Fix You: Bash and Olivia, Book 2 of 3 (McDaniels Brothers)

by Bell, Christine

  Fix You

  Bash and Olivia

  Book Two

  The McDaniels Brothers

  By

  Christine Bell

  Copyrights

  Fix You, Bash and Olivia Book Two, All Rights Reserved

  Fix You, Bash and Olivia Book Two Copyright © 2014 Christine Bell

  Cover design by Dee Tenorio, Laideebug Digital

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  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author's imagination and used fictitiously. The author does acknowledge the trademark status and trademark ownership of all trademarks, service marks and word marks mentioned in this book. The author does not have any control over, and does not assume any responsibility for third-party Web sites or their content.

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  Dedication

  For my Papa. For teaching me to fish, for always having cookies in the jar, for loving me when I probably didn't deserve it, for a lifetime of saving nickels towards my education, and for picking me up that time I peed my pants at school.

  I love you. And I miss you every single day of my life.

  Chapter One

  Bash

  “They’re willing to drop the charges down to misdemeanor simple assault and battery with an eight-month sentence at the county jail. With good behavior, you’ll be out in six.” Dean Salisbury, public defender, peered at me through weary gray eyes and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the Formica table between us. “I think you should seriously consider it.”

  Those last words hit me like a gut punch. It was one thing to be offered a plea bargain. It was something else to have your lawyer telling you to take it.

  “Nope.”

  Matty’s voice was louder than a whip crack in the sterile little room. He sat next to me on a too-small metal chair, his whole body tensed like he wanted to pounce on someone.

  “No fucking way.” The legs of the chair scraped against the black and white speckled laminate floor as he faced me. “If you agree, you’ll not only miss the Spada fight, but you’ll also have a record. People are going to think you’re out of control. A troublemaker. Sponsors won’t want to touch you. Think long-term, Bash. This could change the trajectory of your whole career.”

  It was hard to ignore the judgment in his voice, but I couldn’t blame him. He had, after all, told me so. He’d said right from the get-go that messing with Olivia Beckett was going to cause major shit for me, but I didn’t listen.

  Olivia’s face flashed through my mind and I waited for the anger to come. I should have been furious. The whole reason I was in lockup was because she’d been about to get her ass whooped by her prick of a boyfriend. I’d intervened, and wound up popping him in the mouth. Hard. It had felt good at the time, but now I felt empty. Like a scooped-out pumpkin.

  It was bad enough that my future was crumbling right in front of me. But far worse than that, I’d been in jail for three days, and hadn’t heard from or seen Olivia. My brothers Matty and Reid had both come twice, so it wasn’t a matter of rules and regulations, either.

  Face facts: she just doesn’t want to see you, man.

  I shoved away the thought and turned my attention back to my attorney. “And if I don’t take it? What’s the max they can put me away for if I lose at trial?”

  Salisbury shifted in his seat and blew out an Eeyore, woe-is-me sigh. “The problem is that Abernathy Senior is pressing friends in high places for the felony aggravated assault charges to stick. Technically, because you’re a boxer, your hands can be considered as deadly weapons. If he succeeds, you could have a serious problem. We’re looking at a felony charge and state penitentiary time. Whole different ball game there.” He raised his brows and pursed his lips. “Could be your particular skill set might give you a leg up and people will leave you alone. Or, could be they look at you as a challenge, which would make for a very long, hard eight months.”

  Matty slammed the table with a ham-sized fist. “This is bullshit. He was protecting a girl from getting assaulted. Surely that falls under some sort of self-defense law or something, doesn’t it? What should he have done, just let the guy beat her ass?”

  “The problem is, it’s Junior’s word against your brother’s as to the catalyst. Andrew claims they were arguing over the girl, and Bash made it physical.” Salisbury held up both hands and continued over Matty’s protests, “Now, of course I’m still going to contact the girl”—he glanced down at his notes—“Ms. Beckett, but she still hasn’t come in and at this point we have no idea of whether she’ll corroborate your story or not. Frankly, the fact that she didn’t come forward to file a complaint against Andrew when the incident took place is an issue.”

  I didn’t bother to tell him that, had we known Andy was going to press charges, she would have. But hearing that she still hadn’t responded the police inquiry was like salt on an open wound.

  Salisbury seemed oblivious to my sudden tension and continued. “Abernathy has a lot of evidence to back up his claim. You admitted you hit him to your then-boss, which triggered your termination, and you confessed to the police once they picked you up that you hadn’t witnessed him actually hit her. Even if Ms. Beckett supports your version of the story at this point, who’s to say she’s not lying?” He pulled off his round-rimmed glasses and rubbed at his tired-looking eyes. “I’m not a risk-taker, Mr. McDaniels. Never have been. I’m willing to take your lead on this and fight if that’s what you want to do, but it’s my duty to advise you the best I can, and if it were me?” He shrugged his sloped shoulders and shook his head. “I’d cut my losses. In cases like this with all else being equal, guys like you don’t do so well against guys like Andrew Abernathy.”

  I opened my mouth to respond, but he held up a hand and stood.

  “Don’t answer me now. Take the forty-eight hours to think it over. In the meantime, I’ve escalated the bail hearing to Superior Court and we’re on tomorrow’s docket. You should’ve been released the day you got arrested for around forty bucks out of pocket. The fact that they made us go to a bail hearing and then set it so high when you have no priors and are such a low flight risk lets me know that there’s something else at work here. Hopefully this next judge will be a little more sympathetic, and we can get you out of here for a minimal amount of cash up front. Hang in there, all right? If I can’t get bail lowered I’ll give you the name of a reputable bail bondsman and you can borrow it against collateral.”

  I nodded, trying to ignore the pounding in my temples. God, this bail hearing had to go better than the last. We didn’t have any collateral. What we had was a shitty-ass gym and a pile of unpaid bills, and coming up with the whole $4,000 cash would be next to impossible.

  I cracked my knuckles and kept my face blank. There was no reason for Matty to know what was going
on in my head, but I could almost see the sand slipping through the hourglass for me. Every day I sat in a cell with only thirty minutes a day to train was another nail in my coffin. If I didn’t get back to my exercise and diet regimen for the Spada fight only eight weeks away, it wouldn’t matter whether I was out of prison or not.

  Most guys prepped full-time for six months to get ready for a fight like this. This was the one. My stepping-stone to the big time. My bout was set to be second on the card with the likes of McMillan and Padilla, one of the most anticipated fights of the year that would be aired on pay-per-view. If I had a good showing in front of a crowd that size, I could go from virtual unknown to a real contender in the course of one day.

  I had to be there, and I had to be ready.

  The guard came in to let Salisbury out, but Matty lagged behind, waving him off with a “one minute” index finger before facing me. For a long while, he didn’t talk and I could tell he was getting emotional, so I did the talking for him.

  “Look, I’m okay. Everybody is okay. Nobody’s dead or maimed.”

  Yet, anyway. If what Salisbury said was true, a welcome shanking could definitely be on the menu if I went to the state penitentiary. I couldn’t think about that, though. I had to focus on what I knew for sure, and what I knew for sure was that I hadn’t broken the law.

  I wasn’t innocent, exactly. I had hit Andy a little harder than I probably had to. And I could’ve just as easily gotten him in a hold and bounced him out of the bar. But those eyes—vicious and ice cold—had let me know he needed something a little less subtle if I had any hope of getting through to him. Hitting girls was for pussies. If he was going to act like one, I was going to make him feel like one, plain and simple. If that made me a criminal, then I guess I was guilty, but I wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

  “We’re going to battle through this like we do everything else,” I reassured him. “In six months, we’ll look back at this and laugh.” It was something we brothers said a lot growing up, usually when things had gotten so absurdly bad that the only way to get through was to find moments to make each other smile. Matty wasn’t biting.

  “Don’t.” His eyes looked suspiciously glassy and his voice was choked. “Don’t pull that shit. Watching you get shoved into the back of a cop car like that will never be funny to me.” He dragged me in for a half hug and gave me a noogie before pushing me roughly away. “I gotta go. I’m meeting with a guy to see if I can borrow some money to get you a better lawyer.”

  “What guy?” He wouldn’t meet my gaze and I pressed him. “Matty, who is the meeting with?” Part of me hoped it was with my manager, to see if we could get a small advance on some of the guaranteed purse from the Spada fight. The bigger part of me knew better.

  He motioned for the guard and stood by the door. “Don’t worry about anything except staying in shape until I get you out. I got this covered.”

  “Don’t do anything stupid, bro. I mean it. I’ll be out soon enough and…”

  I was still talking as the guard let him out, wordlessly closing the door behind him.

  “All righty, then. Well, fuck you guys, too,” I muttered, running through possible scenarios. None of them were good.

  A second later, another CO came into the locked room and led me back to my cell, cutting my morbid thoughts short. I stared at the tiny cube and sucked in a breath. It could’ve been worse, as cells went. I had my own, which was a plus since the space was tight to say the least, and it wasn’t filthy or infested with rats like in the movies sometimes. But it was still jail, and the sound of the mechanism locking behind me made my skin feel too tight…like I needed to escape but couldn’t. If I had to be here for months on end, I’d lose my mind, no question.

  I lowered myself to my rickety cot and leaned back, letting my lids drift shut. Sleep was slippery here. Every time I closed my eyes, thoughts and memories came rushing in all at once. Thoughts of my childhood in different foster homes, separated from my brothers. Memories of my father, dead on the bathroom floor of our shitty little apartment. Being in a place like this that reeked of desperation and human frailty just brought it all back like it was yesterday, and pretending that I was doing fine in front of Matty was exhausting.

  Because whatever I’d told him, I wasn’t okay. My entire life had been ripped out from under me, and my dreams of fighting my way out of Boston were fading fast.

  And Olivia. Don’t forget Olivia.

  Like I could. Her pleading cornflower-blue eyes were branded into my brain.

  “I’ll never see him again.”

  That’s what she’d told Andy when they were taking me away. Maybe she’d thought it was a martyr’s move. A bargaining chip. If Andy dropped the charges against me, she and I would be over and that would be a sacrifice that benefited me.

  That’s not how I saw it, though.

  I saw it as a cop-out. I’d been willing to fight for her, and she’d thrown in the towel on us at the first sign of blood. Matty was right all along. I should’ve kept my eye on the prize, and the prize was and would always be getting the fuck out of Boston. I’d allowed myself to get distracted one time, and look where it got me. Never again. If by some grace of God I made it through this, I was pushing forward with my plans, and I wouldn’t let anything get in my way.

  Olivia Beckett was someone else’s problem now.

  Chapter Two

  Olivia

  “Fifteen thousand for all seven pieces.”

  I snorted at the man behind the counter, grabbed the black velvet case sitting between us, and turned on trembling legs to make like I was going to walk away.

  Total bluff. I wasn’t going anywhere empty-handed. I was desperate and out of options.

  “Fine,” he grumbled from behind me. “Sixteen-five, but that’s as high as I’m going to go, so take it or leave it.”

  I faced him again and eyed him assessingly. He wet his thin lips and patted down the strands of his greasy comb-over.

  “Don’t look at me like that. I gotta make a profit here too, kid. I got a family to feed.”

  Probably more like “hookers to pay,” but I let it slide. Heart pounding, I pushed one last time. “Seventeen and we do a deal right now.” I set the case back down and met his gaze head-on.

  He mumbled under his breath about being a sucker for a pretty face, but then nodded.

  “Seventeen. I’ll do up the paperwork. Be right back.” He barreled through the orange beaded curtains that separated the front of the pawnshop from what he kept referring to as “his office,” which, from what I could see through the “curtains,” was actually a closet that housed a metal folding chair, an honest-to-God typewriter, and a ten-foot-high stack of yellowing Playboy magazines.

  Whatever. The fact was that I’d been to three other places, two of them being high-end secondhand jewelry retailers in my home town in Connecticut, and Mad Money Max was the only person who’d offered me even close to a fair price on the jewelry I’d brought in. In this time of crisis when literally every penny counted, I wasn’t about to get picky. This was the break I’d been wishing for. Maybe things were finally looking up.

  I stared down at the jewelry case full of gold one last time and swallowed the lump in my throat. The class ring my parents had gotten for me, a pair of pearl earrings my grandmother had bought me for my sweet sixteen, the tennis bracelet I’d gotten for graduation…none of it mattered anymore. It was just stuff.

  What mattered was getting Bash out of jail. Now, with bail money, and hopefully, forever. I’d watched enough CSI to know that a public defender wouldn’t have the time or the energy to fight for Bash the way he deserved so I’d contacted a criminal defense lawyer. Linden Whitcomb, Esquire, was willing to look at the case on short notice, but required a $15,000 retainer just to get the ball rolling, and Mad Money Max was about to give it to me.

  I peered down at my cell phone while I waited, and blew out a pent-up breath. One hurdle down. A dozen more to go. If I could get out
of here in the next fifteen minutes, I could still get to county lockup in time to catch the tail end of visiting hours. I’d finally get to see Bash.

  If he even wants to see you.

  My stomach roiled and I reached into my jeans pocket and pulled out the roll of Tums that had become my best friend over the past few days. I popped two in my mouth and chewed the chalky rounds while I scrolled through the text messages waiting for me.

  One was from my mom telling me she’d call me tomorrow, one was from my bestie Cara asking me how my spring break was, but it was the last one that made my blood boil. Andy. I squeezed my eyes closed and held my thumb over the delete button, but paused. What if he’d come to his senses and was offering to drop the charges against Bash? It was unlikely, but if there was even a 1 percent chance…

  The second I opened the message, I realized my mistake. Text scrolled by, reading “Fun Times in Cell Block C.” Then, the sound of fists thudding against flesh came blasting out of the tiny speaker as a video of two men in the middle of what looked to be a prison cafeteria filled the screen. The brutal fight between them lasted less than ten seconds, culminating in one of the guys pounding the other’s head in with a chair until his skull caved in.

  I stared, unblinking at the screen, my brain frantically trying to process what I’d seen. Was one of those people Bash? My stomach heaving, I ran to the corner of the store and lost my Tums lunch in Mad Money Max’s garbage can.

  By the time I was on empty, I’d mentally replayed the scene in my mind. Once I got past the initial shock, I realized neither of the men was Bash. One of them was older, maybe in his early thirties, and the other was wiry and lean, not muscular like Bash. I knuckled the tears from my cheeks and focused on taking slow, even breaths. He was okay. No one had crushed his skull in with a chair.

  This time. But Andy’s taunting message had teeth. Who knew how long Bash would be safe behind bars? And how would I live with myself if something happened to him?