Fighter Daddy: A Bad Boy Secret Baby MMA Sports Romance (11 page)

Lee turns very slowly. All the rage that was directed at the faceless guy before has now found a target in me. I don't know what I said, but it's very clear to me it wasn't something good.

"You don't know what you're talking about," Lee tells me through gritted teeth.

All the warmth between us has washed out of the room. I know I should shut up, but for some reason my mouth keeps talking.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know," I say. "Was it a fight you lost or—"

"Shut the fuck up, Raina."

He spits the words at me, looking angrier than I have ever seen him look. Even back at Ricky's, I don't remember him being this furious. I sit back, glaring at him.

"You don't have to yell at me for asking, you know," I say.

Is this where my fairytale ends? Just when I was thinking that maybe Lee's bad boy persona was an act, he shows me the opposite is true. It's the sweetness and the smiles that are a show and when I step even a bit out of line, he lashes out.

Lee grits his teeth. I see his fists clenching and unclenching as he works to keep his cool.

"Sorry," he finally growls.

His voice is still harsh, but I see the effort he makes. At least the word is in his vocabulary? Good to know. I'm still not prepared to forgive him, though. I want more. An explanation would be nice.

"That guy at the bar was a dick," Lee says. "He was trying to piss me off and he did. He wasn't even talking about a match, it... forget about it. Make your coffee and do what you want. I'll be right out and then we can figure out what to do about your asshole ex."

He stomps off and there it is again. Every time Lee loses his calm, he throws Ricky in my face. I didn't know! I can't erase the past, I can only make it better. I suppose in Lee's world you beat up your problems, but I can't do that.

Still fuming in the kitchen, I hear the water running in the bathroom. The night went from pleasant and hot to fighting really fast. I don't like it. I don't like the reminder that other than Ricky and our desire, we don't have enough in common to carry a normal conversation.

I know it's snooping, but whenever someone says
forget about it
, it's not something you should forget about. I remember seeing Lee's laptop in the bedroom and I go for it. Luckily there's no password. I go to the web and search
Lee Mason versus Omar
. Nothing. Well, he did say it wasn't a real match. I try other keywords, quickly browse the official record of Lee's MMA career. Still nothing.

He can't be in the shower forever. A thought occurs to me and I search his computer instead. Maybe it was an underground fight? Something off the books. I type
Omar
into the search bar.

After a few seconds, it yields a result, but it isn't what I was expecting.

The file is titled
Dishonorable Discharge of Sgt. Lee Mason
.

I open it and read.

By the time I hear Lee getting out of the shower it's clear to me my taste in men is terrible.

I
have
time to think in the shower.

As the warm water runs down my body, I calm down. After a minute or two of soaking, the only one I'm angry with is me. I shouldn't have yelled at Raina like that. She was poking at something that didn't need being dragged back into my life, but she doesn't know that. All she did was overhear that shithead in the club.

I scrub myself down hard, almost in punishment. Fuck, we had a nice thing going on. Just when she was beginning to trust me, I lash out at her.

The girl who was supposed to be a high school prank. Take her to the prom, fuck the prude princess afterward, but she turned the tables on me. The girl had me falling for her back then and she did it again now. Meaning I've also fucked things up with her twice now. Along with the resolution to not let it happen a third time.

I don't know how to make this up to her. I can't tell her the truth, she wouldn't understand. Civilians never fucking do and apparently neither did my commanding officers. I'm actually relieved they kicked me out. I like it better out here in the normal world. I'm my own boss and don't have to put up with anyone's bullshit. But I need to give some excuse to Raina.

I'm not used to jumping through hoops for girls, but this one is special. Her pussy was as good as always and I can't wait to taste it again. Taste it properly this time. I was too close when we got back. I only had patience to prepare her, not enjoy her like she deserves. But I have all the time in the world now.

I step out of the shower feeling relaxed and dry off. Maybe Raina's calmed down too and we can fuck this mess away.

She's still in the kitchen, but something's off. My laptop is open before her and the look in her eyes is everything but horny.

"You want to explain this?" she asks coldly and turns the screen my way.

It takes a single glance to see what she's found. And then my own emotions boil over too.

"What the
fuck
are you doing snooping around my files?" I roar at her.

Raina doesn't let me intimidate her. She stares back, defiant and furious.

"Yeah, yeah," she says, her voice pure poison. "I'm a bad girl, I looked. Sue me for invasion of privacy, go ahead. But first, want to tell me why you almost murdered a sixteen-year-old?"

My hand raises out of instinct, but I catch myself immediately. Raina has jumped up, the chair clattering to the floor behind her. She backs away from me, a look of terrible hurt in her eyes.

"You're going to hit me too now?" she demands. "You're still a fucking bully, Lee, just like you were in school! Everyone that gets in your way better agree with you or they get their asses kicked. I can't
believe
how stupid I was, thinking this could actually work. What kind of a fucking father would you be-"

She's really asking for that slap. I've never hit a woman before and I'm not going to start now, but Raina is pushing my buttons,
hard
.

"Sit your ass down and shut the fuck up," I snarl at her.

"Or
what
? You're—"

"
Sit down. Now.
"

The tone of my voice brooks no counter-argument. I see Raina wince, but I have very little sympathy for her right now. I don't want to scare her, but she had it coming. Fuck her for poking her nose in my business. What happened with Omar doesn't concern her.

She picks up the chair and sits back down. That's the problem with girls. They think the whole world works their way. That people are nice and everyone should get along. It was a disappointment when I found out my officers agreed. We were in a fucking war zone. I did what I had to do.

"Didn't get further from my verdict, did you?" I demand.

She couldn't have, I know. The file is pages upon pages long. My military record, testimony of character witnesses—some good, some bad, as it is. The incident itself, Omar's part of the story—the lying piece of shit—and the protocol of the entire court-martial. If she read all that, good for fucking her, I'll call the
Guinness Book of World Records
right now.

"No," she says, a hint of doubt in her voice. "What was there to discuss? You beat the living crap out of a sixteen-year-old boy, a
kid
. When your unit finally intervened, the boy was unconscious. What justifies that, Lee?"

"A kid," I repeat. "You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Living here in the States, used to your spoiled little life. That was a war zone. The
kid
was a hardened criminal, a soldier since he was eight. Brainwashed, vicious. A dirty little psychopath like all teenagers are. Only you know what? In the Middle East, you don't get sent to art therapy or some such bullshit. If you show aggression as a kid, they recruit you. They teach you how to build bombs and detonate them."

Raina listens, her eyes wide. So
now
she's interested in the full picture? Fuck that.

"He was still a child..." she protests.

"Sixteen isn't a goddamn toddler," I growl at her. "You sit there, imagining me beating up some four-eyed nerd, in the shape I'm in now. Omar was a little punk and I didn't do MMA back then. It was an interrogation and I got carried away because lives were at fucking stake, but he was a match for me. Gave me a good scar too with a shiv, right under my rib. It's covered up by tattoos now, but I know it's there. I feel it."

"An interrogation," Raina says. "That's even worse. You abused your power over him."

I can barely take hold of my temper. This is my trial all over again, but for some reason the fact Raina doesn't agree with me irks me more than my discharge did back then.

"He had a bomb planted under a school somewhere and he wasn't telling us. We were running out of time. I did what I had to and I won't apologize for it."

"You said he was
brainwashed
," Raina goes on. "You should have tried to—"

She doesn't get the chance to finish. I'm laughing, harder than I have in months. She stares at me, her mouth hanging open, insulted to the bone.

"Tried to
what
, huh?" I demand when I have enough air in my lungs to continue. "Teach him to not be a dick in an hour? Undo the bullshit that he was fed every day of his life? Are you serious?"

"No, I don't mean that!" Raina protests, but to me her arguments are weak, exactly like I thought my court-martial was: a fucking joke. "I only think there had to be another way."

Funnily enough, they said the same. I saw the truth on their faces. The whole discharge, blowing one small thing like that out of proportion, it was a joke. A reporter got ahold of the story, and they threw me under the bus. To show that rules and regulations applied to everyone, including special ops guys. Any other day I would have gotten a pat on the back, but instead I got this.

"If there was another way, I would have found it," I tell Raina.

I'm still fuming, but she seems doubtful, relaxing me a bit. As I thought, she didn't read through the file. Now that I'm explaining, she's slowly coming to her senses. There's the same bullshit as always, but I was there. Trying to play nice only got people killed.

She is quiet for a long moment.

"Did it work?" she asks. "Did he tell you where the bomb was?"

And there, the other twist people like Raina comfort themselves with. Consequence. If Omar told me, it might have been worth it.

"He did," I say, forcing the words over my lips. "We notified the school. It was a big one. They did their best, but the bomb went off before we got there. Most got out. Not all."

She looks at me, tears filling her eyes. I wonder when was the last time I let myself feel compassion like that. Of course, hers is possibly misplaced. Just like she imagined Omar as a scrawny kid getting beat up in the school yard, she's now thinking about first-graders being blown up.

To the best of my knowledge, the kids were slightly older, but it doesn't make it any better. In truth, I don't know. I never went to see the place. After my trial, I packed my bags and didn't look back when I left that accursed country behind.

I laid low for a while until the reporters moved on to new scandals. With several wars going on at the world at any given moment, I didn't have to wait that long. At least the Marines didn't screw me over entirely. I know that most of them approved of what I did. Most of them have done worse and will again. So they didn't take away any of my rights. They got rid of me, that's all.

"That's horrible," Raina says at last.

"That's war."

There goes the mood for the night. No way that I can see to fix this. Raina sits like a broken doll, staring into her coffee mug. My file is still open on the screen.

And like that, a part of my life I badly wanted to forget is out in the open. Of course, a lot of people remember. The guy at the club could have been anyone. A reporter, trying to rile me up and get me to lash out. Or someone who has dug something up from my past. One of Ricky's, more than likely.

I feel my blood boil, thinking that this is exactly what that prick wanted. For Raina to find out.

I'm a public figure now. So far no one has found out about why I was discharged. The records aren't public after all, but I guess it's a matter of time. They are going to tear me a new one for that, but I don't give a shit. No one will make me feel bad about what I did.

As if on cue, Raina asks, "Do you regret it?"

I want to snap something at her, but I hold myself back. I can't really explain it, but I need this girl to understand. She's asking a serious question and I decide to give a serious answer.

"No," I say.

I see the way her shoulders slump and the look in her eyes is heartbreaking. Fuck, she really did care about me and I'm breaking her heart. But I can't help it. I won't change for anyone and this is who I am.

"No, I don't regret," I go on. "It was not something that I wanted to do. I didn't enjoy beating him up, even if the little shit deserved it. But there were innocent lives at stake and it was my job to protect them. I did that job and I would do it again. Sure, I wish the world wasn't the fucked-up place we live in, but it is. In some situations, there are only bad and worse choices. That was one of them."

It takes several moments for Raina to nod, but she does. It lifts my heart in a way I didn't think was possible without a great match behind me.

"I get why," she says. "I understand, I really do. I just..."

It's never good if a sentence begins like that.

"I wish I hadn't seen that file. And yeah, yeah, I know that I took your laptop and I looked it up myself. But I didn't know what I'd find. I thought it was a bad match or something. This is... bigger. I kept telling myself that you aren't the person you were in high school, but I'm no longer sure. This...changes things."

I don't need to ask what she means by that. Suddenly I'm not good enough for her anymore. As the father of her child, at least. I heard what she was about to say.

"You think I'm some sort of a monster."

My voice is bitter when I say that. So much for thinking I'd found someone who could be fine with the way I am.

Raina looks up, tears running down her cheeks.

"I don't," she says. "You're not a monster, Lee. What I think is that it's very easy for you to pretend to be a monster or act like one. It's not the same, but it's not entirely different either."

A part of me agrees. All men are monsters deep down. We possess a dark potential to be killers and a lot of us are. I see what Raina means, but on the other hand I can't stand her sitting there, judging me. I don't even know if she wouldn't have done the same in my place.

"Oh yeah?" I growl at her. "Good for you then. It looks to me a monster is exactly what you need right now. Seems you have a taste for them."

"Stop saying that," Raina snaps at me. "I swear I didn't have any idea what Ricky was capable of!
I don't like monsters
."

As soon as the words leave her lips, Raina shuts up. I see her open her mouth to speak, maybe to apologize, but she can't.

"Right," I say coldly. "That means you don't like guys who act like monsters either."

She looks at me, her eyes pleading, but I don't care anymore. Little miss Raina Feston always thought she had the moral high ground, no matter what.

"Lee," she begins, but I cut her off.

"Don't bother," I say. "You already said enough. We have more urgent matters now. Ricky will be mad as hell that we escaped. He's looking for us. Do you know anyone who might point him in the right direction?"

Raina looks heartbroken. I think she'll plead with me to forgive her, but the main issue is that she is not sorry and neither am I.

She sniffles and thinks.

"I don't think so," she says. "No one knows I'm here. My friends don't know you and Ed's gone."

That's a fair point. Unless we were followed, Ricky can get nothing from her friends. And we won't walk into a trap like that for the second time. So that leaves me. Raina is thinking the same.

"How about you?" she asks. "Any friends who Ricky knows about?"

I think about it. I don't have many friends who would be worthy of the title. There are a few guys at the gym, other MMA fighters, Martin. With the exception of Martin, no one knows where I live and
he
will never tell Ricky shit.

I think we're okay for now, unless...

Fuck. Unless a phone call from a rarely dialed number calls us to another awkward dinner party. My eyes snap to Raina and she figures it out too.

"
Aunt Susan...
" she whispers. "Oh God, Lee, they would know."