Break Me (Alpha MMA Fighter) (29 page)

He told himself to stop being paranoid. To trust her, like they’d both agreed to do. But it did gnaw at him the more he thought about it. Rose’s entire journey to reach this day—the disguise, the play-acting, the training, the incredible determination—had always been about saving Cate. Now that she had done that, how much did the rest mean to her? Was it not all just a means to end?

Was
he
just a means to an end? The biggest fight of his life, and she wasn’t even going with him? Did he mean that little to her?

“She might want to come along,” he suggested. “I could get you both great seats. VIP treatment. The works.”

“Aw, that’s sweet. I just don’t think that’s the best thing for her right now. This is enough of a wrench as it is.” Her response came across as patronizing. It cut him.

“Maybe you should ask her. And I’m not so sure
I’d
be comfortable leaving you two alone here, what with everything that’s happened—is still happening.”

“I can take care of myself,” she said coldly, then paused. “But I’ll ask her if it’ll make you happy.”

“I think it’d be good for her. For all of us.”

She didn’t reply.

“But if you really don’t want to come, I guess that’s your choice,” he said.

“I’m just trying to look out for her, to do what’s best for Cate.”

“I know. It’s what you’ve always done.”

“But I’ll let her decide,” she said.

“Okay.”

She snuggled up to him. “Thanks for everything, Avery. I’ll never forget what you did for me and Cate.”

If that wasn’t a thinly veiled farewell, he’d never heard one.
But,
a voice inside him insisted,
you could be reading it all wrong. She might be the genuine one, and you just can’t handle trusting her not to let you down.

“Avery? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. I was just thinking…”

“A doubloon for your thoughts.”

“I was just thinking…whether I should hide the keys to my Camaro.”

Rose put her hands to his throat. “You do and I’ll knock you out myself.”

“I guess I was always going to lose this one.”

“True.”

“I couldn’t keep her to myself forever.”

“Nope.”

“And she’ll be safe without me? Nothing bad will happen to her?”

“Scout’s honor.”

He tried to resist the somber vibe welling up inside him. Rose still thought he was talking about the car. Or did she?

“Wish me luck, then?” he said.

“Always. But you really don’t need it against this bozo. Honestly, I think
I
could take him.”

“Then it’s settled. I stay and you go.”

“Deal.”

It was an amusing fantasy while it lasted. At least he’d be here for her when she got back. As it was, he’d just have to hope she felt the same way about him. The biggest gamble of his life might not be in Vegas after all then; it was right here. Rose was its name.

Whether he won or lost was now out of his hands, no matter how hard he fought in Vegas.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The roar of the crowd seemed to surge around him like a maelstrom. He’d lost track of where he was in the ring, which corner his was. All he could do was block instinctively and try to keep his crazed opponent at arm’s reach. Grillo’s sudden onslaught had come out of nowhere. He’d been sluggish, even lazy in the third round. Avery had scored some tremendous hits, including one acrobatic takedown that had whipped the audience into an absolute frenzy. But Grillo had the bit between his teeth now, in the middle of the fourth. And he was really starting to chomp.

Avery covered up his face, desperate not to take any more of those caveman kicks Grillo was hurling at him. Two had already rocked him, had knocked him onto the ropes. All he could do now was try to ride out this storm. If he dropped his guard for even a second, if he went for any kind of counter, it would be like sticking his head out into a blizzard of flying anvils.

Grillo’s assault was relentless. He’d saved his stamina for this salvo, and this was clearly his endgame strategy. To destroy Avery here and now in the fourth round. He didn’t want to see a fifth and final round. Not after this effort. No. Grillo was cashing in his chips…

He switched things up and went low instead. Avery took a heavy punch to the ribs. Another on the opposite side when he shifted his guard to cover the first.
Sonofabitch
. It winded him. He struggled to gasp in enough air to maintain this intensity, to stay with his huge opponent. Breathing was everything, he knew.

Grillo pounded away at Avery’s low guard, forcing an opening. He went high again, caught Avery on the left ear with a stinger. It smarted like hell. Too much. The pain infuriated him; it felt personal, a cheap shot. He decided he would get his own back for that.

After another flurry of Grillo’s headshots—all blocked—Avery glimpsed an opening of his own. The big ape was undisciplined now. Just throwing everything he had. The next time he went to the body or tried to grab him, Avery would jam his elbows down onto the bastard’s wrists and try to break something.

But he didn’t get that chance.

Grillo went low all right, but not with his fists. He lunged at Avery’s legs and, before Avery could counter, the bastard had flung him up high and sidewise off his feet. But he didn’t let go. He was clearly dumping Avery into some kind of twisted submission position…onto which Grillo would be able to hurl his full eighteen stone. Once under that, Avery doubted he had
any
chance of reversing it.

He decided before he hit the canvas that he wasn’t going out like that. Not today. In mid-air, his options were limited, but his arms and upper body were free. Also, Grillo’s head was in a vulnerable position. The big guy was thinking two moves ahead. He’d gambled on this takedown being a slam-dunk.

An image flashed into Avery’s mind. It wasn’t a memory. It was something he’d imagined. Rose, as a girl, curled up into an impenetrable ball as her stepdad tried to hurt her. Sure, that punishment was inevitable, but so was the payback she’d planned all the while she was in her cocoon. In the end, he would come off the worst. She would soak up all his hate and, in the end, use it against him.

He understood all this in a flash, in a moment of inspiration.

Avery rammed his elbows down onto the back of Grillo’s neck. In mid-air, Grillo loosened his hold on his Avery’s legs. Then, just before landing, Avery jammed his knees up high, so that he was practically in a ball. He landed on his back on the canvas. The moment of impact coincided with his knees hitting Grillo’s jaw. Avery didn’t so much hear the crunch as felt it; the noise of the crowd deafened.

Grillo scrabbled backward, nursing his jaw.

Avery knew it was all over. He’d used the big guy’s own weight, his momentum, against him. Grillo’s face had fallen smack onto two solid kneecaps.

Like a predator, Avery pounced onto his wounded opponent and slapped an iron sleeper hold on him. He applied pressure on the sorest places, right under his grip. The big guy writhed around for a few moments, even tried getting to his feet. But Avery wrapped his legs around the giant frame and squeezed all the harder.

The referee, a vulture-like blur flapping about somewhere close by, hopped around them. He dove down beside them, watching for a signal.

A blitz of camera flashes made the spaces between the ropes seem like they were filled with glass. Avery couldn’t see much of anything. Or anyone. But he thought of Rose. Cheering him on from Mitre. She’d ridden out her storm and had prevailed, stronger than ever, on the other side.

That
was what made a fighter. And she was the bravest fighter he’d ever known. It made him squeeze even harder.

Then Grillo tapped out.

The world erupted around him.

***

In real time, seconds must have passed. In victory time, it might have been minutes or even hours. From the moment the referee raised Avery’s arm to the moment people starting rushing for the ring, he was someplace else. Watching it all unfold through the slipstream of that final, frantic struggle. He felt tired, hurt, but most of all elated. Just…elated. Outside himself, and not even trying to come to terms with the enormity of what he’d achieved. Just…floating on the tide of energy this arena was sending his way.

His right eye was pretty much closed now. The swelling and the throbbing registered more and more through the vapors of his waning adrenaline. He saw a figure leap up onto the edge of the ring. An oily blur. Avery focused with his left eye and saw the black-and-green shirt, black pants, tanned skin, and dark hair. The way this guy moved. It could only be Luca, come to celebrate with him in the eye of the storm.

The one person in his life he’d always been able to rely on. This was Luca’s victory as much as it was his. Everything his brother had done, everything he was…it had shaped him as much, if not more, than Maggie ever had. He couldn’t wait for them to raise their arms together, for all the world to see.

But Luca stopped at the ropes. He didn’t rush in.

Was somebody trying to stop him? One of the officials?

Fuck that!

Avery started toward his brother. Hell, he might have to drag him into the ring if those bastards had other ideas. What were they
playing
at?

He saw that Luca was holding the center rope up for someone to climb through. Avery stopped. Jesus, his whole body ached and throbbed. He didn’t know what kind of a mess he looked like, and he didn’t much want to know. It was habit keeping him on his feet. Instinct and habit. He’d taken the pummelling of his life, and now he wanted to lie down.

But champions didn’t lie down in the ring. Not ever. That was instinct, too.

Luca seemed to be ages holding the ropes apart like that, and Avery thought it must be for him. His kid brother was making it easier for him to climb out. It just didn’t make sense, was all. His time in the ring had not elapsed. He needed to savor this moment in front of the world a while longer.

It was a little disappointing, Luca wanting him out of here so soon like this…
at a
time like this
.

Celebrating alone wasn’t quite what he’d had in mind. His vision still a bit of a blur, he turned to walk a victory lap around the ring. Raised his arm aloft…

The crowd erupted again. He glanced over his shoulder, hoping Luca had changed his mind.

Her saw a girl ducking under the ropes instead. Well, she was skinny enough to be a girl, but brash, agile, in a hurry. In the time it took his punch-drunk brain to realize who it was, she’d sprinted across the ring and was leaping into his arms.

He caught her. Clutched her to him. Buried his face in the exotic softness of her hair. She said nothing. He said nothing. The wave of acclaim broke all around them but couldn’t get in. They wouldn’t let it. Not now. Not ever. The only thing that mattered was Rose being here with him. Somehow, she was here in his arms. On the biggest stage of his career, that was the only victory he cared about.

He paraded her around the ring several times, with Luca at his side. He’d never felt a pride like it before, an overwhelming sense of fulfilment he didn’t think he’d ever be able to top. The audience didn’t stop cheering. And somewhere out there, he thought he heard Maggie’s voice calling to him, telling him he’d done good, but that he shouldn’t let it go to his head. No, even the best things never lasted forever. You had to appreciate them, to make the most of them while you could.

And he decided right there, that as long as Rose was with him, fighting would never be the most important thing in his life again. It boiled down to something like this:
Alone, nothing was certain. Together, anything was possible.

***

After the post-fight interviews and the rubdown and the medical check-ups, he was dead on his feet. As much as he wanted to join Rose, Cate, and Luca for a five-star supper, courtesy of the tournament sponsor, he told them he had to crash. The painkillers, though mild, considering what he’d been through, were starting to kick in.

Rose tucked him into bed and told him she’d see him tomorrow morning for breakfast. She and Cate had a double room in a nearby, less expensive hotel. Seeing Luca hold hands with Cate, and Rose ushering them both out of his room like some over-protective nanny, left him grinning like an idiot as the pain meds and the tiredness dragged him into a welcome sleep.

He woke a few hours later, surprisingly charged and lucid. The faraway beat of club music drew him to the window. He peered out, down along the Vegas Strip. It was no longer busy, but everywhere was still brilliantly lit: neon signs, casino entrances, hotel forecourts. Sore, Avery considered getting back into bed, but the tiredness had left him. His mind was racing, too fast and too hyped for a pillow pit-stop. It was as if his brain had woken him up to do something specific, only he didn’t know what.

Tonight, he’d beaten the best fighter on the planet. No one discipline yielded the best, only MMA, an open door to any and all disciplines, brought out a fighter’s true toughness. It wasn’t a dance like boxing; it wasn’t predicated on technique, like Judo or Jiu-Jitsu. You had to beat not only your opponent’s learned skills, but his animal savagery as well. Style was often a weakness, a façade. The more direct you were, the quicker you could put the hurt on him. And tonight, he had put the hurt on Seth Grillo, Heavyweight Champion.

But it didn’t feel like any other victory he’d had. He couldn’t describe why. No title had changed hands, true, but there was something else missing. Not in a bad way, just…different. Not as personal somehow. As though he’d done what he’d promised himself and that was that. No need to dwell on it.

It was a strange way to feel about a fight that had just netted him millions of dollars.

The urge to get dressed and revisit the arena, alone, suddenly became hard to resist. He had to go back there one last time. He
had
to know what was different about this win.

***

Even in half light, without the floodlights and most of the overheads, the energy inside the Dux Royale arena had not fully dissipated. It was still a charged atmosphere. The smell of sweat and the wisps of lingering fragrance were a potent combination. Together with the massive open space and his memories of looking out at the tide of spectators—the weight of expectation, the buoyant thrill of the limelight—this was another indelible time and place to have fought in. Indelible, but also typical. It was no more special than some of the other venues he’d fought at across the country.

Avery crouched in the center of the ring, touched his flat palm to the canvas. He could almost feel the heart of the arena, still beating to the crazy rhythm of the contest. If he listened carefully, would he be able to hear Maggie’s voice again?

He closed his eyes and concentrated.

All he heard was the sound of rustling and the occasional clatter that echoed across the arena. Custodians and part-time staff toting garbage bags and trolleys around as they cleaned the rows of seats and the stanchions, an operation that would last all through the night.