Mountain Man Secret_Back On Fever Mountain 3

by Melissa Devenport

  “Jason please! You have to tell me what’s going on!’

  “I know.” His words were a whisper, heavy with regret. They floated in the air between them, as heavy and thick as a cloud of smoke, which made sense considering their life was burning down around them.

  “Come talk to me in the bedroom. Please.”

  Jason finally nodded. He looked as numb in that moment as she felt. He took her hand and let her lead them down the hall to the room they shared.

  When Amanda pushed open the door she nearly burst into tears. “This can’t be the last time that we’re here. This can’t be it for us.” She looked up into the face of the man she trusted and loved so very much. “Tell me it’s not it, Jason!”

  He ripped his hand free from hers and gripped her face between his hard, calloused palms. It didn’t even matter to her that they were still bloody. She just wanted his touch, needed his touch, craved the reassurance only he could give her.

  “I don’t know,” he whispered before he bent his head and savagely claimed her lips.

  Chapter 6

  The Past

  Jason

  Jason hadn’t meant to kiss her, but there was nothing else he could do. He felt so helpless, out of control. For the past three years he’d been the one to guide his life. He’d been his own master at last. It had been so long that he’d almost believed he was free… he had to taste her lips, to assure himself that she was still real, still there with him.

  “Tell me,” Amanda repeated raggedly when he pulled away.

  “Sit down then.”

  “It’s that kind of a story?”

  “The worst.”

  She stumbled over to the edge of the bed and sat down hard. He followed. The bed dipped under his weight as he took a seat beside her. He leaned in close, inhaling the sweet scent of her hair to erase the acrid metal burn of blood that still lingered in his nose.

  God, that scent. Her scent. I’ll miss it. More than anything in the world.

  “What part do you want to hear first?”

  “Try the beginning.” She couldn’t look at him. No, her beautiful eyes were fixed on the rough-hewn floorboards.

  “Yah… the beginning.” Jason swallowed hard. “I wish I knew what that was, exactly. I suppose my birth. I was born in Miami. My mother was a good woman. My father… he was a bastard. The kind that beats his wife and his kid. The kind that doesn’t have to be drunk to do it. We lived in fear of him. He killed my mother.”

  Amanda gasped. Her head swiveled around so hard he actually heard her neck crack. He couldn’t look at her, couldn’t bear to see the pity in her eyes.

  “Yah. He was drunk one night, which wasn’t at all unusual. I was ten. He was hitting my mom. I tried to stop him. The house had two stories. He shoved me away and she went for him, thinking he’d hurt me. He pushed her. Hard. She stumbled, tripped over the nightgown she had on. Or maybe it was her robe. It was one of those long pink things. Thin. Too thin. She tripped and she fell backwards. I watched her face right before she tipped off the first stair. Surprise. Horror. I remember that look in her eyes, because it was the last time I ever saw them. Her eyes were blue. Like mine. I actually look a lot like her. She was an incredible woman. I suppose that her only flaw was that she never left my father. She lived in fear of him. He said he’d kill her if she ever tried to leave and take me. She fell down the stairs and she broke her neck. She was dead when she hit the bottom.”

  “My god, Jason…” Amanda reached out and touched his knee. He didn’t even feel the weight of her hand though her palm normally would have warmed him, even right through the thick denim of his jeans.

  “Social services came and took me away when my dad got hauled off to jail. He got fifteen years for what he did. He’s been out now for a long time. Sometimes I thought about finding him and killing him. It was a lucky thing, I guess, that Ricci kept us all from ever getting away. When I finally did, my father was the last thing on my mind. I probably wouldn’t have found him anyway. Maybe he’s dead, if the world has any mercy at all.”

  He paused, but Amanda said nothing. There wasn’t any of the judgment he expected to see in her eyes when he announced he would have liked to end the life of the man who sired him. Her eyes were wide with horror, but he couldn’t be sure who and what it was for.

  “It gets worse. I bounced around from foster home to foster home. I was what you would call a problem child. Never settled anywhere. Gave everyone a hard time. I didn’t want any of their kindness, or what they would call kindness. Never wanted any fucking school or religion or any of that. I didn’t want to be normal because I couldn’t be. I wasn’t raised normal. I was used to having to fight my own battles and it did something to me. The only way I knew how to survive was to fight my way through life. I finally ended up in a home where I could put my skills to use. The bastard was just like my father. He and his wife had a couple fosters. Just for the money. Me and a couple other guys. The wife turned a blind eye to what her husband did. They excused the bruises as fights from school or hard living, hanging out on the street. We were the worst of the bunch. The forgotten children. The ones no one wanted so no one really cared.”

  “How could they have let that happen? You were just kids!”

  “I don’t know, it happens more often than you know and not just in the system. Anyway, when I was sixteen, I’d finally had enough. I just snapped. I took that fucker’s belt and beat him raw with it. The same belt he’d hit us with so many times. He always made sure the buckle was facing out so I used that on him. Beat him and bloodied him all over. I wasn’t dumb enough to stick around. I lit out of there and never went back. I stayed underground for two years, until I was eighteen. After that I did some odd jobs to survive. Took what I could here and there. I could never get ahead. I didn’t even have a high school education.”

  “I’m sorry…”

  “You don’t have to be sorry,” Jason said roughly. “Half of it I did to myself.”

  “And what about the other half?”

  He shrugged. “Lots of people get a shit hand dealt to them. Anyway, I took jobs here and there. Finally got my GED. I survived, barely. After I had some education and the papers to prove it, I actually did find a steady job. I cooked at this shit restaurant, but it was enough to afford an apartment. I had some friends, guys I knew from my time surviving on the streets, from here and there. I knew one, his name was Martin Sanderson. He was a tough kid. A year older than I was. He had a knife scar on his face where someone cut him one night. He was a dealer. Lived the toughest kind of life you can imagine. I met him one night, in an alley. Pulled him out of a fight. I never got into the lifestyle he led and I sure as hell didn’t ever touch any kind of drugs, but for some reason, we were instant friends. Closer than the brother I never had. He was the one who took me to my first fight. It was the kind of shit that definitely wasn’t legal. Underground. Cages. Blood everywhere. People being hauled out and you didn’t know if they were alive or dead.”

  “How… how old were you?” Amanda stammered.

  “Twenty-eight.”

  “Far too young to have lived through what you did.”

  “Old enough that I should have known better. I found out how much money those guys made. Some of them, the good fighters, made more money in one night than I could hope to make in years doing what I was doing. If there was one thing I’d always known how to do my entire life, it was scrap. I’d been trained right from the time I was born to be a fighter. I wanted in.”

  “Oh god.” Amanda covered her mouth with her hand. Tears formed in her eyes and spilled down cheeks that had long ago gone ashen.

  “I made a couple enquiries. I knew how to find the right people. I was introduced to a guy who ran fighters. His name was Roman Ricci. He was the worst kind of guy. I could tell right away. The kind that wore thousand dollar suits and even more expensive shoes. The kind of guy who liked to keep those shoes clean. He always looked impeccable. Had his hair greased back. Middle ag
ed, but fit as hell. The kind of guy who you knew just by looking at him that he had money. Power. He had fighters and goons, access to drugs, probably had guys selling them working for him. He owned businesses, clubs… No one knew where he actually lived. He always had body guards with him. He agreed to train me. Run me as one of his fighters.”

  “And you actually agreed to work with a man like that?” Disbelief edged Amanda’s tone. When Jason finally looked back at her, she carefully averted her eyes.

  “Yes. There was an instant signing bonus. A new condo, new clothes, people to tell me what to eat, to tell me how to work out. I went from nothing to having everything. You can’t imagine how attractive a life like that was to me, someone who had lived in the gutter their entire existence. I was doing something I felt I was born to do. After training I got in the ring and it just felt… right. At least at first. I was good. Naturally born into it. Better than almost everyone else. I saw guys killed by other guys. Guys who couldn’t control their blood lust. Fights were never to the death, but it happened. And the guys who did it were always back fighting again. This shit wasn’t legal. It was underground, controlled by the rich. If the cops knew about it, they were paid off to turn a blind eye.”

  “So you kept going?”

  Jason laughed bitterly. “I soon learned that it wasn’t exactly the kind of profession you chose to leave. There was a lot of money riding on the line, especially in a good fighter. Betting. That’s where all the money came from. The guy who ran me, his establishment took most of what I was making. I was able to sock away more and more money over the years. That’s how they kept guys in it. They took what they made and when they were used up, they were either killed in the ring or tossed out like the trash. No one wants a fighter who can’t fight. I was different though. I was putting enough money away to live on for the rest of my life, even though Ricci was taking at least seventy percent of what I was making every single fight. I wasn’t stupid like the rest either. I didn’t dope, didn’t get hooked on smack or opium or any of that shit Ricci and his kind were peddling to their fighters. I saw the way it turned those men into zombies or machines. It completely erased their humanity. I could never let that happen to me. I was always planning an exit, right from the time I started and learned that there are only two ways to leave.”

  “Yes, you said that.”

  “I did. I was different for Ricci. A trophy or a prize if you will. He was damn proud of the fighter who had never lost a fight in three years. Unlike other guys, who were used up and spat out after a year, I never showed any signs of slowing down. I just kept getting better and better.”

  “So what happened?” Amanda turned her face to him again, her eyes burning a hole straight through his heart. They were so far from the normal, shining, loving eyes of the woman he knew that he shuddered.

  Jason’s throat closed up and it was a minute before he could speak. He felt the icy hand of memory reaching beyond the grave to snatch him back, to thrust him back into his sorrow drenched, blood soaked past.

  Chapter 7

  Blood

  Jason

  “I met a woman. Janine. I was thirty-one. I’d been fighting for three years. I knew I wasn’t getting out so I didn’t even try and leave. I knew what happened to guys who tried to escape. They wound up floating or dead in some alley. You were either released or you were ended. I was saving up money, planning for the time I would finally leave Ricci and his world in my rear view mirror. Anyway, because Ricci knew I wouldn’t try and leave, I could go out during the day. My condo was always watched, but his guys pretty much let me do what I wanted. I had a reputation and they wanted to make damn sure I was kept happy. It felt like less of a prison then. I went to the gym during the day. Not Ricci’s gym for training. A regular, public gym before I went to Ricci’s place. I just felt… like myself there. The man I used to be before I became just a fighter. A thing. A tool to make rich people richer and end men’s careers. There was a new trainer there. Janine. She was young. Vibrant. Full of life. She wasn’t like anyone I’d ever met before. She didn’t know what I was or who I was. I loved her right away.”

  “I know where this story goes,” Amanda breathed. She shifted, tucking her hands in her lap, her eyes as old and pain filled as Jason’s soul.

  “Yah. I loved her. We saw each other secretly. I eventually told her what I was. What I did for a living, when I knew I could trust her. She wanted me to get out. By then I’d saved over two million dollars. I was still winning, still hadn’t lost a fight. I was worth more than ever. I tried to run away one night. Stole a car and took Janine. We’d been planning our getaway for months. I had five nights a week off. Fought two nights. Of course I was training all the time, but I mean, I didn’t ditch a fight. We were going to go to Mexico and once we were there, get new ID’s, just get lost. I had the money to do it.”

  “And Ricci didn’t let you get far.”

  “No. His goons found us. Drove me off the road. I had to stop. They got out. I was a good fighter, but there were six. Six against one man. I was only able to last so long. The last thing I remember is getting hit in the head. Over and over again. They finally took me down. When I woke up I couldn’t move a bone in my body without it hurting. They’d taken me whole. Hadn’t broke anything so that I could still fight. I wasn’t worth anything to Ricci damaged.”

  Amanda wiped away the fresh tears that were tracking down her cheeks. If Jason lived to be a thousand years old, he’d never forget the haunted look in her eyes. “And Janine?”

  “She was found dead a week later. I won’t tell you how. It was… the worst thing that had ever happened to me. I knew that she had died because of me. Her beautiful, amazing soul was snuffed out because of the choices I made. After that the money didn’t mean anything. None of it meant anything. I hated Ricci. I hated him more than I hated my father, even. I knew then that he’d never let me go. I’d tipped my hand and he would never, ever give me up. The only way I was getting out was in a body bag. I started throwing fights. Gradually. I made it look like I was used up. Old. I wanted him to think he’d broken my will to fight along with my will to live.”

  “And he didn’t like that?”

  “No. He wanted to teach me a lesson. If I wasn’t going to fight for him, I wasn’t going to live. He put me up against a fighter one night. This guy was a monster. He’d killed men before. He had absolutely no remorse. They had him drugged all the time. He was a fucking rage machine. I beat him senseless. It was clear I wasn’t slowing down at all. That night Ricci came to see me. He came with his goons. I swear these guys are loyal only to the highest buyer. They might have worked for the guy, but they had no respect for him. I swear to this day they stepped aside. I came at him and they did what they could to fend me off, which wasn’t very much. They made a real show of it though. I landed a few good blows on that son of a bitch before they pulled me off. Ricci screamed at them to kill me. It showed how upset he was, because he left them with me. Not my normal guards. These guys were ex fighters themselves. Not in that ring but in another life. Boxers, martial arts, or military. They knew who I was and they respected me in a way they didn’t respect Ricci. They beat me half dead, stuck me in their car and drove me out to the middle of the highway. I didn’t even know where I was. They dumped me out of the car, knowing full well that if I ever showed up again it would mean their lives. They were confident that I was smart enough to keep myself hidden. They let me go.”

  “And you started a new life. Came here? Changed your name and got a fake ID.”

  “Yes. I found the most remote place that I could. I changed the way I looked. Grew out my hair and beard. Kept to myself. I never went to any major centers. I don’t know how Ricci found out I was still alive. I didn’t know he’d been looking for me all this time. I thought he figured I was dead. He must have done something to those guys who let me go. And then he got to Gerard, who we met at that baby store. He was the only person who knew about my new identity since he helped me
getting the papers.”

  “And you thought you had finally left that life behind.”

  “I never, ever would have endangered you, Amanda, I need you to know that!” Jason gripped her hand firmly, trying to take some semblance of comfort at the way she didn’t withdraw when he touched her.

  “I know,” she finally whispered. Her hand tightened in his. She looked up and their gazes locked. He couldn’t even begin to define how relieved he was to see that everything he’d just confessed hadn’t erased the love in her eyes. It was still there, buried beneath sorrow and fear, but it still existed. “I know you would never hurt me. I know you would never put me in danger. I know how losing Janine must have broken you inside. If I know you, you probably still feel that guilt. It lives with you like a person, walking beside you, every single day.”

  “You’re right.” He hung his head. “And now I know Ricci is coming. He will be ruthless. Merciless. He won’t stop until I’m in the ground. I represent humiliation. Defeat. And men like him do not lose.”

  “He might never find you. So what if he knows you were in Boulder over a year ago. Don’t you think he’s moved on?”

  “The fact that Andy found me tonight shows that I’m not as invisible as I thought. If he can find me, Ricci can find me.”

  “Andy? The guy on the couch?”

  “Yes. He’s an ex fighter. Used to work for Ricci as well. He obviously got away. They beat him within an inch of his life so it shows that Ricci tried to stop him like he stopped me from leaving. Andy must have given those guys hell. He got away when I couldn’t. He came to warn me. God, I can’t believe he’s been fighting all these years, though he was just getting into it when I was getting out.”

  “Why would he do that? Risk his life to warn you?”

  “Because I probably saved his. He wanted to be a fighter. I warned him to get out before he even started. He was like me. Young. Headstrong. Incredibly angry at the world. I saw him in myself. I saw his will and determination and knew that he could be good. Great, really. Probably go undefeated. I trained him. I taught him everything I knew so that he wouldn’t end up being carried out of the ring, lifeless. He looked up to me. Respected me. Probably realized, over the years, that he needed to get out too. I’m going to hazard a guess and say that after I left, he was Ricci’s new toy. His new obsession. He got out, where I couldn’t. He succeeded and the first thing he did was come up here to warn me. He wants to thwart Ricci as badly as I did.”