by Roxy Wilson
The four men in front of the warehouse door cringed, and I got just a little bit of pleasure out of seeing it. If Malcolm was here, he heard me.
One of them took a step toward us, a big guy, his eyes on Riley. Before he got far, though, the door to the warehouse cracked open. “Aunt Zahra?” Malcolm peered out, shocked and horrified and, I was pleased to see, more than a little ashamed.
“Aunt Zahra?” one of the men echoed. “Who is this bitch, Mal?”
“Watch your mouth,” Malcolm and Riley said at the same time.
The man cleared his throat and put his hands up.
Malcolm glanced behind him, back into the warehouse, and his face fell. He muttered something, and shuffled the rest of the way out.
Tyson followed him.
Before he said anything, he looked past us, around into the dark of the pier, and then scowled at me.
“We didn’t call the police,” I told him.
“We still can, though,” Riley said.
I hushed him, one hand on his arm, and turned back to Tyson. “Whatever you’re doing, I don’t care. I really don’t. You do with your life whatever you want, but I’m here to take Malcolm home.”
“Aunt Zahra I don’t—” Malcolm’s mouth snapped shut when I turned my eyes on him.
“Malcolm,” I said, “whatever you think you stand to gain from this, I promise you, there’s a much greater chance of ruining the rest of your life.”
“You don’t get to talk to my son any way you want…Zahra.” Tyson glanced at Riley before he said my name. Good. He was nervous having Riley around. After what happened before, he should be. I was this close to setting Riley loose on the lot of them.
“Tyson,” I said, “how can you possibly think this is best for your son? Do you have any idea what’s in store for him? Are you that broken?”
“Broken?” Tyson said. “I’m not broken. This world is broken. It’ll kick my boy around like it did me. I want him to have what I didn’t. Money. Freedom. He’s gotta know how to survive in this world and it’s not by going to some damn school where they can teach him to be a good little slave to the rich white guys that own this whole damn country.”
“That’s what you think his education is?” I asked. I looked at Malcolm. “Is that what you think?”
Malcolm only shrugged, and looked from one of us to the other.
“Is that what you think I am?” I asked him. “You think I’m a slave to some invisible rich puppet master? I went to college. I did it because I wanted to make something of myself and give back to this world; to this community. What are you doing here? Taking what isn’t yours? How do you think that ends, Malcolm? Tyson?” I glared, first at the father and then the son. “Where do you think it leads?”
“I’m about to make this boy thirty thousand dollars,” Tyson said, proud of himself for it, even though it was dirty money. “What have you got? Fortune cookie wisdom? Therapy?”
“I can go to school on that kind of money,” Malcolm said.
Tyson snorted. “Boy, you can get yourself set up with that kind of money.”
“And when it’s gone,” I said, “what then? Steal some more cars? Sell some drugs? What comes next?”
“Once you’re in this world,” Riley said, “trust me, Malcolm; you don’t have the choice to let go of it. It doesn’t let go of you. Not without taking its price.”
Malcolm looked between Tyson and me again, and then shuffled forward a step.
Tyson held up a hand. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re my son. You belong here, with me. I’ll take care of you; you can do whatever you want. You’ll see.” He pointed at Riley and me. “You two need to leave. Right now.”
“Or?” Riley asked.
Tyson’s nostril twitched. He licked his lips.
Riley folded his arms over his chest.
I watched Malcolm. He looked terrified. This was all a little too real for him. Maybe he hadn’t realized before that this world was violent, and cold. Probably Tyson made it look rosy and fun. Robin Hood and his merry men, stealing from the man.
Something in the air wound up tight, swallowed all the sound, and somehow made the light just a little sharper. Adrenaline. Tyson’s fingers twitched, and slowly balled into fists.
“Don’t,” Riley said.
“Malcolm,” Tyson said, “go inside.”
Riley’s hands dropped. I felt him beside me, moving, loosening.
No, no, no. Not like this.
I stared at Malcolm. “Please, be the young man I think you are.”
He took a step.
“Dad,” Malcolm said. “Stop. I can’t do this.”
My heart swelled and burst, and I almost lost it. Riley touched my arm. Hold it together, girl.
Tyson looked furious for about half a second. His face fell, though, and then he just looked worn, and sad, and beaten. He pulled Malcolm to him. “I don’t want you to get eaten up by this world,” he said, his throat tight. “You don’t know what I had to go through.”
“I know, Dad,” Malcolm said. “I know you probably did what you had to do. But, I have to do something different.”
“They’re gonna try to push you down,” Tyson said. “Every step of the way. You don’t see it yet. You don’t know what it’s like.”
Malcolm pulled away from his father, gradually. “I’m sorry, Dad. I just can’t do it like you did. I still love you, though. No matter what. I’m still proud of you.”
“Proud of what?” Tyson asked.
I wanted to ask the same question. What the hell was there about Tyson Kroft to be proud of?
The first time I met Malcolm, he’d been caught cutting classes his last year in middle school, hanging around with a gang of miscreants in training, and Jackie had been terrified he was turning out to be just like Tyson. I’d met with him, and we’d talked about all this and why it was happening. He’d said, like every kid does the first time you ask them why they’re acting out, that he didn’t know.
Then, I’d told Malcolm that I was proud of him, and he’d said that he didn’t understand why. He hadn’t done anything yet.
Now, he said the same thing to Tyson that I had said to him. “I’m proud of what you can be.”
My throat caught, and I had to swallow a knot.
“We need to go,” I croaked. “Your mother is worried to death.”
Malcolm left his father, who stared at the back of his son’s shoulders as he came toward us.
After a long, tense moment where I honestly thought that Tyson might just lose it and sick his dogs on us…he looked away. “Shut it down,” he said.
“Tyko—” one of his boys started.
“Shut. It. Down,” Tyson said, again. He gave us one last look before he stalked away into the warehouse. His boys followed him, muttering to themselves things that I couldn’t hear, and didn’t care about.
I held Malcolm close, and tight, for a long, long time. “Don’t you ever do something that foolish again, do you hear me?”
“Yes, Aunt Zahra.” Malcolm groaned over my shoulder.
I let him go and composed myself. “Okay. Let’s go. This place freaks me right the hell out.”
*****
We took a cab first to Malcolm’s house, where Riley and I waited on the street to make sure he went in, and saw Jackie open the door and then nearly tackle him with hugs and kisses as she drew him into the house. She was so caught up in it she didn’t even look out to see us. But that was okay. She and Malcolm needed their time.
I gave the driver my address next. On the way there, Riley reached across the seat, and touched my hand.
After some careful consideration…I let him, and squeezed it back. “Thank you,” I said.
“You fought the fight,” he said. “I was just there. You were right. If it had been me, things would have gone differently. Badly.”
“You better get used to that,” I said. “I’m right most of the time.”
He chuckled, but didn’t argue with me; w
hich was smart. “It’s a lot to ask of you, I know,” he said a moment later, “but I want you to come back to my place. Let me tell you everything.”
If I did, especially this late, I was spending the night. And I wasn’t sure that was a good idea. Oh, I wanted to. Especially after this ordeal, nothing would have been better than another night with Riley Dern.
“Whatever you have to say,” I told him, “I want it to make everything better. I want it to fix what’s wrong. I want you to turn out to be the kind of man I need and want.”
“But?”
I sighed, and tried to say that I just didn’t think it would. Was this night of good going to outweigh a whole lot more bad?
I couldn’t, though. The words just wouldn’t come out. They got tangled up in my chest and never made it to my throat. “But nothing,” I said at last. “That’s just what I want.”
I let him give the driver his address.
Chapter Seventeen
Riley
The second we walked through my door, I pulled Zahra to me and kissed her. I thought she might pull away, or slap me, but she didn’t. She just melted into me, molded to my body, her soft curves sending electric shocks through me until I was hard against her. I wanted her again. The talk could wait.
But before I could make good on it, she put her hands on my chest and gently pushed me back. Her lips were the last part to leave me.
I almost fell onto her, dizzy from that taste.
“Talk,” she said. That was all. She sauntered to my couch, hips swaying, before she sat down and pulled her knees up, her shoes left on the floor in front of her.
I followed, and sat down, with some effort, a respectable distance away. Zahra watched me, patient, and in a lot more control of herself than I was of me.
Right. I knew what she wanted from me. I just didn’t know if I could give it to her. But I could try.
“I fight in the cages,” I said. “But I don’t like it. I do it for Logan. My brother—”
“We met.” Zahra said stiffly.
“Yeah, I guess so. A while back he got into some trouble gambling. He knew better, and I told him he had to be smarter than that but…he didn’t listen. He got in deep. Fifty grand, and they kept piling it on him, and he couldn’t keep up.” I shrugged. “I had to help him out. But the kind of money I make fighting league fights just doesn’t pay. Not enough, not fast enough. He’d been to the cages himself—betting, not fighting; Logan doesn’t have a fighter’s bone in his body—and suggested that if I fought there, as the new guy, we might be able to make enough.”
Zahra just nodded once, her face impassive. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking, so I just went on.
“Tully, my trainer and kind of like an uncle—kind of like you with Malcolm except Tully’s not as sweet or pretty as you are—he hooked me up, knew somebody who knew somebody kind of deal.” I grasped for something else to say, something that might justify it, but that was really all there was. “And I’ve been doing it since then. Just about a year. A long year.”
Zahra’s head bobbed again. She seemed to look around the room for some response. Maybe she found it there. “So, you’re doing this for your brother,” she said.
“I couldn’t let him get hurt,” I said. “I just couldn’t.”
She shook her head, her black curls swaying with the slight movement, and finally closed her eyes. When she opened them, I knew this was when I found out. Stay, or go?
“Okay,” she said. “You should have told me all this before.”
“I tried,” I said. “You left.”
“No, I mean when I told you my deal breaker,” Zahra said, with a finger pointed at the past, which was somewhere behind her shoulder. She let the hand drop back to her lap. “I’m glad you’re telling me now, though. So, you’ll stop doing this, when you’ve got Logan out of the hole?”
“The very day,” I said. “I was even thinking maybe I might stop fighting all together. Maybe. Open a gym, or something, with Tully.”
“You don’t have to tell me that if you don’t mean it,” she said. “I don’t want you to change your whole life for me. Neither one of us would be happy like that.”
I slid closer to her on the couch. “I can’t fight forever. Nobody can. Believe me; I wouldn’t change for anyone.”
She leaned toward me. “Not even for me?”
I smiled, inches away from her lips again. “Not even for you.”
We hovered there, close, breath mingling.
“Spend the night,” I said.
Zahra smiled, and her lips grazed mine. Her eyes closed. “Just this once.”
“I’ll take it,” I said, and pulled her to me.
*****
Morning came too fast. I was stiff from laying in the same position all night—once we’d curled up together under the blankets, we’d stayed there, somehow, exhausted and spent until the sun came up.
Zahra stirred against me. “Are you awake?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Want breakfast?”
She hummed thoughtfully, and for a moment I thought she was going to say she had to go. “Breakfast,” she said instead, though—like I’d told her I had the genuine holy grail in my kitchen. “You know I’m already…”
“What?” I wondered as she trailed off.
“Properly impressed,” she said. “That’s all. But by all means, impress me more.”
I laughed, kissed her…then rolled over and kissed her right for a minute to make sure she got the point. Eventually she pushed me off to make good on my promise.
I pulled on gym shorts and cooked while she showered. She came in sparkling and damp, wearing my T-shirt that was big enough to swallow her whole, curves and all. I almost didn’t make it to the table.
“Plans today?” she asked as we ate. There was an unspoken invitation there that I wanted to take. I wanted it bad.
“I have a fight,” I said.
Zahra chewed a mouthful for a bit. “Which kind?”
“The…illegal kind,” I said. “Hoping it’ll be the last one.”
She shifted a bit in her seat, and then nodded once. “Alright.”
When she didn’t leave, something relaxed inside me. I watched her eat; watched her face to see if there was some struggle going on. But, maybe she meant what she said. She was quiet, though.
When we were nearly done she spoke again. “Can I go?”
I paused, the last hunk of toast close to my mouth. “You don’t have to ask me permission,” I said. “If you’ve got somewhere to be—”
“No,” she said, “I mean to the fight.”
“You might not want to see that,” I said. “Cage fights are different. More…violent.”
“I know that.”
I also didn’t want her to see me throw a fight. Would she be able to tell?
When that thought happened, when I wondered that, I realized it was another secret and that if I kept it, I was doing the same thing as before. What did I want here?
I wanted Zahra. I wanted her to stay.
I set the toast down. “Listen…this fight…I’m not gonna win it.”
Zahra sat back in her chair, folded her arms and tilted her head a little, but didn’t talk.
“The thing is,” I said, “for me to get Logan out of debt—I mean, all the way, in one go—I have to lose. He’s gonna bet on the other guy.”
“So you’re going to fight in an illegal match,” Zahra said, “and you’re gonna cheat to make money off of it.”
“Not to make money,” I corrected her. “I never fight for money. I mean, that’s never the reason I fight.”
“For Logan to make money, then.”
“If I don’t do this,” I said, “I’ll be fighting more fights. It’ll never really ends with these people, you know? They keep squeezing for more and more.”
“And what’s to keep them from squeezing more and more anyway?”
She had a point, too.
“If I do this, there’s no going back,�
�� I said. “They won’t match me up again. Not everyone will know that I threw it, but enough will.”
“Well, I still want to go.”
I finished my toast. There was no point arguing. Zahra had this way of setting her shoulders so you knew her heels were dug in. It was cute, actually. “Alright,” I said. “I gotta meet Tully today for training. Meet me there about six. I’ll text you the address.”
“And until then?” she asked.
I stood, and came around the table toward her. She tracked me all the way around, her lips curling up into a broad smile right up until I bent down and slipped an arm under her knees and behind her back.
I hefted her up as she giggled, and carried her back to the bed.
Chapter Eighteen
Zahra
I stayed tense from the moment I left Riley alone on the street to the moment I saw him again. Even then, it only went away a little. A last, nervous knot was still between my shoulders.
He looked me over when I showed up at the gym and met him on the sidewalk, his mouth opened a little. I’d put on a tight red dress and even worn heels—short ones, but they did the trick, and I did a slow little turn for him.
“You are…sexy just doesn’t cover it.”
“I’ll take it anyway, while you make a new word up,” I said.
He kissed me, his hands light on my hips and for a moment I wanted to take him somewhere private.
“This her?” a gruff voice asked from behind Riley. I looked around his shoulder at the old man behind him, just as big as Riley but about fifty years older and with a nose that had been broken many, many more times.
“Uh, yeah,” Riley said. He seemed nervous. “Tully, this is Zahra Monroe. Zahra, this is Tully Sinclair. My trainer, mentor, and…just about the only family I got besides Logan.”
“A pleasure,” Tully growled. He stuck out a knotted hand for me to shake, and I did. Funny. His hands were softer than they looked, too.
“Pleased to meet you, Tully.”
“You ready?” Tully asked. He wasn’t asking me.
