Don’t You Dare: A Bad Boy MMA Fighter Romance

by Claire St. Rose

  “You.” Benni called out to Vinny, summoning him from his far off thoughts, “What do you think?”

  Vinny twisted and turned his head tiredly. “I dunno, man. Maybe give it an hour?” Vinny knew that Benni was focusing on him because of how out of place he was compared to the others.

  The rest of the boys were on something or just riding high from the terror that was about to come. They itched wildly and were talking rapidly. Most were pretty careless about the whole thing, as well. Scott, one of the oldest, had just hopped out of the back without taking a look around first to take a piss. It was sloppy enough. If it were Vinny in charge, he would be howling at them to get their shit together. But this was Benni’s crew and he was just there to follow orders and put his knife in a body if need be.

  Benni crawled towards where Vinny laid with his legs stretched out. Once he made it to the end of the truck, he asked, “You wanna tell me what the fuck is going on with you?”

  Vinny couldn’t give him the honest answer even if he wanted to. It was, after all, Benni who put him here. If he would have just let the Gloria situation drop, if he would have let Junior run back to the Devils like Vinny had, this would have gone away.

  “Sorry, Benni. I’m just eager to get out there and find Gloria.” Vinny quickly took out the switchblade from his jean pocket and tossed the knife back and forth between his palms. He wanted to give the impression he was bloodthirsty, but he looked more meditative than anything.

  “The boys checked in again this morning. Ain’t no sign of her. They said she musta put up a fight. Blood and everything all around.” Benni eyed Vinny for some sense of recognition or appropriate response. Everything was so robotic and planned. There was something there, something Benni couldn’t put his finger on. But the more he talked to Vinny, the more he studied his every move, he was starting to suspect that there was much more to Gloria.

  “Yeah. It was pretty bad. She’s gone by now—if they haven’t killed her and buried her like we did to Carl.” All Vinny wanted to do was bury her in his mind. He wasn’t going to get her, let alone find her. To him, her death would be welcome. At least he would have closure. Her being out there on the road searching for a new identity without him knowing where to find her or how to find her was killing him slowly.

  The answer, his gruesome response, was what Benni needed for now. He slipped back to his spot at the far end of the truck where he could get a better view of the windows of the white work shack. His body repositioned itself with the binoculars in hand. He was ready for another four hours if need be.

  Vinny, on the other hand, was starting to stir. The phone in his pocket that he had left on vibrate was going off like crazy. He wasn’t the kind of guy to get many calls or messages, especially not one after another. The surge of pulses coming from it was getting his hopes up that it was her, though he knew better. It had been over twelve hours. She would have come back by now if that were her plan.

  Still, he whispered to his neighbor in arms next to him that he was going to head outside for a second to smoke. Sliding out on his back, he exited the rear of the truck and quickly ducked down around the side. Once he had cleared the tree lines and mostly out of sight from the truck, he turned his attention to his phone. An unknown email address had contacted him. The subject line read: GET OUT OF QUARRY

  “NOT AT THE QUARRY… JR @ CRANCH… DEVILS ATTACK COMING… GET OUT NOW.”

  Vinny dropped his phone into his pants pocket and ran towards the truck, not caring anymore to be careful. As he hit the treeline, a horrific sound rang up around him. It was the roar of motorcycle engines in the distance. Lots of them.

  Vinny had no time to think. He hopped into the front seat of the truck and searched for the keys the drop off man had left in the glove compartment. As he sat up straight to start the ignition, he watched as at least fifty black bikes came into view of his rearview window.

  The truck stalled once. Then twice. The fastest bike was nearly three hundred feet from where the truck and the van with the other ten men sat. Vinny said a short prayer as he turned the key once more. A dull hiss started and the engine turned as Vinny stepped on the gas. Passing the white van the gang had stolen months ago from a bakery, he honked wildly hoping that someone would come to attention and hit the road behind him.

  Vinny heard a knock on the back window. He couldn’t be sure if it was gravel or bullets, but he turned anyways. He slid it open wide as Benni yelled through the glass through the sound of the blowing wind and the tires screeching under dirt and rocks.

  “What the fuck are you doing, man?! Go back! We don’t leave a fight…EVER!” Benni was completely bewildered.

  Vinny was never the guy to back down from a fight no matter how unfair or how one-sided it may be. But now he wasn’t just backing down, he was running, and he was taking his club with him. He kept one eye on the road, one eye on the motorcycles quickly catching up to him, and his hands tight on the brown leather steering wheel as he answered, “Junior’s not there. Just got a text before I heard their bikes. He’s at the Ranch, Benni. This was a setup!”

  “Motherfucker!” Benni cursed, crouching down again. He quickly called in more men to meet them at Cattlemen’s.

  But Vinny could not wait for commands this time. He knew that the only way that this would be over is if he managed to get to Junior before the Devils realized he knew where to look next. First, he had to lose them. “Benni!” Vinny used the back of his hand to knock on the glass to get his president’s attention. “Tell the boys you’re callin’ up to head back to the quarry and fight.”

  “Why? If Junior ain’t ther—”

  “We need a distraction, or they’re just gonna follow us to Cattlemen’s—and that’ll turn into a fuckin’ massacre. Plus, we still won’t have Junior.”

  Benni took a moment to go through the plan. It was risky, but it would be worth it if they managed to get Junior out of Cattlemen’s and back to their place. “Okay, I get you.” Benni resigned, “I’ll tell the van to stay put and tell the rest o’ the guys to head there. We’ll send ten back to headquarters and hold it down in case they go there, too.”

  He slumped back down to his position in the back of the truck while Vinny swerved wildly through traffic and through red lights. The motorcycles had faded in the background as they took off in one direction and Vinny went in another, towards the Devils’ club’s headquarters.

  As soon as he was about two miles from the quarry, he suddenly pulled into an alleyway concealing the back end behind industrial sized garbage cans. The one or two Devils riders that had managed to keep up, passed his truck’s hiding spot. As he watched them go, Vinny’s heart raced quickly and his palms sweat. He wasn’t worried about two bikers trying to take them. He just wanted to throw them off his scent and get to Cattlemen’s as fast as he possibly could.

  Vinny had two options, though. He could pull back out and take the fastest route down the town’s center streets and business district to the restaurant, or he could slow everything down and bide his time taking the back alley and side streets where he’d look less conspicuous. He chose to continue on. He knew getting seen while on the main streets was dangerous. The Devils had eyes and ears of all kinds. And, no doubt, their leadership had put a search out for the truck or even Vinny and Benni.

  Cattlemen’s parking lot was empty besides one or two bikes parked in the back entrance. A man paced the yellow and white faded lanes as he talked on a cellphone. He was wearing the Devils’ signature purple colors, but he certainly didn’t look prepared to take on an entire truckload of a rival club’s most fearsome men.

  Vinny did not wait to take charge. Parking the car in a spot near to where the man stood, he jumped out of the truck’s driver’s side and banged on the hot metal of the truck. Without looking back, he continued on towards the restaurant. His eyes were dead set on the building in front of him, and his mind raced with hopes to just finish the job he should have ended weeks ago when he had a chance. If Junior we
re really in there, if he had his shot at taking him out himself, he was going to take it.

  The man on the phone had suddenly come to despite Vinny striding right past him. The older man with a gray beard and black sunglasses yelled at him as he shouted passively that the restaurant was closed today. That was, until he noticed he was wearing the other side’s patches.

  Vinny saw the first man’s hit coming. Nearly a foot taller than him, he managed to duck under his tired right hook. As he popped up, Vinny grabbed the man’s chest and kneed him as hard as he could. He could feel the literal breath jump out of his body as he connected to his gut. The watchman fell backwards in pain as he rolled back and forth in the black gravel.

  With the one person in his way and his companions finally hopping out of the bed of the truck, Vinny had all of the advantage as far as he could tell. One of those bikes resting near the door Vinny passed belonged to Junior. Behind him, the rest of the Horsemen kicked and continued to beat at the watchman. Only Benni watched from afar as Vinny entered the building alone and unguarded.

  The restaurant was completely silent except for the metal clinking sound and the voices of the crew of a kitchen preparing for dinner. When the staff saw him, the red switchblade clenched in his hands, they took off running towards the front as they knocked down plates and silverware in their wake. Vinny stepped over the mess as he opened every door he could. Kitchen drawers, walk-in freezers, pantries, and offices. All were turning up empty.

  “Junior!” He called out into the restaurant with a thundering roar. “You stupid fuck! Get the hell out here and take what is coming to you like a—”

  Vinny stopped as he listened closely to a new sound take over the space. It was footsteps. They were pounding, running, climbing. There were many pairs of them, and they were all heading to the place where Vinny stood alone and without a partner in the heart of the restaurant’s kitchen.

  How could that be? Vinny asked himself. This wasn’t the setup!

  ***

  Gloria checked in at the front desk of Hotel Sunco at Breaker’s Pointe. From the small picture window she could spot the hint of gray and white waves crashing in to the shore as seagulls cawed into the afternoon sky.

  This was supposed to be paradise. At least, she had always wanted to see the beach. It was the one place in the world where she had always dreamed of traveling to. Now she had the excuse and the money to make it there.

  Breaker’s Pointe was also the one place she could think of to go where she could not be tracked.

  She had made her getaway real. There was no memory of Gloria back home except for her empty microphone at Jackman’s Tavern and the blood stains in the living room of her townhome. After making enemies for so long with her blackmail scheme, she was sure that there were plenty of people that did know her that wouldn’t care in the slightest if she was really offed.

  Even with Vinny, she could not be sure if he would be grateful or disappointed that she did actually leave. To be fair, it was her and her schemes, her greedy desire to get more from him and the clubs, that got him into this predicament to begin with. With Gloria gone, he would be free to get back into his club’s good graces and put her out of his memory.

  Gloria wished she could do the same. But the heat of the last kiss and the soft purple bruises he left on her skin were still etched into her all the same. She could call him. She could let Vinny know she needed him and wanted him. However, this was the only way. There was no other means to keep them both safe and out of harms way.

  This was their new life. Together. Apart. On opposite roads, but traveling to the same goal. Gloria knew she would never find another man like Vinny. And she doubted he could find her equivalent either. But they would have to do without. Their time together as partners in secrets had come to an end.

  The man at the hotel counter handed her the keycard with her room number written in blue pen. As she turned to grab her bag, a sudden realization occurred to her. She spun back towards the man in the mustard colored tie and the big black nametag and said sweetly, “I’m sorry to be a bother, but does this hotel have a computer I can borrow? I need to send an email before I head out to the beach.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  “Mimosas! This is absolutely paradise!” a woman with salt-and-pepper hair exclaimed loudly as a well-dressed waiter handed her an orange drink in a tall crystal glass.

  Her companion was just about her age, equally gray in the hair, and looking longingly at the white sandy beaches from their spot on the patio’s white wicker lounge chairs. “Yup,” he said simply, “we needed this. Fresh air, sea breeze—and none o’ the nonsense back home.”

  “Especially after Matthew—” Her voice trailed off as she turned directly toward her partner and whispered under her breath, “—Matthew and his bank scam… Oh, Tom, I just can’t take the stress and the pressure of it anymore.”

  “Just forget it, Emma,” Tom replied testily. “If Matthew wants to be a damned fool and steal from his workplace, we ain’t gonna stop him. He was an idiot as a kid, he’s an idiot as an adult, and he’ll probably die an idiot of an old man.” Tom said this with an uncaring iciness towards Emma, too preoccupied with the frothy yellow beer in his hand to concern himself with details like her feelings.

  “But he’s our son, Tom,” Emma insisted, “Our son. If he gets caught, we are gonna watch him go to jail.” Her voice rose frantically as realization over her family’s situation came back to her. No amount of freshly squeezed orange juice and bubbly champagne could distract her from the realities of her life as the mother of an unchecked criminal.

  “Listen,” Tom said, turning on his side now to face her. “This is our time away. Just let this go for one night and try to find some peace. We’ll deal with Matthew when we get back to Sterling.”

  As their bickering continued, Emma, distraught, stood and began pacing the paved brick patio as her husband continued to hide behind his thick black sunglasses. The sun beat down on them mercilessly, adding physical heat to their anger and confusion.

  Gloria wanted to take pity them. Raising a child up for eighteen years to be a good man, a moral man, meant nothing when greed and money took hold of him. In Gloria’s former line of work, she had seen hundreds of good men go bad or grow corrupted over a plan they thought would never fail or a scheme that promised to make them rich. No mother’s love or a lover’s kindness could change them or steer them away—she was certain of that.

  From her spot on the deck, just a few feet down from where the two were now screaming at one another, Gloria tried to suck in as many details as she could as she wrote in her black notebook. Client Name: Emma and Tom?. Location: Sterling, FL. Plot: Son Matthew stealing money from bank employer. Deal: _________.

  She wanted nothing more than to fill in that last blank regarding their deal. But she was supposed to be out of the blackmail game. After years of being the queen of information, the woman with the know on everyone’s business, she had been forced into retirement after a motorcycle club her former bodyguard and lover was a member of began threatening her to provide information and keep their own secrets safe.

  No one trusts the blackmailer, that’s for sure. Gloria couldn’t really understand it. Sure, she had information on the group. And, yes, she knew a bunch on their rival gang, the Devils. But what none of the Black Horsemen knew except for her man Vinny was that she was the one who killed the Devils top rider. She would keep that secret to the grave if she had to if it meant saving Vinny’s reputation and skin.

  But now she may have bit into more than she chew. Just a couple weeks ago, Gloria managed to get out an urgent message to Vinny once again that he was in danger. After hearing from her partner, Jordan, that the Devils were actually hiding out a very wanted man named Junior in a restaurant and were planning to ambush Vinny and the leader of the club, Benni, while they staked out the quarry, Gloria acted fast. Just hours earlier, she had drove off into the sunset, vowing to never be a part of Vinny’s perilous life
ever again.

  But as his secret keeper, she sent him a warning and hopefully got him out of the quarry in time to find Jordan, end the war between the Devils and the Horsemen, and get on with his life without her. Part of her didn’t want to know what really went down. If he survived, it would kill her to know he had yet to contact her or reach out to her. If he had not made it or was mortally wounded, she couldn’t take the thought of not warning him sooner while she still had the chance.

  And that’s why she could not blackmail the couple on their vacation. Blackmailing only led to pain and strife. It only chased her into dark corners of seedy bars and put all her hopes and dreams into envelopes sealed by drug dealers, adulterers, and robbers. Her actions had not only hurt her, but they had managed to kill others, as well.

  The image of Calvin Senior flashed before her eyes—the father who, just like the couple attempting to soak in some sun away from their troubles, was one of Gloria’s blackmail victims. She had found out about his son’s double cross and, in the end, it led to him being tied up in the basement of his own home while two of the top Horsemen’s enforcers, including Vinny, beating the crap out of him. His wife probably got the worse of it. Totally innocent in all of it, Gloria had watched in horror from her hiding spot as one of the men dragged her by her hair down the stairs and into the basement to await her fate.