Fearless (The Solomon Brothers Series Book 3)

by Leslie North

  Sirens wailed in the distance.

  Henry’s gaze descended to Maggie.

  Her face twisted in pain. From her lips, strangled breaths erupted in erratic bursts. A halo of curly red hair lifted on the breeze.

  “He saved me,” she choked out.

  Henry rushed Roosevelt, knelt beside him. When the kid’s eyelids moved, Henry rediscovered the gift of breath, the gift of the mind, the gift of control.

  And the gift of love. Even unreciprocated, a more powerful fight than anything inside eight caged walls.

  Henry, Chase, and Marcus stepped inside Charlie’s Place, nestled in an old Brooklyn neighborhood. From the modest sign and window front, the fifty-year old dive bar disclosed none of its hidden treasures. Once inside, however, Charlie’s love of boxing crowded the walls with the largest private collection of memorabilia devoted to the sport.

  Sol had always wanted to come here. Bucket list shit. He couldn’t, so the brotherhood he united came in his place.

  They requested a back booth, where it was rumored there was an old ticket stub to a fight at the Athletic Club in 1975. Solomon “Sol” Douglas versus Alfonse Carlotta. Knockout in the third round, favor: Sol. The final match of his career, just before he pulled a Sol and married the love of his life. But he was never more of a champion to the three assembled than in the fights he put up to save each of them. Over a pitcher of cheap beer and some fried chicken, they caught up before they went their separate ways.

  “How’s Roosevelt?” asked Chase.

  “Better. Shoulder’s going to hurt like a sonofabitch for a while, but he’s strong. Maggie’s with him now. They’ll probably release him this afternoon.”

  “You headed back then?” said Marcus.

  “Yeah. Ready to put it all behind us.”

  “That mean fighting, too?” Chase said.

  “I don’t know.”

  Chase held out his hand to Henry, waited for him to take it. A peace offering. A reconnection so long in coming. “Whatever you decide, man. We got your back. Finances, you name it.”

  Henry shook it. Nearly fucking lost it right there.

  “So long as you put my likeness on that back wall,” joked Marcus. “If you decide to keep the place.”

  “Fuck you,” said Chase. “That’s where my signature jumper shot and Alloy’s jersey number will be.”

  Henry chuckled. “Maybe all three of us—that picture with Sol, on his back lawn, overlooking Pittsburgh. The day Chase got drafted.”

  “You’d just won your first match. Remember that?” Marcus smiled at the memory. “God, Sol was so fucking happy that day.”

  “We all were.”

  They basked in the warm glow of the lights, the alcohol in their bellies, the memories. Henry tried not to think about Irma’s cancer diagnosis that came the week after. Life was fucking fleeting. All it took was a moment of clarity to knock you on your ass. Henry had his. That night on the street, tears flowing down Maggie’s beautiful face, a promise fresh on his tongue: if they were both okay, Henry would make the right choice.

  He chose love. Maggie. His Irma. Even if he didn’t turn out to be her Sol and she wanted to move on, Henry vowed to spend every last day of his life fighting for her.

  Marcus raised his glass. “To brotherhood.”

  “To brotherhood,” Chase and Henry echoed.

  Henry glanced around Sol’s office. The place had never looked tidier: trophies polished, floor cleared, papers filed, clutter gone. A hole still gaped at the corner where flames had climbed the stairs, but the charred drywall had been cut away and the rest remained open, exposed, waiting.

  He had hoped that with cleanliness, clarity would follow. Sol’s desktop was bare but for two stacks of paper. On his left, a lease renewal, top and bottom, both floors. On his right, the AFL fight contract.

  Neither sported his signature.

  Every time he sat here, his decision looming before him, his stomach knotted.

  Henry spotted Roosevelt on the other side of the office windows, his arm still bandaged and in a sling, tutoring a new kid at a high table. Henry smiled. Roosevelt was on track to be valedictorian and emancipated. At eighteen, he could petition to be Layla’s legal guardian. That was, if Henry didn’t beat him to it first.

  Davonte Howard had fought extradition, two counts of attempted murder to add to his list of offenses in the state of Pennsylvania. Henry was glad he hadn’t taken the choice of forgiveness away from Roosevelt that night in the alley. Some bridges are meant to be crossed; some bridges are best burned. In time, Roosevelt would know which was which with regard to his stepfather.

  The gym was crowded, just the way Henry liked it. Seems word got out that Lawless Lorenz, recent MMA comeback, was at a place called Sol’s Gym in downtown Pittsburgh. He supposed Maggie had been right. His name did carry some business influence, after all.

  Maggie.

  His chest bloomed with a fresh ache every time she crossed his mind. They had been back for three days. He had spoken to her plenty, checking on her, letting her know he was around if she wanted to talk, but he couldn’t see her until he had made his decision.

  Cal opened the office door and popped in his head. “Got a problem in the octagon.”

  “What? What’s wrong?”

  “Just come.”

  Henry tracked him out of the office. Jesus, the place was crowded. Wall-to-wall kids. Henry spotted Manny on his way to the cage, shook his hand.

  “What are you doing here, man?”

  “Aw, you know, thought it was about time I popped in for a visit,” said Manny. “Wanted to congratulate you on the win.”

  Henry shook his hand. “Thanks, man. Thanks for coming out.”

  He made his way to the octagon, the gym occupants parting for him like he was Moses at the Red Sea. He expected to find a minor injury or a breakdown of the cage’s construction. He didn’t expect to see Maggie.

  Decked out in pink fight gloves, pink head gear, satin Thai shorts and a shrink-wrap-tight pink rash guard shirt, she bounced around the octagon on bare feet, her center of gravity and grace all wrong for the sport but so very right in all other ways. She smiled. Her mouth guard was an old promo from his first title—jagged fangs with the word Lawless scrolled across the length.

  A laugh burst from Henry’s gut.

  The gym quieted. Someone had cut the music. Seemed they had an audience and this was a thing.

  Maggie removed her padded head gear and spit her mouth guard into one glove. “What d’ya think?”

  “You look…”

  “Like MMA Barbie,” someone shouted from outside the cage.

  Laughter and whistles bounded around the gym.

  “I was going to say amazing,” said Henry.

  The commotion was slow to die. She waited, smiled, clearly feeding off the room’s energy, needing to speak her piece not just to him, but to everyone.

  “Someone told me you were having trouble with a decision.” Maggie’s gaze tracked to Roosevelt, who hovered near the cage’s opening.

  The kid matched her warm smile.

  She opened her non-mouth guard hand. A ballpoint pen sat perched on the fingerless padding of her MMA glove. “I just wanted you to know that Roosevelt and Layla and I will be here for you, no matter which one you choose to sign.”

  Her admission was like a soft knee to his gut—wholly unexpected but still capable of stealing his breath.

  “What about uncivilized skills and Neanderthals and the ‘very large chasm’ between my view of sport and yours?”

  Maggie drew close. She tapped her glove against his chest. “This Neanderthal saved my life. And the life of someone I care about. The only thing that stopped the bad guy was you. I tried it my way, Henry. I tried intellect and reason and understanding, but in the end, he responded only to violence. I get it now. These things have a place. Sometimes, for protection, it’s justified. Sometimes, for self-awareness, it’s justified.” She shared a glance with Roosevelt. “Not
everything is so black and white anymore.”

  The room was crowded, hot. Henry felt its closeness like an opponent’s breath on his neck. He had to boil this down to truths; he had to know.

  “And you’d be okay with me being a fighter again?”

  Maggie held up the pen between them. “If you had an I in your name, I’d dot it.”

  And just like that, the cage was no longer big enough for them. His heart flooded his brain with adrenaline. Three fucking days, agonizing. Maggie saunters in here in her sexy pink shorts, decision made. Round over, match called.

  Henry grabbed her gloved hand and tugged her toward the office, toward Sol’s desk, toward the two stacks of paperwork. The one on the left, a lease renewal, top and bottom, both floors. The one on the right, an AFL fight contract.

  Pen in hand, Henry signed.

  Two-year lease with the option to buy. Property in Pittsburgh’s south side neighborhood, not too far from the Sixteenth Street Bridge, once owned by a proud Navy boxer, with an intention to renovate the ground floor as a community center and keep the top floor as a state-of-the-art martial arts gym.

  His pen didn’t stop there. He leaned toward the other stack. Across the AFL contract, effectively voiding it, he wrote, “Will you marry me?”

  Maggie smiled and bit her bottom lip. Sexiest pacifist he’d ever wanted to share his life. She commandeered the pen and dotted the i in his proposal.

  He commandeered her lips with a kiss that rocked everyone in the gym crowded around the office glass with celebratory cheers. Victory had never tasted so sweet.

  “I love you,” said Henry.

  “I’ve loved you since the moment you taught me how to punch.”

  “Liar.”

  Maggie shuffled, her pink gloves positioned at her jawline. She play-punched him, square over his heart. “Just keeping it real, champ.”

  Epilogue

  Henry pulled the covers to Layla’s chin. She burrowed into the polar bear fleece bedding, a toothy grin on her face. Her red party dress hung neatly from the closet knob, the hand-sewn sparkles catching the dim glow of her nightlight. Beyond the window of her second-floor bedroom, moonlight and snow fortified the panes instead of iron bars.

  “Prettiest girl at the banquet tonight.” Henry loosened his bow tie and sat on the bed beside her.

  “Only girl at the banquet.” Layla frowned, nothing at all to do with their bedtime ritual of exchanging funny faces. “I wish Roosevelt was here.”

  “He will be. Soon enough.”

  “For Christmas. But then he’ll leave again.”

  “And come summer, he’ll be home from New York for good.” Henry opened his palm.

  Layla smacked it. What started out as a high-five as they got to know one another had become hand-holding. Now, hand-holding had become the precursor to a raspberry square in her palm, the wetter and louder the better. Layla’s laugher proved the most infectious part of Henry’s day.

  “To run the center?” she asked.

  “With your help.”

  The moment Maggie and Henry had secured investor funding for a new and improved community center, the four of them sat together inside the octagon and brainstormed names. Though the place had been Sol’s and the gym would still have a tribute wall to him, Henry knew it was time to move on. They didn’t have to debate long. By unanimous decision, the new community center and gym would be named the Mary Ware Community Center, in honor of Roosevelt and Layla’s mother. Roosevelt put in a request for a pedestrian walking bridge somewhere in the new construction. Layla put in a request for red balls. Lots of red balls.

  That was five years ago.

  In the interim, Roosevelt went to Columbia’s School of Business, the original center Maggie and Henry opened was bursting at the seams, Layla had become the apple of her adoptive grandparents’ eyes, and the Alloys won a championship. Finally.

  Oh, and Maggie and Henry exchanged vows on the Smithfield Street Bridge, no traffic cops needed, just an intimate gathering of family and friends near the northern portal. Seemed appropriate. The publicity from the demonstration ensured the bridge would be around for another generation. This time, no arrests—merely the second round to what Henry hoped would be another fifty. And a gesture of forgiveness that nearly leveled Henry—the presence of Peter Caliban.

  Henry stood and planted a raspberry on Layla’s hand. She crinkled her nose. Best part, hands down.

  He made a face.

  She made a face.

  “’Night, Wallace.”

  Henry smiled. Nickname had stuck long after Layla lost her lisp. He blew her a kiss and cracked her door behind him.

  In the bedroom at the end of the hall, the most gorgeous redhead slipped out of her rose-gold evening gown.

  Maggie unclasped her necklace and pooled it on the dresser. Henry snagged her attention in the mirror. There was something about seeing him dressed up—much as he had been the first day she laid eyes on him. His gaze leveled her like someone he was about to take down, but his amused lips, his barely controlled smile, devastated her.

  Every. Time.

  Henry Lorenz was the sexiest man Maggie had ever known. Scars, tattoos, all of it.

  “What’s that smile?”

  “What?” Henry played defensive, just the way she liked him. He hugged her from behind and planted a soft, warm kiss on her bare shoulder. “Can’t a guy be happy about getting an award from the mayor?”

  “And a couple of million dollars to take over the city block?”

  “That too.”

  The Ware Center had been granted an international tech endowment for being “a progressive community space that met the needs and struggles of their city in unique and innovative ways.” Along with the tremendous financial gift of being able to purchase the remainder of the city block for one dollar per lot, the expansion allowed Roosevelt to realize his dream: a community center addition literally built by members of the community. That meant jobs and a sense of ownership and pride. Already, there was talk of Ware being the starting lynchpin in the revitalization of the historic neighborhood. All because two fighters fell in love. At least that’s what Henry liked to say.

  When his lips weren’t occupied elsewhere.

  He chased the unzipping of her gown with kisses down her spine. Tantalizing shivers traveled her nervous system—fingertips, earlobes, toes, and one more intimate, localized spot. Her nipples pebbled against the mesh lining of the darted, high-necked bodice. His gentle kisses reached the swell of her ass then rambled a meandering path away from her spine until the fabric proved a formidable barrier to the pleasures to come.

  Maggie tugged at her neckline and peeled the gown to her waist. She had almost no hips, so the dress snagged for only a moment at her mid-section before it pooled at her matching heels like spilled champagne.

  Henry straightened and ambushed her with a hungry, ravaging kiss punctuated by words. “Leave…the heels…on.”

  “Not unless you show equal skin.”

  She relieved him of his tuxedo, fully intending to hang it up—or at the very least, drape it over the padded bench at the foot of the bed. Henry had other ideas. The brushed-wool fabric joined her dress in a heap on the floor seconds before he scooped her into his arms, carried her to the bed, and unpinned her intricately braided hair.

  The unburdening of the heavy style unleased something inside her a lady would not have let loose, but that Maggie, a more recent conversion to the sport of sparring, relished. She unhooked her bra and removed her panties. Henry had already torn through enough of those to fill a mall lingerie store. The shoes stayed in place. She pressed two spiked heels into the downy comforter and backed up, legs spread, to take full advantage of the bed’s real estate, to render him speechless. Almost always when she got a jump on him with roaming fingertips between her thighs, he was down for the count, but up, up, up in so many ways.

  He dropped his boxers and crawled up the bed after her, fully hardened for a grappling of the mo
st sensual and leisurely variety. No winner. No score. No limits.

  Outside, snow blanketed the city.

  Inside, two lovers proved themselves fearless.

  End of Fearless

  Book Three of the Solomon Brothers Series

  PLUS: Do you like your men to be alpha, and your romance with a bit of suspense? Read an exclusive excerpt from Leslie North’s bestselling Navy SEAL Series, Shooting the SEAL (Saving the SEALs series) below.

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  Shooting the SEAL

  (Saving the SEALS series Book 1)

  With the clock ticking, Navy SEAL Gage Jackelson must uncover the truth about his fallen teammate before he and his brothers-in-arms take the blame. When his intel leads him to a publishing company, he never dreamed he’d end up as a romance cover model. He’ll do whatever it takes to get closer to the information he needs, but when he meets Anna—the photographer with the striking eyes and sultry voice—it just may be worth it.

  Photographer Anna Middleton has shot her share of male models, but none that are real-life SEALs. She’s not sure why the tall, muscular military man would want to pose as a romance hero, but she doesn’t have much time to wonder before her boss disappears under suspicious circumstances. Soon she’s thrust into the middle of a situation that could mean life or death.