Pushing the Limits

by Jennifer Snow

  When he stopped in front of the nonemergency entrance, she unbuckled her seat belt, then remembered she still hadn’t asked his name. “I’m Colby, by the way,” she said.

  “Dane Hardy,” he said, glancing at her briefly.

  She blinked. Dane Hardy? As in the Maximum Fight League middleweight fighter who’d killed a guy in the octagon with a head-kick the year before? That Dane Hardy? He’d completely disappeared from the MMA world after. Her heart raced. Here was the story she’d put herself through extreme embarrassment and a night of hell to get.

  “You okay?” he asked when she sat there staring at him.

  “Oh . . . yeah . . . Um . . .”

  “Good night,” he said tightly, reaching past her to open her door.

  That was subtle. “Yeah, thanks again for the ride . . . Dane,” she said, climbing down from the truck, fighting every last instinct to start asking the million questions lining up in her reporter mind. She hesitated for a second, wondering if she should say something . . . but something in his hard, guarded expression made her feel tongue-tied for the first time in her life. “Okay, ’bye.”

  She’d barely shut the door before he was tearing out of the parking lot. She stood helplessly staring after the story that could make her career, driving away.

  Chapter 3

  A rare rain shower poured down his windshield the next day as Dane sat in his truck, his gaze on the small bungalow across the street. The humidity drew beads of sweat to the surface of his skin, and he reached for a bottle of water in the cup holder and guzzled the remaining lukewarm liquid. He clutched an envelope of cash in his shaking hands as he waited. The clock on the console read 8:34. Another few minutes.

  The same routine, twice a month, following payday. Each time was torture instead of relief.

  When the front door opened and a woman wearing a nurse’s uniform and a little boy carrying an Avengers backpack left the house, he lowered his head and swallowed hard as he felt the wave of guilt that washed over him every time he saw Marco Consuelos’s widow and ten-year-old son.

  He watched them climb into their vehicle and struggled with images from the past as they appeared in his mind. The night of the fight never too far from his thoughts, he allowed the haunting memory to take over.

  He’d accepted the matchup Xtreme Fight had offered him because he’d needed the money. His grandmother had passed away and he’d blown all of the money he’d saved from his previous MFL fight on the funeral arrangements. His sponsors were threatening to walk if he didn’t get inside the cage again soon . . .

  So he’d agreed to fight the thirty-nine-year-old middleweight fighter who matched his speed and strength. On paper, it was a good fight for him. Their records were even and they both preferred to stand and bang than take the battle to the mat. It should have been an easy payday.

  After the first-round bell, he’d walked out of the cage. Marco had been carried out on a stretcher, and, an hour later, pronounced dead. Dane had been taken to the police station, where he’d spent the most agonizing night of his life, which wasn’t an easy title to claim.

  As the older-model Toyota Tercel backed out of the driveway and passed his truck, he glanced in the rearview mirror, waiting until the car made its usual right at the corner stop sign before he opened his door and climbed out. Jogging across the wet pavement, drops of rain mixing with the sweat pooling on the thin fabric of his T-shirt, he made his way up the overgrown stone pathway to the front door. Opening the mailbox, he placed the envelope inside and covered it with the day before’s flyers.

  She’d find it. She always did. He wondered if she knew the money came from him. Not that it mattered. He didn’t do it for any other reason than that he felt so damn guilty. He prayed the financial help he was trying to provide the family would ease his conscience a little. Enough to make looking into the mirror possible again. Enough to earn him one night of peaceful sleep. Enough to help him put his feet on the floor and start each new day.

  But why should he get that? The family wasn’t afforded the peace of mind, the saving from sorrow, or the reassurance of the future they’d once had.

  He didn’t deserve shit.

  Sighing, he closed the mailbox and hurried back to his truck, the weight on his chest suffocating him—telling him what he already knew. No amount of money could bring Marco back, the thing the family needed and deserved the most.

  * * *

  “Colby!”

  Colby jumped, her head snapping up from her desk as her eyes flew open. “Huh . . . what . . . I’m awake,” she said, quickly wiping a tiny pool of drool from the desk as she rushed to close her Internet browser.

  “Why are you sleeping in here? This is the last place you should be not working—with a promotion on the line and everything,” Dylan said, sitting on the corner of her desk.

  She ran a hand over her hair and wiped her tired eyes. She had been up long after midnight the night before searching online for fight footage of the Hardy-Consuelos fight, but every uploaded video to the MMA sites and YouTube had been removed by Xtreme Fight. Obviously, this was one bout the organization wanted to forget about and keep hidden. So, instead, she’d googled Dane’s previous fights. She didn’t know as much about MMA as she did Karate, but she’d been around the sport enough to know a fighter was usually better in one style. Dane was a straight boxer—ending most fights in the second round by knockouts with his fists, not his feet. In more than twenty-six fights, she hadn’t seen him throw a kick once. Not once. So why that night? That fight?

  Unable to sleep, she’d then watched Consuelos’s fights, but hadn’t learned much more about him. So, she’d arrived early that morning to review tapes of the fighter interviews in the Knock Out Sports archives to see if she could find any of him, but she’d found nothing. There also had been none of Dane. Only one interview of value with Tyson Reed, Dane’s former trainer from Punisher Athletics, where he expressed his sympathy for the Consuelos family and stated that the gym was standing behind its fighter. Short, sweet, and not at all helpful.

  But then, as she was about to quit reviewing tapes, she’d found the one that could propel her story forward. A tape of Rico “The Bulldog” Mendez—a ten-year veteran in the sport, who’d won the championship title in two different weight classes. The interview with him from only the month before announced his plans to retire and his desire to avenge the one battle he’d lost—against Dane Hardy. She still wasn’t sure how to make the story work . . . which was why she’d been resting her eyes. “I was here early,” she mumbled.

  “Doing a story on MMA?” he asked, nodding toward her notes on the desk.

  She quickly stashed them. “Did you want something?”

  He stood. “Just wanted to let you know I can take the lead on today’s show . . . I know how you feel about heights,” he said, handing her the schedule.

  “Rock climbing?” She suppressed a groan when she saw the location for the shoot. Red Rock Canyon. Seriously? Not even an indoor center, but a real freaking mountain.

  “Yeah, but like I said, don’t sweat it. I got this one. You can keep your feet firmly on the ground.” He grinned.

  Like hell she could. Keeping her feet firmly on the ground also meant keeping her butt permanently in this uncomfortable, squeaky chair in her tiny cubicle. No thanks. She couldn’t let Dylan get even the slightest edge on her. “You know, I’m suddenly feeling cured of my fear of heights. What time do we leave?”

  He smiled. “Love the competitive spirit, Edwards.” He brushed a strand of hair off her cheek that had gotten stuck to the dried drool near her mouth. “You know, you’re kind of cute when you’re unconscious with your mouth hanging open . . .”

  She swiped his hand away, gathering her things. She wanted to see Ari before they left for the day—get his thoughts on the story angle that was forming in her mind. “I’ll meet you at the van in twenty minutes.�
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  “Be ready for a challenge,” he said as he walked away.

  Oh, she was ready.

  Five minutes and a quick refreshing in the bathroom later, she tapped on Ari’s office door.

  He didn’t glance her way as he waved for her to come in.

  “Hi . . . Ari, do you have a sec?”

  “Maybe half of one,” he said distractedly.

  “I’ll talk quick. I wanted to let you know I took your advice and went after my own story.”

  “Great. Write it and I’ll have one of the on-camera guys take a look.”

  She clenched her jaw, biting back her argument. If and when she got a good story, she wouldn’t be handing it off to anyone. “It’s not done yet, and actually I was thinking that it would be my story to report. You know, if you decide to promote me.”

  He finally glanced at her and his expression spoke volumes as he said, “Colby . . .”

  “Dane Hardy,” she said quickly. She refused to let this opportunity slip through her fingers.

  As expected, her boss stopped. “What about him?”

  She sat across from him, taking full advantage of his attention. “He’s the story angle I’m working.”

  Unfortunately, Ari sighed. “Colby, that story was publicized to death—pardon the pun—last year. Most people don’t even remember him anymore.”

  “That’s not true,” she said, ready with the footage from the Against the Ropes show last month. She waved the tape in front of him.

  “What is that?”

  “The interview Faith did with Rico ‘The Bulldog’ Mendez last month. The one where he said he would be retiring once his contract with the Maximum Fight League was done later this year. And also the one where he said he’d love to retire undefeated, but he can’t because he lost to one fighter in his career . . .”

  “Dane Hardy?”

  “Exactly.” Her excitement rose. “This would be a fantastic story. A man coming back from the ashes of tragedy . . .”

  Ari raised an eyebrow.

  She sighed. “I’ll word it better than that. But you get my point. This comeback fight for Dane and this chance for Rico Mendez to retire avenged? This is good and you know it.”

  “Okay . . . maybe it would be a good story. But no one has even seen Dane for almost a year. He quit fighting, he quit training. The MFL certainly isn’t eager to have him back, even if Mendez does want a rematch.” He shrugged, already dismissing her. “I don’t even think anyone knows where he is.”

  “I do.”

  He glanced up.

  “Well, sort of. I’m working on it.”

  He grabbed some files and headed toward the door. “Out, Colby. And until you have something solid, you don’t have a story.”

  She blew out a breath as she watched her boss walk away. Something solid. Oh, she would get something solid all right, and it would be the sport story of the year. One she would be covering. No one else.

  As long as she didn’t fall off the side of a cliff.

  * * *

  “Why is it so busy here tonight?” Dane grumbled, going to the bar inside The Vault later that week.

  “Douchebag’s birthday,” Jax, the club’s weekday bartender, said, sliding him the first of many cups of coffee that evening.

  Turning, he saw Lee’s cousin, the guy he’d tossed into a taxi the weekend before, celebrating with a group in the corner of the bar. Dane lifted the cup. The steam burned his top lip, but he took a gulp anyway. He was going to need caffeine to deal with the crowd that evening. Leaning against the bar, he scanned the people inside the club. If they weren’t over capacity, they were close, and he hoped the casino’s manager didn’t pop in. “Why does Lee allow his cousin to use this place as his own personal hangout?” he mumbled, watching the cocky asshole hand out a round of shots to his buddies.

  “I don’t know. I heard he helped him out financially in the beginning.” Jax stocked beer glasses on the shelf behind him and Dane continued to scan the crowd. “Helped him buy the place.”

  No wonder he acted like he owned the joint. Dane took another gulp of coffee and checked his watch. He had ten minutes before his shift. “I’ll be back in ten.”

  Carrying his coffee, he walked out onto the casino floor. The place was nearly empty and he heard a familiar voice on the television in the sports-betting zone behind him.

  Erik Johansen, the MFL’s matchmaker, was sitting on the set of Against the Ropes’ evening newscast. “Mrs. Consuelos has every right to be angry, and it’s not unusual to see protesters outside of the event center before the fights. But it won’t affect the amazing fight night we have lined up, and security will be on site as usual,” he was saying.

  Dane sighed. Eva Consuelos was more involved with the fighting world now than she’d ever been when her husband was fighting. The emergency-room nurse had started an anti-MMA campaign called Fighting Kills and she often attended the events, protesting. The group was small and consisted mainly of other mothers, wives, and family members whose loved ones had gotten injured or killed through the sport.

  Behind Erik, the news reporter showed footage of the last protest outside the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino before the previous month’s fight card.

  “Mrs. Consuelos, what are you hoping to achieve with this protest here tonight?” the on-site reporter asked her.

  Dane’s grip tightened on the coffee cup as the camera landed on her tired, angry expression.

  “The same thing as always. To generate awareness about the dangers of the sport. To ask more people to join our cause and help put an end to this deadly, barbaric, and senseless activity.”

  As he turned away and headed back toward the club, Chris’s voice came over the radio. “Dane, you on shift yet? I could use your help with a situation near the bar.”

  He checked his watch, tempted to ignore the radio for the remaining six minutes of his off-duty time. “Let me guess. Lee’s cousin and his entourage?” he asked, picking up the pace instead.

  “Yeah.”

  Inside the club, a thick crowd had gathered near the bar. Yelling could be heard above the loud hip-hop music as he pushed his way through, and Jax was leaning against the wall, arms folded. He shot him a look that mirrored Dane’s thoughts.

  Fucking rich, arrogant assholes. What the hell did they have to fight over?

  Lee’s cousin was once again the smaller of the two, but that didn’t stop him from being inches from the other man’s face—his finger pointed, his mouth spitting insults.

  The other guy wasn’t saying a word, but his eyes were growing darker by the second.

  Small Guy was about to get an unexpected right hook as a birthday gift any second.

  Dane stepped between the two as the birthday boy shoved the bigger guy. “Hey! Enough,” he said, holding an arm out to hold each of the men back, all the while remaining acutely aware of the suffocating crowd closing in around them. “Everyone, back up!” he yelled.

  “Stay out of this,” Small Guy snarled.

  “You know you have to take this shit outside.”

  “It’s my fucking birthday, I can take this anywhere I want,” he said, his breath forming a hazy cloud that smelled of tequila.

  “You need to calm down,” Dane said, releasing his hold on the other guy and focusing on Lee’s cousin. The bar owner really needed to set some ground rules if he continued to let this guy in.

  Small Guy swung at him, and, though caught off guard, Dane sidestepped the weak attempt at a jab and grabbed the guy’s arm, holding it firmly against his back.

  “Let go, asshole.”

  “Not until you calm down.”

  The guy struggled to break the hold, and another man stepped forward, rolling his sleeves and removing his Rolex, handing it to his girlfriend before approaching, his eyes narrowed.

  Oh, t
hey had be kidding . . .

  Holding Small Guy, he reached an arm out to the bigger guy approaching.

  The crowd stepped back.

  Right. Now they give them space. “Look, this doesn’t concern you. Stay where you are,” he told the other guy.

  “This does concern me. That’s my brother you’ve got pinned,” the guy said, moving closer.

  Dane sighed as yet a third man approached from the other side.

  Small Guy laughed. “You’re fucked now, bouncer,” he said as he pulled free and moved aside, happy to let his brothers deal with what he started.

  Amazingly, the other patron who’d been initially involved in the argument had disappeared. Fantastic. Now this was his fight? No way.

  He walked toward the bar. “Jax, call Lee. Tell him he needs to deal with his cousins.”

  Jax nodded then pointed behind him. “Watch yourself.”

  He knew what to expect even before he turned. These guys always threw the right hook first. Blocking the guy’s punch before it could make contact with his jaw, Dane delivered his own blow to the guy’s stomach. His knuckles connected with almost pure, solid muscle. The impact left a sting, his scarred knuckles having had a year to soften.

  Thank God, reflexes didn’t desert as quickly.

  The guy buckled briefly, but came up swinging the left.

  Dane ducked, then countered with a staggering right of his own. He had no other choice. Either defend himself or get the shit kicked out of him in an unfair bar fight. Unfortunately for these guys, he’d quit letting bullies win a long time ago.

  Another attack came from the left and he turned in time to block a shot to the kidneys.

  Low blows, attempted head butts, and a kick to the groin coming from both directions should have left him exhausted and in a heap on the sticky barroom floor.

  Instead, adrenaline pumped through him. Operating on autopilot, he threw punches and blocked the incoming attack until finally both men staggered away, bloodied and defeated, through the gathered crowd.