”
“It already came, and he’s gone, so you don’t have to worry. I won’t be letting my father or anyone else push me into another marriage.”
Her eyes opened wide in surprise at my admission that I’d already been married off. “I had no idea. When? I’ve seen your father since Janelle’s wedding, and he never said a thing.”
Looking down at my wrist, I gently rubbed my scar through my sweater as the horrible memory of being forced to marry Oliver replayed in my mind. “It didn’t go exactly how Daddy planned, so he probably didn’t feel it warranted any mention.”
“You said he was gone? What happened to him, or shouldn’t I bother asking, knowing your father?”
I lifted my head and answered her question truthfully. “He died. I wish I could say I was unhappy about that, but I’m not. I never loved him and I begged Daddy to not make me marry him. I guess you can say we both know what good it does to beg him not to do something.”
“I’m sorry, Serena.”
“I’m okay. It taught me a lesson I’ll never forget. I can’t afford to be weak ever again.”
My words made a look of sadness fill her eyes. “I wish you never had to learn that lesson, but in your father’s world, it’s one everyone learns at one time or another.”
We sat silently across from one another, each of us knowing all too well what happened when you allowed yourself to feel even the slightest weakness around my father. We’d both learned the hard way.
“I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me for not being there all these years. I wonder if I had been if things would have been easier for you.”
I shook my head, unwilling to live in the past for another minute now that I had my mother back in my life again. “I don’t blame you for anything. I blame him. He took you away from us and made sure you stayed away. I can’t forgive him for that. I won’t.”
She squeezed my hand and frowned. “Don’t let what he is infect you. You somehow came through all those years with the ability to love. Don’t let it be ruined by your hatred of him.”
“I can’t forgive him for keeping you here all these years. He sticks you in this carriage house, intentionally leaving the bigger house empty. He’s heartless, and one of these days, he’s going to pay for what he did to you and us.”
She looked around the tiny kitchen and smiled. “For a long time, I hated this house. It was a gilded cage, but a cage nonetheless. I was trapped here. He had people watch me twenty-four hours a day for years. I felt like a prisoner, put away for a crime I never committed. But then I guess I just accepted things, and it became my goal to wait him out. I would outlive him, and all I could hope for would be that you and Janelle would be willing to see me when the time came.”
Suddenly, my conversation with the gardener outside made me worry for her safety. “I told that Michael guy my name. What if he calls him? Are there still men who watch the house here?”
My mother smiled sweetly. “Not for years. I don’t even think your father cares if you see me now. I imagine he thinks the damage is done and you won’t be able to forgive me for all he’s convinced you I did. And as for Michael, don’t worry. Your father has never treated him with any bit of kindness, like he does with most of the people who work for him. Michael won’t be interested in helping him anytime soon.”
“But what if he mentions someone named Serena came to see you? I’d hate for you to suffer because of me.”
“Don’t worry. He won’t. Your father doesn’t frighten me anymore. Let him rant and rave. I have my daughter back and just in time for me to become a grandmother.”
The sound of those words made me happy. My mother had her daughter back, and I had my mother back.
And nothing my father could do would change that.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ryder
Keyser lived up to everything I’d imagined it would be, as far as Appalachian towns went. Empty streets that looked like they belonged in a ghost town welcomed us as Floyd drove past one after another abandoned building, and I half expected to see some tumbleweeds roll toward us when we got out at the building where the fight would be held.
“Booming metropolis,” I mumbled as I followed him toward a vacant building.
“This place looks like the kind of place where at any minute zombies would appear coming down the road,” he said with a nervous chuckle.
I turned around to take one last look at the street before walking into a dimly lit hallway. Cinder block walls on each side were covered in graffiti, and beneath our feet entire sections of concrete were missing, leaving gaping holes in the floor.
“Jesus, Floyd, this place is even worse than The Pit, and that’s saying something,” I joked as he led the way to a large metal door at the end of the hallway.
“It’s no Taj Mahal, that’s for sure.”
He pulled hard on the doorknob and heaved the metal door open to reveal a huge, brightly lit space that looked nicer than I’d expected. It was no great place, to be sure, but at least it didn’t look like meth heads had been squatting there as recently as a few hours ago, like I’d worried it would.
A large guy with long hair and glasses saw us and immediately walked up to shake our hands. “Floyd, you son of a bitch! It’s good to see you, man,” he said in a gravelly voice.
“Nate, long time no see. This place doesn’t look like the shithole I thought it would by the way you described it.” Turning toward me, he said, “This is the kid I was talking about. Nate, meet Ryder Rhodes.”
The man gave my hand a firm shake and grinned at me, showing off a nice set of teeth that didn’t seem to fit with the rest of his look. I threw Floyd a nasty look for the kid remark, even though compared to both of them, I would be a kid.
“I hear good things about you, Ryder. Floyd says you’re unbeatable. Is that him just talking shit to get me excited, or is he right?”
Shrugging like I always did when someone asked me if I was as incredible as they’d heard, I said, “Little bit of both, I guess. I haven’t been beaten lately, so he’s right about that.”
“Lately?” Nate asked, obviously sensing that his friend had lied to him.
Floyd quickly answered, “He stepped away from fighting for the past two years, so I wasn’t counting that last fight before he left.”
Nate whistled and looked me up and down. “Two years? Damn! That’s a long time to be away and come back to winning form. You must be good. I guess we’ll see tonight.”
“I guess,” I said with a smile as I scanned the area behind him to see where I’d be fighting.
He noticed where my attention had gone to and looked back at the big empt
y space. “It’s not much, but then again, there isn’t much overhead so it’s a win-win for everyone involved.”
“Just point me in the direction of where I can get changed and I’ll leave you guys to talk shop.”
Nate turned back to face us and pointed to the corner of the room. “Just head back there. You’re the first one here, so you get to take advantage of being the early bird.”
“How many fights are you running tonight?” Floyd asked as that exact question ran through my mind.
“Just Ryder’s and another one. He’s got the main event, so he should be ready by seven since the first one is scheduled for then but it could be over quickly. You never know, do you?”
Floyd laughed. “No, you never do. I swear I’m the most surprised of them all sometimes, and I’ve been in the fight business for decades.”
Nate and Floyd began to reminisce about their biggest shocks in the business, so I walked back to the changing room, happy for some peace and quiet before the fight. Floyd had talked my damn ear off the whole ride there, going on about some show he’d watched on TV the night before that had been just the best fucking thing since sliced white bread. By the time we got there, I was happy to be anywhere but in that passenger seat.
Even an ugly, down-on-its-luck Appalachian town that looked like all but misery had deserted it.
For about thirty minutes, I sat alone on an old wooden bench and thought about how great it was going to be when I surprised Serena with being able to leave after this fight. She’d come home so happy from seeing her mother for the first time since she was a little girl, and I wanted to add to that happiness with the news that we finally could escape Robert and everything that came with him.
I didn’t mention it to Serena, but the thought had crossed my mind that once he found out we were gone, he might retaliate against Alita like he always threatened to. I didn’t want to see her hurt any more than I wanted to see us hurt, but I needed to believe Robert’s threat was just that, a threat meant to manipulate Serena and nothing more.
Maybe we could find a way to help her escape from his control too. I didn’t know if that could happen, but I felt hopeful because of this fight. When I won, that money would be our ticket out.
All I had to do was win.
But like when I was undefeated two years ago, I had a reason to fight that no one else did. I was literally fighting for my future, not just money or bragging rights here in small town USA.
The three other fighters showed up around six-thirty, and I quickly figured out they all knew one another by how they joked around about whose turn it was to buy drinks that night after the matches. Each one checked me out for a second and then looked away like nothing about me concerned them in the least.
Smaller than most of the guys I’d fought, all three had a wiry look about them I knew could make them as dangerous as someone bulkier. I’d seen enough fighters get beat based on thinking they could handle someone because of how they looked to know better.
I sat silently as the crowd filled up the big room outside where we sat and the three local guys talked about what they were going to do with the money they won that night. Nate’s fights paid out well, so it wasn’t surprising they had money on the mind. If I didn’t have Serena and the baby to think of, I’d be doing the same thing as they were.
Nate’s voice boomed throughout the building announcing the fighters for the first fight, and two of the three guys headed out to their match. The third guy sat quietly on the other side of the room and looked like he might be uncomfortable without his friends around, so instead of making small talk I took the chance to really get a feel for him. Definitely wiry, his pale skin looked very white under the large tattoos of black dream catchers on his right arm and a steer head on the other bicep. He kept running his hands over his shaved head, and after a while, he closed his eyes and hummed some tune I’d never heard over and over.
Floyd came in as I studied my opponent for the night and pulled up a chair in front of me, blocking my view of the guy. “Hey, you ready?” he asked eagerly.
“Yeah. He’s smaller than I’ve fought before, but I’m not letting that trick me. I’m not exactly the biggest guy in the ring most nights, and I do pretty well for myself.”
Floyd turned around to look at the guy and then turned back to face me. “You’ll be fine. I put down the money you asked me to, so that’ll make the prize even better. I’m going to get back out there. Nate says those two are cousins or something like that and their fights are always brawls until there’s blood all over. I’ll see you after. We’ll go for a drink at that bar I saw about twenty miles down the road.”
“Okay. Your treat, right?” I joked as the sound of the crowd screaming filtered into the room.
He thought about it for a moment and finally nodded. “Okay,” he grudgingly agreed. “Now I’m glad I bet some good money on you tonight too.”
Cheap bastard.
I watched him walk out as the crowd exploded again, and the pale guy stood and walked across the room, stopping a few feet away. Looking up at him, I saw him glaring down at me.
“You sound pretty fucking sure of yourself. You shouldn’t be. I don’t care if you’re unbeaten or not. I’m winning that money tonight.”
The rage in his eyes made me wonder if he planned to begin fighting right there instead of saving it for the match. “Yeah, whatever. May the best man win.”
“That’s going to be me, motherfucker.”
He turned on his heels and stalked back to his chair without giving me a chance to answer him, but I didn’t have anything to say anyway. Not that I was against talking smack before a match, but I didn’t feel like getting into a pissing contest with this guy before the fight. Better to save my anger for when it counted.
The sound of the crowd screaming died down, telling me the fight between the cousins had ended, and right after they stumbled into the changing room covered in one another’s blood. I couldn’t tell which fighter had won until the one opened his mouth to show his two front teeth knocked out and laughed.
“I lost some teeth, but I won the money, fucker.”
The other guy waved him off and collapsed into a chair near the guy I’d be fighting in a few minutes. “Yeah, well, I got your teeth and I’m not giving them back.”
Sure I didn’t want to be around when they started fighting over the teeth, I walked out of the room and stood against the wall to wait for Nate to call us out. Pale guy followed me, and positioned himself nearby to glare at me before he started growling.
I turned to look at him and shook my head. “The last guy who thought this staring me down shit worked got pretty fucked up by me. Why don’t you save the act for the fight, dude?”
If he thought the whole glaring and growling routine was scaring me, he was sorely mistaken. I didn’t frighten that easily.
“I’m going to be the one doing the fucking up, dude,” he answered, mocking me.
Shit talking like this was nothing new before a fight, but this guy seemed a little too jacked about it. I considered giving him a shove just to be an asshole but decided against it. I’d take my own advice and save my anger for the match.
Nate announced our names, and I found out the pale guy’s was Justin Forte. Even his name sounded like it belonged on a jackass.
He trotted out to the crowd, and it erupted into cheers for him, with some people even chanting “Get it done!” like it was his catch phrase or something. Like his name, it fit him.
I walked out to a smattering of cheers at first but after the crowd got a good look at me, they began to scream and holler like I was one of their local boys they were used to watching. A few of the more rabid fans barked out, “Let’s get started!” like they were about to do something more than drink and cheer for us to beat the fuck out of each other.
Nate drew us together and wrapped his arms around us before he leaned in and said, “You two know how this goes. First one to surrender loses. There are no rules other than t
wo fingers and you’re done.”
I expected Justin to talk more shit, but he just nodded and I did the same.
Lifting his head, Nate said loudly so the crowd could hear, “Let’s see a good fight, you two!” and I slammed my fists down on Justin’s before we stepped back and the fight began.
As I expected, he came at me like a fucking wild animal, aiming for my nose and hoping for a quick show of blood for the crowd. I twisted out of his way and caught the back of his head with my elbow as he flew past me, and he grunted in pain as I spun around to face him when he came at me again.
“Wanna play games, little bitch?” he said, sneering at me. “Fight me like a fucking man!”
I laughed in his face. I didn’t know what kind of fighting he’d ever done, but standing in one place while someone whales on you wasn’t fighting. It was losing.
“You’re gonna laugh at me?”
From the crowd, some guy yelled, “Stop fucking talking and fight! You’re like fucking hens out there!”
Justin turned to throw a look toward where the sound came from, and I jumped at the chance to show him how fighting was supposed to be done. My arm came around in a right hook, and my fist connected hard with his face. I felt my knuckles slam against his cheekbone before they skated along his head, clipping his ear. He turned in shock to come at me, but he was too slow. By the time he raised his hand, my forearm was meeting his face. It slammed into his nose, breaking it and sending blood pouring out of his nostrils.
He staggered back while his hands filled with blood, but I didn’t let up. I saw my chance to win, and I took it.
The next hit sent him to the ground, and as the crowd screamed its desire for me to kick his ass, I pounced on him, taking advantage of his weakness. Like a man on a mission, I beat him like I had to. My fists pounded his face and body over and over. The whole time he tried to defend himself, but it was no use.
I knew what I had to do, and I did it.
The sound of the crowd yelling all around me slowly faded away until all I heard was the noise my fists made every time they met his body. A deafening sound of pain that repeated again and again.
