Always For You (Books 1-3) (32 page)

But now he was dead, Cain had seen to
that. It said a lot about what I had been through over the last
couple of years that seeing him there, a knife in his neck, blood
staining the concrete floor, didn't faze me. I didn't care that he
was dead. In fact, I wished for it. He'd taken me and Emily captive,
he'd stabbed Chase, the man I loved, almost killed him, and he'd have
killed the lot of us if Cain hadn't stopped him. No – I didn't care
that he was dead at all, he deserved what happened to him.

I stepped out of bed and walked into
the kitchen to grab a glass of water. This had become routine,
nothing unusual to me now. I'd often wake at the dead of night, my
mind still locked in that black room, no light filtering in, no sound
but the sniffs of Emily next to me. We'd been kept there for two
nights and days, tied up in the blackness, not knowing what would
happen to us. Whatever that man had felt towards Cain, whatever his
grievance, it was a sickening act of cruelty.

“Another nightmare?” I jumped as I
heard the voice, turning to see Chase standing in the hallway behind
me.

I sighed deeply, nodding. “It's OK,
it's getting easier,” I lied to him.

He walked up to me and squeezed his
arms around my waist, hugging me close from behind and kissing me on
the side of the neck. I felt secure in his arms, like nothing could
touch me. “Come back to bed,” he whispered in my ear.

"Soon," I said, not wanting
to return to the darkness quite yet.

"OK honey, shall I stay with you?"
he asked, his voice soft.

"No, it's fine, you go back to
bed." I knew that he had to get up for work in a few hours and
needed his rest.

He'd left his job with Avery Ash. After
he'd recovered in hospital we talked out the entire John Avery thing.
I had to be honest with him, had to tell him about what had happened
in my past, how I'd got to that point.

I told him about
Room Z
, about
how it was John who tried to buy me for sex. He knew about my drug
problem back then of course - that was how we met - but he didn't
know about the rest. I think it was hard for him to hear at first.
Hard to hear that his boss, his mentor, his father figure, had this
dark side, a secret life where he'd pay for sex from prostitutes. Not
just any type of hooker though - no, he wanted good girls who'd
become truly lost. I was one of those girls, but fate had set me
free.

I told him about how I'd overdosed
right there in front of him, how he'd done nothing to help me. He
protested at first, but he had to know. He had to know what he was
really like if he was to understand what I did, what Cain did.

Then I told him about that night. How
John had worn me down, threatened to fire Chase himself, to ruin his
career. I hated telling him all of it, tainting the memory of the man
he had loved, but I had no choice. If I hadn't, he may never have
been able to look at me in the same way, may never have been able to
accept Cain as part of my life, as my brother. But now, now it was
all behind us, all in the past.

It had forced him to step away from the
world John Avery had introduced him to though, to walk away from
trading, from his endless pursuit of wealth. He'd inherited John's
millions, so he didn't need that now. But more than that, he felt
sick just walking into the office, seeing Avery's name above the
door, knowing what he truly was. He couldn't stand working there any
longer, constantly in John Avery's shadow, constantly reminded of who
he was, of what he'd done.

So, he'd moved on, searched for a
different path, a new purpose. He didn't need to work, he never
needed to work again, not if he didn't want to. But what is life
without purpose, what do you cling to if you don't have a direction,
a path to tread?

So he invested, ploughing his wealth,
John's wealth, into a variety of business ventures that interested
him: restaurants, clubs, shops, and others. He left the major running
of his businesses to those more qualified to take the reigns, but he
was always eager to learn, eager to delve deep into the industries he
was becoming embroiled in. Suffice to say, it made his a very busy
man, but a hugely contented one. For that, I couldn't have been more
happy.

And me? Well, the last year at college
had been difficult, what with everything that had happened. Not only
did I have to take a year out due to grief after
mom
died, and to help me recover from my head injury after the crash, but
since then all that shit with John had gone down, and then everything
with the kidnapper and Chase's stabbing. It all kind of put my
studies into perspective, making me question why I was even at
college in the first place.

Walking into lectures and seminars to
see my classmates natter about the minor dramas in their lives
brought it all home, and made me realize how damn fucked up things
had been recently. I'd look at them and think, "that used to be
me, moaning about minor relationship problems or how hard the last
exam was in school."

I kinda wish, now, that I could return
to that, a blissful ignorance with nothing major to worry about.
First world problems, that's what they were. Dramas that were only
small bumps in the road, minor annoyances that got in the way. What
I'd faced recently, they were massive goddamn potholes, fucking
landslides tumbling down the hill and wiping out the road completely.

Now though, now things were just
settling down. Truth be told, despite everything, life wasn't half
boring now.

July 18
^th
2014

Cain

“Ah baby, come on, don't be like
that.”

“I just can't believe you're still
doing it. Can't you do anything else?”

“Em, you know it's safe. Look, have I
ever gotten hurt, properly hurt? No. Have I had anything worse than a
few stitches? No. Seriously, what's the problem?”

Emily sat on the bed, huffing. “The
problem, Cain, is that yes, you might not have gotten hurt yet, but
it only takes one time. What's gonna happen when you break your leg
or get your head caved in?”

I laughed at the thought.
“Em, that's stupid. You should come see me fight, then you'll see
how safe it is.”
Fuck, why the hell did I
say that. That's the last thing she should do.

“Oh, come down to this dive and watch
you get beaten up and/or beat someone else up in a cage. Not exactly
my idea of a fun Saturday night.”

“Babe, no one beats me up, OK, no
one.”

“Yeah, well, one day someone will,
and then what? You could be put in a wheelchair Cain, or worse.”

“Oh, you've been reading up on the
Internet again haven't you. Come on babe, those things are so rare,
that won't happen to me. Any sport has its dangers.”

“Sport?” she said, “this isn't
sport Cain. It's illegal underground fighting. It's not sport.”

She'd never understand, never feel what
I feel when I step in the ring, in the cage. It wasn't just the
money, it was that excitement, that primal lust for violence. It had
been in me all my life, but never channelled, always getting me in
trouble. Now I was using it for a proper purpose, and I wasn't going
to give it up.

“At least,” she continued, “be
honest with me when you do it. It's all so cloak and dagger with you,
always sneaking off pretending you're working at the bar and then you
roll up in the evening with a black eye or a bust lip.”

“I just know you'll worry if you
think I'm fighting. I don't wanna put you through that all the time.”

“Yeah but it's worse like this. I
don't know when you're fighting and when you're not. For all I know
you might be bust up in hospital somewhere and I wouldn't even know.”

I could tell she was completely
exasperated by everything, her nostrils flaring and her breath heavy.
We'd been through this before, argued about it all, but never like
this.

There was a silence in the room as she
sat on the bed, looking away from me out the window. I could tell
from where I stood that the tears were beginning to flow.
Fuck
sake
. I walked up to her and sat by her on the bed, putting my
hand around her waist and turning her head with my hand to face me.

“The last thing I want is for you to
be upset. You know how much I care about you Em. You're the most
important thing in the world to me.”

She sniffed lightly as I brushed the
tears from her eyes. “Then why don't you say it ever?” she said,
sending her gaze at me.

“Oh Em, come on,” I said, standing
up and pacing around the room. “They're just words. A made up
phrase that doesn't mean anything.”

I stepped back in to her. “Look, I
don't know what to say here. You know how I feel, but I can't stop
fighting. It's become a part of my life now, it's part of me. I don't
know what I'd do without it.”

She sighed deeply and turned away from
me. “I just don't know how much longer I can deal with this. You
don't have to say it, but if you really do love me, you'll stop.
There you go, action speaking louder than words, that's what you
always say. So, show me.”

A silence fell on the room again, a
heavy weight hanging over us. “You know I can't do that, you know I
won't.”

“Then I guess there's nothing more to
say,” she said, her back to me, refusing to turn around.

I could feel her turning to look at me
as I spun round and opened the door, shutting it behind me. I didn't
slam it, I understood how she must feel. But there was nothing I
could do about it, not yet anyway. If I was to get out of the game,
if I was to leave it behind for her, I needed money first, and lots
of it. Despite the good wedge I was getting from my fights, however,
something would need to change for me to make some serious cash.

I headed out the door and
zipped off on my bike, shooting straight to the gym to train. I
needed to pound something, take my frustration out.
What
was all that shit. Were we broken up? I know she doesn't want that
really.

I pulled up outside the gym and headed
inside. I had been training in a clapped out old gym owned by Brad's
uncle, Grant, the sort of place that only serious bodybuilders
trained. He'd been a bodybuilder himself back in the day, and it
still showed. Despite being over 50, the guy was packing some serious
heat underneath his clothes.

I wasn't there to build my body though,
that wouldn't be practical for my fights. No, I trained in an old
studio, away from the gigantic weights and hulking monsters next
door. I had it all set up with training equipment: mats, gloves,
bags, the lot. Best of all though - there was a ring at the side, so
I could spar to get some real fight practice in.

There were a couple of guys I used -
Jimmy and Stash - a couple of local lads who didn't mind getting
their heads punched around for a few bucks. When I needed someone
more serious though, Brad would usually head down to the local boxing
club or martial arts club to find someone with a bit more cred.
Usually they'd had more training than me, but I liked the challenge,
and always stepped up to the plate.

Uri was my main trainer though, the guy
putting me through my paces, teaching me. He was the Mickey to my
Rocky, an old school grappler who knew all there was to know about
cage and street fighting. As soon as I clapped eyes on him, all those
months ago, I could tell he'd been round the block a few times. His
face was so fucking scarred it looked like a cutting board.

I walked straight through
the gym into the studio and started pounding a boxing bag until my
knuckles went numb. All this relationship drama was new to me. Throw
me into a brawn with some guy outside a bar any day ahead of a
domestic with a girlfriend.
I knew my fucking
body more than her, I knew that I wouldn't get hurt. Why wouldn't she
trust me?

“You all right bro, that bag cheat on
your missus or something?”

I turned to see Brad walking through
the door, the skin on my knuckles now cracked and bleeding. “Shit
man, what's going on?” he said, seeing my hands.

“Nothing,” I lied, “just a thing
with Em. Doesn't matter.”

“Well good to see that you're
channelling that anger into something positive,” he said lightly.

“Where's Uri?” I asked, not seeing
him appear beside Brad as he usually did.

“He's not coming today unfortunately.
Some family thing.”

For some reason I never thought of Uri
as having a family. I just saw his as this ultimate Russian badass, a
machine designed to tear people apart. I'd seen some footage of his
old fights on the net, and hell yeah did he used to bring it. If I'd
have ever got in the ring with him like he was back then, he'd rip me
to shreds. But then, from an official standpoint I was pretty new to
this, despite my years of street fighting and drunken brawls.

When you stepped into the ring with a
properly trained fighter, it was a completely different story. I'd
found that out the hard way when I fought Rex. It was from that point
on that I committed to training properly - I certainly didn't want to
end up on the wrong end of a beating like that again. I guess I'd got
the better of him in the end though, as much as I still hated to
think of it.

“
Right Cain, let's run
through your drills. Just a light session today, no grappling, no
sparring, let's focus on fitness.” Brad had become a decent trainer
himself, learning as we went along. He was acting in a sort of half
manager, half trainer, half promoter, sort of roll, if that's not too
many halves to have. He'd also been training alongside me a lot with
an eye to stepping in the ring himself. He was a pretty big guy,
ripped and strong, and I'd been in a fair few fights with him in the
past, the two of us backing each other up. If he got in the ring, I
was sure he'd do just as well as I had.