Fight for Her #4: MMA New Adult Contemporary Romantic Suspense (9 page)

I nod. “Thanks.”

We head down the street. I pull my phone from my pocket to check the message that came through a few minutes ago. I have a feeling I know who it is.

Looks like you are ready for a little police presence.

Yep. It was Jax.

Chapter 16: Maddie
 

As I pass my distorted reflection in the windows of the hospital, I pat the thick coat of makeup on my face, covering the bruises. I’m starting to look like a fighter’s girlfriend, I think. I turn and wave to the man in dark glasses who is driving the car that brought me. Another security guard. Colt’s father apparently has an army of them.

I tug open the door. The ice packs took down the swelling on my face after my fight with Lani, but they couldn’t get rid of the purplish bruising along my cheekbone. Thankfully she didn’t get either of my eyes. I never wear makeup usually, but I wanted to hide this before visiting my father this morning.

When I left, two bodyguards were stationed at the house. At first my mom and Delores were upset at the thought of anyone hanging around.

Then they saw them.

Both are big as boulders, broad as a front porch, and chiseled as body builders. Every time Delores passes the one in her living room, she fans herself. Even Mom has silenced her bitter tongue, baking lemon cakes and making tea.

It’s been a good thing all around. I’m calmer. Parker’s more at ease. After Parker told Lily they were both former boxers, Lily started wearing her gloves, sneaking up on them, and shouting, “Pow pow!” as she pummeled their knees.

They are as unmoving as British castle guards, although I swear the one by the back door cracks a smile every once in a while. Parker says Jo attacked both of them in the hospital so she could see Colt. She must have looked like a grasshopper jumping on the Chrysler building.

The elevator takes me to Dad’s floor. I hope he doesn’t notice my face. He has more than enough to worry about with his lungs refilling with fluid every few hours. My only consolation is that Parker found him, and now we can help. He wouldn’t have lasted another day out in that cemetery.

I knock on his door. He’s propped up a little higher this morning.

“Madelyn,” he says.

I come in and sit on the edge of the bed. “How are you doing this morning, Dad?”

“I might be better.”

“Did they have to suction you?”

He grins. “Yes, but the nurse who handles the machine is worth the pain.”

I shake my head. “You’re terrible.”

“I tried to get her to sneak me in a little hooch but they said nope, they are cleaning up my act.”

I try not to overreact. “Dad, you have to stop drinking.”

“Yes, your mother tried to convince me years ago.” He looks down at the sheets at his trembling hands. I realize they aren’t shaking from his illness or his age. It’s his addiction.

“We can get you help for that too now.”

He tucks his hands beneath the sheets. “Somebody’s going to take my place in the angel house,” he says.

“The what?” I have no idea what he is talking about.

“In the cemetery. It’s one of the best spots.”

“Is that where you would sleep?”

He shifts on the bed to get more comfortable. “Sleeping with the angels. Most people dream about it.”

My throat closes up. Years on the streets have taken their toll. “You sure you’re okay?”

Dad looks at me. “Right as rain. Warm bed. Clean sheets. Hot food. Other than the lack of hooch.”

I will have to look up some rehabs and find him a room. This is what started the whole problem.

Or was it my mother?

Maybe I could work on that too.

“You look troubled, my Madelyn. Are you all right?” His face is calm and concerned, like the father I knew when I was small. His eyes narrow. “Is something wrong with your cheek?”

My hand flies to my face. “I’m fine, Daddy,” I say.

“Did somebody hit you?”

“No, I mean, I got in a little scrape in the street.”

He sits up tall now. “What sort of scrape?”

“Just with a girl. I’m fine.”

His breath comes faster, and then the coughing starts. He snatches up a cloth to his mouth.

I move closer and rub my hand across his back until it subsides. I glance at the monitors. No alarm goes off this time. That must mean he’s a little better.

“Don’t worry about me,” I say.

He talks in small bursts. “Is that…boy watching out…for you?”

“Parker? Yes. He’s at Mom’s house now with Lily.”

Dad nods. His breathing starts to calm. “Hold on to that one.”

“You keep saying that.”

He pats my hand. “Because it’s true.”

“What if things aren’t perfect? What if there’s bad things about being with Parker?”

He squeezes my fingers. “Has he hurt you? Is he cruel?”

“No, no. Not that. Just in his business. They aren’t nice people.”

Dad leans back against his pillow. “There will always be awful people,” he says. “That’s why you surround yourself with the good ones.” He smiles at me. “A buffer against the world.”

He closes his eyes. The coughing fits are always hard on him.

There’s a knock at the door. I turn around and stand up in a rush when I see it’s Mom. “What are you doing here?” I ask.

“I believe this is my husband,” she says flatly. I guess they never officially divorced.

But I know that voice. The bitter one. It’s the sound of my childhood.

“Don’t you come in here to be mean to him,” I say. She’s my mother, but I won’t stand for her doing anything else to my dad.

She lifts a foil-covered plate. “I brought him some lemon cake.”

Dad sits back up. “Lemon cake? Oh, your famous lemon cake.” He pinches his arm and frowns. “Apparently I’ve died.”

Mom sets the plate on the side table with a bang. “And now you’re in hell.”

Dad looks over at her. “Well, that’s where I figured we were both headed. Might as well pull up a chair and eat some cake.”

I take a few steps back. They’re sniping at each other, which is new. Back when they still lived together, Mom would get nasty and Dad would just bow his head like a browbeaten dog.

Mom takes it all in stride. She plops down in the side chair. “I’m too fat to be eating cake.”

Dad shakes his head. “You’re as beautiful as ever.”

I can’t do anything but stare at them.

“I hear you’re half-dead,” she says.

“Just half,” he fires back. “And the other half is perked up now.”

Mom settles back on the chair. She’s dressed up a little in a long black skirt and a flowery blouse. She’s kept her hair as black as mine with dye and it’s piled up on her head. She looks pretty good.

“You gonna open that cake or am I going to sit here smelling it until I’m all the way dead?” he asks.

Mom leans over and pulls the foil off the cake. “I even brought that silly cake fork that your grandmother brought over on the boat,” she says. She hands him a small polished fork.

I remember it well. It’s one of the few things from Dad’s Italian immigrant family. He never let anybody else use it. It was one of the things Mom sniped at him about.

Dad holds it up to the light like it’s a jewel. “I’ve missed this fork,” he says.

Mom shakes her head.

He passes it over to her. “You take the first bite.”

At first Mom is too surprised to arrange her expression into something bitter. I lean against the wall. I don’t know what’s brought this on.

Maybe just knowing someone you used to love might be dying.

“You’re teasing me,” she says, her voice losing its sharp edge.

“Nope.” He holds out the fork.

She takes it, and despite what she said earlier, slices it through the cake and takes a bite.

“Oh, that’s good cake,” she says.

“Always was,” Dad adds.

She passes him the fork.

I know my mouth is hanging open. They’re acting like they’re passing cake at their wedding.

“You going to eat it now?” Mom asks.

“Seems safe enough,” Dad says. He sticks the fork into the creamy yellow frosting.

“What do you mean by that?” Mom insists.

“I just had to make sure it wasn’t poisoned.”

Mom smacks him on the shoulder.

I feel like I might fall over.

Dad glances over at me. “You still here, Madelyn?”

Mom waves me away with her hand. “Go check on your aunt. She’s probably embarrassing herself by walking around those men in nothing but a towel and her shriveling old skin.”

I walk up to Dad and give him a quick hug. “I’ll come back later,” I say.

He holds up the fork. “Make sure you have this when it’s time for a wedding.”

Mom snaps her head around, startled, but for the first time in my own life, and probably hers, she keeps her mouth shut.

“Okay, Daddy,” I say. I kiss his cheek.

And try not to totally freak completely out as I walk out of the room.

Chapter 17: Parker
 

The word gets to us in the late afternoon. I’m sitting on the floor of Maddie’s mother’s house, playing jacks with Lily. Dang nuisance of a game, but Delores insists it’s the best game ever invented. I can’t seem to get my grubby paw to pick up any of the jacks between ball bounces.

“Your phone is buzzing like crazy,” Maddie says. She walks it over to me, eyes still on a brochure for a rehab facility she picked up at the hospital that morning.

I take it from her.

“Got three,” Lily says, holding up the jacks. “I’m going to win.”

“When did you learn to count?” I say, snatching her up and tickling her belly. “You’re supposed to let your poor old daddy win some of the time.”

She giggles and squirms out of my grasp. “I can count to eleven!” she says and sits back in front of the scattered jacks.

I punch the phone on. There’s a bunch of messages from Colt. I scan them and laugh out loud. “That Jax is something.”

“What about the jacks?” Lily asks.

Maddie looks up from the brochure. “What this time?”

I show her the phone. Her eyebrows lift as she reads. “Really?”

“What about the jacks?” Lily asks again.

I take the ball from her. “Daddy is going to lose at them,” I say. My chest feels a lot lighter.

Striker got arrested last night, about the same time as Lani after attacking Maddie. Neither got out on bail, due to their histories.

Lani violated her probation from the attack on Colt. She’ll probably get out again, but not for a while.

Striker, though, got busted on four counts. His warehouse brawl got busted by the Vegas police. Illegal fights. Unregulated gambling. Drug dealing. And prostitution.

“Really?” Maddie asks. “The last one?”

I shrug. Jax probably did that one as a joke.

“There’s a link to an article about it,” I say. I take the pink ball from Lily and try once again to pick up a dang jack between bounces. The ball hits the edge of a tile and goes wild.

“Daddy, you’re just no good,” Lily says.

“They received an anonymous tip,” Maddie says. “And now his fingerprints are matching up to a dozen other crimes in the area.”

“Sounds like he’s in for some hard time,” I say.

Maddie sits on the floor next to us. “So what do we do now?”

“We can probably call off the guards.”

Delores walks into the room right as I say it. “What?” she asks. “Oh, no. They have to stay.”

Maddie and I glance at each other and laugh.

“What about the fight with Viper?” Maddie asks.

Lily bounces the ball and expertly picks up a handful of jacks. She’s got dexterity. And not from me.

“I signed a contract to do the fight,” I say.

“So you’ll do it?” she says.

“It’s a pretty big kill fee to cancel,” I reply.

“Where’s it going to be?”

“Here in LA,” I say.

Her shoulders relax. I can tell she didn’t want to go to Vegas.

“If you want me to stop, I’ll stop,” I say. “I can take out a loan, pay the kill fee, return the sponsor money.”

“Of course not.” She absently picks up a jack. Lily takes it from her and scatters the whole set on the floor again. Apparently we’re starting another game.

“I’ll just do the fight. If I lose, it’s over anyway. If I win, I’ll turn down the league slot.” Every time I picture that guy holding Maddie while Lani punched her, I know I’m not going to let Maddie go. I will do what it takes.

Maddie nods. “You’re not going to lose, though. You never lose.”

Lily holds up the pink ball. “He loses every time at jacks.”

And that’s when I know what I have to do.

Chapter 18: Parker
 

“You sure you’re ready for this, Power Play?” Buster’s bald head gleams yellow from the dressing-room lights.

I’m pacing like an animal. I’ve never been so anxious about a fight. And it’s not even over whether I will win or lose. I’ve already decided on that.

“He’s ready,” Colt says. “There’s a lot on the line.”

I glance up at the screen in the corner. It shows the arena and the fight going on. It’s another four-fight lineup, and this time my match with Viper is the main event. So we’re last.

“Is Maddie here?” Colt asks. “Jo can sit with her.”

“She’s supposed to be, but I haven’t heard from her,” I answer. I don’t have my phone on me. I’m already wrapped and ready. This match could end any minute, although the two flyweights in the cage are pretty evenly matched. It might go all three rounds.

I’m having a hard time looking anybody in the eye. What I’m about to do flies in the face of every athlete’s creed. I can’t tell anyone my plan. But it’s the only thing that makes sense. Maddie doesn’t want to be the reason I quit. I can see that. And I have to do this fight. I agreed to it.

So I’m going to have to lose.

It’s the only way. Losing solves everything. I don’t make the league. I retire. I will still have all my glory days to look back on. I had that huge win in Vegas.

I’ll be a security guard. Or else I’ll train kids.

I’ll have Maddie and Lily.

It will be enough.

“You sure are worked up,” Brazen says.

He comes up and massages my shoulders, then pounds at the tautness in my back. “You’re burning energy. You need to stay loose.”