AFRICAN AMERICAN ROMANCE: A Thug to Remember (Hood Alpha Male Pregnancy Romance) (African American Urban Contemporary Short Stories) (49 page)

I had no idea why I said something like that. It had been one of my father’s favorite sayings. Guess it just stuck with me. I didn’t mean to make light of Robards’ death, but he’d gotten complacent. That wouldn’t be me.

I grimaced slightly, seeing the bruises on my knees, but knowing that it was necessary to toughen the skin. My next fight was in twenty minutes and I had the necessary instructions to where it was taking place. They always sent a text message to the fighters to inform them of where the venue was going to be. Most often than not, it was in some dilapidated old building that was about to be torn down or abandoned. If we got lucky, someone wanting to cash in on this growing trend would allow us to use their basement. Tonight I wasn’t so lucky.

“I just don’t want to see you become one of those fatalities,” Maria said to me. “I know that there are rules and I’ve seen the referees, but they are pretty lax on when they should step in and put an end to things. I think that they’re paid to let the fighters bleed a bit. That third fighter you took on was a maniac. I could’ve sworn that she was on something. Those two kicks that she leveled at the side of your head almost did you in.”

“I think I was just surprised that she was able to reach her legs up that far. I was just lucky that she decided to try something out of the ordinary. When she had her legs wrapped around my head, I lifted her and slammed her down onto the mat so hard it knocked the wind out of her. Remember?” I shrugged one slender shoulder. “When she stood back up I had the advantage. I stepped into her space, leveled a blow to her kidneys and then followed that up with a right cross to her jaw. After that, the win was mine for the taking.”

Maria levelled her gaze at me to remind me it hadn’t been as easy as I was making it sound.

I had my hands on the back of this makeshift punching bag. I leveled one knee after another, getting close physical contact with it and making sure that there was no way that my opponent was going to slip out of the attack. It was something that I had seen on television and I was going to put it to good use tonight. In…oh my gosh, fifteen minutes!

“It looks like it’s about that time. I’m going to be there with you tonight.”

“No shift at the hospital?” I asked her.

“No. Lucky you.”

I grabbed my black hoodie, zipped it up and put it over my head. I felt like a real fighter, even if I wasn’t making that kind of money.

I think Maria was nervous getting on my motorcycle. It was one of my prized possessions. My father had bought it for me as a gift for graduating high school. It wasn’t in great shape at the time, but we worked on it together whenever we had a spare moment until it was the well-oiled machine he wanted me to have. Those moments with him were some of the best in my life. Grease stains and standing there with my father laughing his ass off as we tried to put this thing back together with our own bare hands. What we didn’t know, we learned on the fly with tutorials on the Internet and even manuals that he had gotten from work.

He’d been a machinist. We’d lived next door to this mechanic shop where he worked. Sometimes, after hours, he’d sneak us in to do the harder parts and use their tools. When we finally had it running we were so happy that he actually allowed me to have my first drink. I was sick as a dog, but it was worth it to see that smile on his face.

It wasn’t long after that when we found out that he had cancer. I thought that it would be a long time until he finally passed on, but it was only three months after the diagnosis. I guess it was a good thing, because he didn’t suffer much and I gave him my blessing to go off to join my mother. It didn’t really know her and my father had done his best to raise a young lady.

“I will never get used to getting on this thing,” Maria said now, her helmet’s face guard muffling her voice. “It’s a death trap in the making. Do you know how many accidents I’ve seen with motorcycle drivers who didn’t know what they were doing? Or when the driver of a car didn’t look first?”

She always said this. Every time, like a broken record over and over again. The only way to shut her up was to gun the engine loud enough to drown out her voice and then take off into the night.

Once, when I was three days between meals and a shower, I’d considered selling my bike. I couldn’t make myself do it. There would be snowflakes in Hell before I let anybody get their hands on this machine.

We arrived at the destination, an outdoor lot sandwiched between a bar and a warehouse. It was just starting to rain, and the drizzle would definitely make things a little more interesting in the ring. The spectators were crowded around the steel cage already, shaking it and making fools of themselves. It was time to get my game face on. I unzipped my hoodie, pulled it back from my head and took out the tribal war paint—black mascara—that made me feel like I was going into war. I applied it to my face with two fingers, giving me that animal-out-of-a-cage look.

I waited, going through some moves that made me look more experienced that I was. Maria wasn’t wrong that I’d been lucky on more than one occassion. I wouldn’t always be able to rely on that, though, and the only way I was going to stay alive in this game was to get some real training.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” a scrawny Latino man shouted out to the crowds. “I would like to welcome you to the 200
th
fight of the underground circuit. As always, there is no flash photography. No video. Nobody is exempt. If we see anyone recording our fights they will removed by force. Got it? Good.”

He smiled at everyone now, working the crowd. “Our first competitor was Abigail ‘The Ape’ Crance. At least, it was going to be, before she cancelled on us. Don’t worry,” he shouted over the boos and cat calls. “That doesn’t mean that we just close up shop and go home tonight. The show must go on. In her place, we have Helen ‘The Killer’ Joy and she’ll be taking on the defending champion Naomi ‘No Mercy’ Waters!”

Gotta admit. I sound deadly. I wasn’t even the one that came up with my nickname. It was chosen for me by the owner of our little floating fight club. I knew that he was raking in the money and everybody here that was in attendance was paying for the right to be here. He also had an Internet connection for those that couldn’t be, branching out to international countries as far away as Europe, for those who had the credit cards to pay for it.

Lights attached to the tops of the cage snapped on and I had to shield my eyes until they adjusted and I could get a good look at my competitor. She was, er, big boned. “The Killer” Joy smashed her fist to her palm and when she smiled at me I suddenly felt about two feet tall.

The referee was this wide-eyed redhead who couldn’t quite keep his eyes off how much skin my sports bra was showing off. He motioned for us to come forward and then he gave the necessary search for illegal weapons of any kind. I just ground my teeth as his hands got very thorough in places I couldn’t possibly be hiding anything. Finally he gave his blessing, pushing us back away from each other, even though I could see that Helen was definitely ready to go.

This was bare knuckles fighting. There were no gloves. Protective tape on your knuckles, sure. For whatever good that would do. The bell rang and suddenly “The Killer” Joy was on me with three rapid punches to my stomach. I had to flex in order to make sure that I wasn’t going to lose my breath.

“Naomi, wrap your hand around her neck and put her in a guillotine.” I had no idea how Maria could possibly know what that term even meant. Then I realized it wasn’t her voice talking to me. It was a man’s voice.

Backpedalling away from The Killer, I turned to see this handsome, long dark-haired white man cheering me on. “Just put your hand underneath her when she charges you and then lift up, while at the same time using your knee to strike fear into her.”

He was guiding me, I realized. At first I ignored him because this was something I was going to do for myself. When I ended up against the fence with The Killer trying to get her hands into my armpit so that she could turn me and put me to the ground with ease, I thought maybe listening to some outside perspective might be a good idea after all.

I pushed away from her with my feet and my back still against the chain. No doubt that there was an imprint of those chains on my skin, but I had other things to worry about than little things like that.

“I don’t know who the hell you are,” I growled at the man, “but maybe you should stay out of my business.”

He just smiled, and folded his arms.

I danced to my own tune, leveling one strike against Helen’s shoulder, which was supposed to hit her jaw. She moved at the last second, causing my aim to be a little off.

“If you don’t listen to me,” the man said in a falsely sweet tone, “then you’re not going to win this fight. Just wait for the right moment and do exactly what I told you. There’s no reason to be stubborn. Unless you’re looking to go to the hospital tonight?”

The Killer landed two more punches to my midsection. So why not try the guy’s advice?

Her foot came up and this time I moved to avoid it, coming around and grabbing her ankle and pushing her off balance. If I’d known how to do an ankle lock, I would’ve been able to draw her down to the ground and wrap my legs around hers and pull back, until she was tapping out like a little girl. Instead, I had to use what I had, which was very little against somebody with her experience. I didn’t get a chance to research or to look at her moves on the Internet, which definitely put me at a disadvantage. I’d been prepared for a totally different fight.

If I was going to have the moniker of “No Mercy,” then I was going to have to live up to it. I growled and this caught her off guard. It was a psychological play that was going to work in my favor. She had a good half a foot of height on me, but that wasn’t going to play into this.

“I think that you should listen to him,” I was surprised to hear The Killer tell me. “Then again, it really doesn’t matter. I’m just playing with you like a cat plays with a mouse.” I thought that she was kidding me, but then she hit me with an elbow that knocked out my mouth guard. “You have promise, but you’re missing the fundamentals. If you don’t get them, then you’re going to be pretty much dead in the water from the moment that you step in here with people like me.”

That was good advice. I just hoped I had time to take it.

When she came forward this time, she lowered her head and that was when I saw my opening and decided to try this move that that guy had described to me. It was hard to get a grip in the light rain falling over us. Our clothes were already clinging to all our naughty bits. Something else to keep the crowds interested.

I finally was able to lock my fingers underneath her and when she tried to escape, the hold got even tighter. I think she panicked a little when she realized what I was trying to do. She was trying to back pedal out of it, but was having very little luck.

“That’s it,” the man yelled in to me. “Pull back and for the love of God get those knees up. You need to make her think of something else, until the oxygen has been depleted. She’ll either tap out or pass out.”

“Hey…” The Killer rasped. “Tell your…boyfriend to shut…up.”

I followed the guy’s directions and leveled a knee up underneath Helen, lifting her off her feet for a second, before coming back down. I heard the outtake of air and her arms went slack. The referee was right there to watch the proceedings and when he saw her go limp, he called an end to it, before things went further than a little bloodshed and moneymaking shots of women groping women.

I’d finished off my opponent, but it wasn’t easy and I was feeling the effects of those kicks to my head and that one shot that she had leveled at my kidneys. I was wheezing but thankfully, nothing was broken. I was declared the winner. I looked over to find the man who had coached me through. He was smiling at me. There couldn’t be a more beautiful sight.

Chapter three

“That was amazing!” Maria chirped as she tended to my wounds. “Didn’t I tell you that you needed to learn those new moves before you get yourself hurt?”

She was using a glue-like substance to close the cut above my eye. I didn’t even know it was there, but it must have happened when The Killer hit me with those kicks. “It was like watching a martial arts display! I think the owner has decided to branch out and invite all sorts of competitors with various fighting skills to compete.”

“Yes well I got to see it firsthand…OWWWWW! Watch what you’re doing.” She was taping the cut now. “I know that it’s most likely going to be a bruise, but that doesn’t mean you can get all medieval medicine on me.”

“Baby. Tough girl in the ring but then you get in my hands and you melt like a lump of sugar.”

“I’ve never been in your hands,” I teased her. “I wouldn’t know.”

“It is something you would not forget. I promise you that.”

Of course it would be that exact moment when my benefactor from the side of the ring came over. In dark jeans and a t-shirt with a strategic rip at the neck, he was more gorgeous than I had realized. “Know why it hurt so much?” he asked without any kind of introduction. “You weren’t prepared. I may be retired, but I do know my way around the ring. You’re a novice, and reckless, but you got potential. Something I’d like to cultivate. If you’re up for it, I would like you to join me at my training center. I have a personal trainer who really knows his way around the octagon. If we’re lucky, we can make you a force to be reckoned with. I have to admit that I was impressed by the fact that you wouldn’t give up. She hit you with a few shots that you didn’t even see coming.”