Fight for Her #4: MMA New Adult Contemporary Romantic Suspense (8 page)

I don’t want to get too far from that hole in the fence. It’s hard to see with the trailing vines. If I take off running, I’ll just hit wall after wall. I’m sure the front gate is locked tight by now.

“What do you want?” I ask, willing my voice to be steady. But it’s almost a squeak.

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

I can’t see anything but her eyes. But her voice does seem familiar.

“Are you one of Striker’s friends?”

“Something like that.”

“What do you want?” I ask again, taking a few steps back.

“I told you to break up with him.”

“I did!”

“And then you flew to LA just to let him bone you?”

Bone you
. That was very familiar. Only one girl ever used to say that.

“Lani?” I ask. She was Parker’s longtime friend.

She pulls down her hood. “So you do remember me.”

“Why are you involved with this?”

She walks in a circle around me. Her hair is tied back in braids. She’s not much different from how I remember.

She’s not answering, just looking at me as she paces. When Parker and I were dating, Lani was always working out at the gym. I don’t remember her actually doing any fighting, but she was constantly around. She had a brother who was a fighter, I think.

Then it dawns.

“Is Striker your brother?”

She reaches out and thumps me on the head with her thumb. “She remembers!”

“I didn’t know him then.”

“Sounds like you do now!” She’s still walking around me. It’s making me anxious, this endless circling.

I take a few steps away to mess up her pattern. She halts.

“I think he took a shine to you in Vegas,” she says.

I remember Striker looking at me, my dress up around my thighs. How angry that blue-haired girl would get.

“He has a girlfriend,” I say.

“He has toys,” she spits out. “An annoying habit of his.”

I don’t know what she wants, but I feel like I need to cut this short. “I have to get home,” I say and start moving toward the cut fence.

In several quick steps, she has cut me off. “To see your little girl?” she asks.

God, I hope Parker has called Colt and that they are at Mom’s house. “You stay away from her,” I say.

“Or you’ll do what? Sew me to death?” she laughs. “When I saw you were a grunt for that stupid designer, I couldn’t stop laughing. Do you pick out buttons?”

Whatever. I couldn’t care less that she’s making fun of my job. I try to go around her to the fence.

Her arm flies out to stop me. “We’re not done here.”

I fling it off. “Yes, we are. You keep threatening me, I’ll take it to the cops.”

“No,” she says, with enough force to make me pause. “You would have called them by now if you were going to.”

I start walking again.

“You afraid of going public?” Lani asks. “Afraid of your little girl’s face being in the news?”

I keep going. Whatever intimidation she thought was going to work on me is done. Since they know about Lily, it’s time to go for the police. In fact, screw it, I’ll do it now. I tug my phone out of my pocket. I have just hit the button to wake it up when I’m knocked to the ground.

“I don’t think so,” Lani says and snatches my phone from my hand. She flings it across the cemetery. I can’t see where it lands.

I roll away to stand up, but she’s on me, on my back, her arms locking around my neck. God, she wants a fight. A real fight.

“This is so stupid,” I say.

“Keep talking while you can, bitch,” she says.

Her arm tightens around my throat. It’s not really constricting me, but her weight pushing me into the dirt is painful.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask.

“You didn’t do what you were told.”

I grapple for her wrist, trying to pull her arm away. She’s surprisingly strong for her size, and well trained. I don’t know anything other than what I’ve seen in matches.

I grab a handful of dirt, squeeze my eyes shut, and throw it at both our faces. She lets go in surprise and I roll away, rubbing my sleeve across my eyes before trying to open them.

“You little bitch,” she screams.

I scramble for the fence. This girl is bat-shit crazy. No telling what she might do.

Lani recovers enough to come after me. She jumps on my back and we go back down. Damn it. I cannot lose this girl. But even if I do, I realize she’ll still be around. She’ll try it again.

And next time I might be with Lily.

My hatred of this girl burns so hard that I find a strength I didn’t know I had. I roll on my back even with Lani on it. When I’m on top of her, I slam my elbow back into her ribs. When I hear her “Ooof,” I do it again on the other side.

She doesn’t let go, though. She’s tough.

Lani might be trained, but I was one scrappy bitch growing up in the rough part of town where I ran around. She starts working her legs to get the advantage on me, to get me off her. But I’m not giving up either. I plant my feet on the ground and lift my hips, then slam back down on her with all my might.

This stills her for a second and I elbow her again, over and over, as much as I can.

Now she’s riled. Her body lurches at the same time her arms push hard on my back. I fly off her. My elbow digs into the dirt, and I roll over.

But she’s fast. She’s on her feet, and before I can get above hands and knees, she’s kicked me hard in the belly. I feel like my gut has exploded, pain rocketing through me. She switches legs and kicks again, and I know I have to get up. If I don’t, I’ll get hurt very bad very fast.

I spin away, stifling the urge to throw up everywhere. I can barely breathe.

She comes up behind me with a strange stutter step. She’s going to do some martial-arts move. The motion feels familiar from watching Parker. I lunge out of her path to throw her off and hopefully miss the worst force of whatever blow she’s planning.

Her foot grazes my thigh. It hurts, but probably not nearly as much as what she intended. Time to find out how fast she runs.

I suck in a deep breath and take off. I’m wishing for tennis shoes, but at least I’m in decent flats. I’m not sure where I’m going or what I’ll do, but it seems better to force her to chase me and have both of us be tired to even the playing field. Hopefully her fighting moves won’t come with quite as much force when she’s winded.

I realize I went the wrong way as we approach the far side of the park. The fence on this side is a solid mass of white. The chain link could at least be climbed, although Lani would probably pull me back down. Now that I’ve gone deeper into the cemetery, no one can even see us fighting to call the cops.

That’s at least one thing I can do. Keep the action as publicly viewable as possible.

I’m taller than Lani and while she’s probably in better shape, I can outrun her just on leg length. I come up to a flagpole and decide to reverse my path back toward the fence with a view of the cemetery.

My hand connects with the smooth steel of the pole, and I use it as leverage to make the tight turn.

Lani is close on my heels but can’t stop fast enough to switch directions as quickly. So I keep my lead and head for the part of the fence that has the least amount of vines obscuring the view.

Halfway across, though, I start to slow down. I’m not in good enough shape for this. There’s a slight roll to the hill here and I try to keep my pace, but Lani catches up to me while we’re still fairly hidden from the fence. I should have started screaming the minute she came up on me, while we were close to the jogging path. Maybe then someone would have heard and called for help right off.

She leaps for me, grasping me around the waist to bring me down. I hit the ground with a hard crunch.

I have to get closer to that fence. I writhe and struggle, pushing at her, kicking at her legs to get her away. Her grip is fierce. I’m exhausted and angry. Why is she doing this to me? What does her problem with her brother and Parker have to do with me?

I can’t stop to think about this. I have to survive it. I give it everything I’ve got, wildly throwing elbows and kicking with my legs and wrenching around with twists of my body.

I get free again and I’m off like a shot, adrenaline giving me a second wind now that I have a goal — the fence.

I’m close enough for screams to be heard when she catches me again. But as I go down, I see something that makes my blood go cold. Another figure dressed in dark clothes, jumping over the fence.

If Lani has help, I’m a goner.

Chapter 15: Parker

I can see the two of them rolling in the dirt. The fence is nothing. I scale it and jump over in a flash.

They’re far off, though, and as I run toward their struggling figures, someone else is also heading for them. This one is a man, and he’s dressed in black. Lani must have backup.

He reaches the girls first and snatches Maddie up. At first I think he’s breaking up the fight, but then he holds her arms back so Lani can get a clean punch.

I bust into a full-tilt sprint.

Lani lands a hard jab to Maddie’s face. Her head snaps to one side.

I see nothing but red.

The man notices me coming and lets Maddie drop to the ground. Instead of falling, though, Maddie surprises me. She jumps on Lani and pins her with her legs. Then she pounds her face with a ferociousness I’ve only seen inside the cage. Jesus, she’s going to break her hands.

When I get to them, I’m not sure what to do. The other man is just watching, probably as much in surprise as me. Lani is caught beneath Maddie, trying to get her arms up. But Maddie has either gotten lucky or knows to brace her knees on Lani’s arms. It’s a very effective submission hold.

I move to lift Maddie away, but she growls, “Don’t even think about it.”

I’m not totally sure she knows it’s me, but I pull my hands back.

This seems to jolt the other guy out of his shock and he reaches for her instead. I knock him backward.

He takes a punch at me, and another fight is on.

I land three fast jabs and turn for a sweeping roundhouse that takes him to the ground. He lands one elbow to my ribs, then backs away, hands out.

“I don’t want to fight you, man,” he says. “That’s not why I’m here.”

When he moves into the light, I recognize him. Rough Ride. I’ve gone up against him at least three times in the cage. I drop my hands. “What the hell?” I ask.

“Lani just asked me to watch out for her, be backup in case a fight went south.” He turns to the fence. “She didn’t say nothing about a pro fighter being here.”

He scales the fence and takes off.

I turn around. Maddie is still sitting on Lani, hitting her like she’s a punching bag. This time I grasp her and pull her off.

Lani immediately rolls away and sits up.

I hold Maddie tight. “Hey,” I tell her. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

“Stay away from my daughter,” she yells at Lani. “Or I’ll kill you.”

Lani feels at her face. She has blood coming from her nose. Even though Maddie gave it all she had, Lani’s probably been up against worse.

“That was a lucky pin,” Lani says.

“Fuck you,” Maddie spits at her.

My phone buzzes but I can’t look at it now.

“You need to back the hell off,” I tell Lani. “You and Striker are going to end up in prison. Is that what you want?”

“Fuck both of you,” Lani says, dusting off her knees. “I’m not ever going to let up on you.”

Maddie lunges for her and I decide to let her go. I’ll break up anything that looks too bad.

Lani’s still sitting on the ground, and damn it all if Maddie doesn’t figure it out again, knocking her backward and landing with her knees on her arms. “Like this?” she says. She punches Lani with her bloodied hands again, but I can tell the pain is holding her back.

“Use your elbows,” I say.

Maddie switches immediately and this time Lani starts to struggle against her. She’s actually feeling it this time.

Now a crowd is coming up to the fence. Damn it, they’re both going to get arrested if this goes on much longer.

“Maddie,” I call out. “Hey. Come on. Stop it.”

“I can’t stop it,” she says. “She’ll keep coming.”

I walk over and pull her off Lani again. This time Lani stays down, hands to her face.

I hold Maddie close to me. “Come on now. We have to find another way.”

Maddie looks up at me, tears mixing in with the blood and dirt on her face. “You? You’re saying that? Don’t you fight to earn a living?”

I don’t have anything to say to that. I just keep her close.

A bright light shines on us from inside the cemetery, and then two more from the opposite side of the fence. A man in a cop uniform approaches us from the paths and two more peer through the chain link.
 

The one inside strides up swiftly. “Come with me,” he says gruffly.

One of the other cops from outside jumps the fence. The second, a heavier guy, stays on the sidewalk side.

“I’ve got these two,” our cop says. “That one attacked this woman. You can arrest her and take her in.”

The other cop squints at our guy. “Sure, Esposito. You going to do the papers on them?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I’ll take them in.”

He walks over to Lani. She jumps up like she’s going to run, but the cop says, “You don’t want to do that. I’ve got a cruiser waiting to pick you up anywhere you exit this park.”

She stops.

“Come on,” Esposito says. “Come with me.” He takes each of us by the arm and leads us down one of the cemetery paths.

“You taking us downtown?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer for a little while. When we approach the main gate, he says, “I want you to get to this little lady’s house and stay out of any more trouble tonight. Got it?”

“You’re not going to arrest us?” Maddie asks.

Esposito lets go of our arms and unlocks one of the smaller side gates in the wall of the cemetery. “Not as long as you fix the hole in that silk shirt like you promised.”

And that’s when I get it. Jax. The bullet hole from the fiasco in Vegas. He must know this cop.

Esposito opens the gate. “I’ll walk behind you for two blocks, then you take it the rest of the way. You can do that?”