Inseverable: A Carolina Beach Novel (31 page)

Like me, Easton needs to win this match. And if he does, he’ll move up to the top ten, making him a contender for the UFC Lightweight title.

Talent aside, the guy’s a raging asshole, and so are the idiots in his training camp. They’ve been trash-talking since the moment I agreed to this match. I didn’t really care and laughed most of it off until they got personal and took it a step too far.

Again he nails me in the head. It’s not as hard as it was last time which tells me he’s getting tired. Does it hurt? I guess.

But let’s say I’m a guy who’s used to pain.

Easton grins. He thinks I’m afraid of him. He thinks he has me where he wants me. But fear is an emotion I don’t allow myself to entertain. Fear gets you hurt and rips you apart till you think there’s nothing left.

I dodge out of reach. He scowls and takes another swing. This one gets close enough to my jaw to create a breeze that whips across my skin.

“Finn,” my brother Killian barks from the side. “Take him out
now
.”

He’s worried about me. So is my family. But now’s not the time to think about them. I keep my hands up as I edge away, letting Easton think I’m backing down, that I’m tired and need to catch my breath.

I sidestep when he lunges forward, avoiding his next swing and use the momentum to drop my head and nail him in the temple with a roundhouse kick.

Like I said, Easton’s fast.

Too bad for him I’m a little bit faster.

The kick is my signature move, as natural for me as the next breath. He goes down like I planned. But in the Octagon you don’t stop just because your opponent collapses like timber. You charge forward. You show him what you’re made of. And you prove just how tough you really are.

That muffled screaming, isn’t so muffled anymore. The crowd loses their shit as I pounce, my blows nailing Easton in the face until the ref’s arms hook beneath mine as he hauls me off. I back away, my fists up because I already know I won.

I should do a back flip or some crazy shit to incite the crowd. This is it. My time has come to own it. But the good things aren’t as great as they can be. Not with the memories that haunt me. And not with the anger they stir.

Killian rushes in as the medic wipes down my face. I’m bleeding from the punch Easton caught me with at the beginning of the round. I didn’t think it was that bad, but the way the ringside medic is pressing the towel against my head clues me in the gash isn’t closing like it should.

“I’m going to have to stitch you up, Fury,” he mumbles.

“I figured,” I tell him.

Kill pats my back. “Good job,” he says.

Maybe he believes it, but I don’t miss the concern in his voice. He thinks I took too many unnecessary hits. I can’t really argue, seeing how it’s true.

He doesn’t understand that I don’t feel those strikes the way I should. Hell, I don’t think I’ve felt anything the way I should in a long time. Not like I used to. I try to tell myself that maybe that’ a good thing. That numbness is better than pain. But I’m not so convinced anymore, and neither is my family. I try to shrug it off like I’m fine. Except given the way they’ve been eyeing me, I’m not fooling anyone.

I’m scaring everyone around me. And it sucks. Not only because I don’t want them scared, but mostly because I don’t know how to stop it.

“The referee has called a stop to this match at two-minutes and forty-nine seconds into the second round,” the announcer begins. “The winner by TKO, Finn ‘The Fury’ O’Brien.”

The crowd screams and pumps their fists in the air when my hand is raised. I take the few seconds I need to thank my sponsors, my camp, and my brother, because that’s what I’m supposed to do despite the fog clouding my senses. I wish that disconnect had something to do with all the hits I took, but deep down I know that it doesn’t.

I’m back in the locker room before I know it getting stitched up, too many people talking at once. God, I barely hear their questions or my responses. But they’re there and somehow I make it through.

“I’m worried about you, Finnie,” Kill says when everyone piles out.

“Don’t. I’m not drinking tonight. I’m headed home,” I assure him.

“That’s not what I mean,” he says. He’s sitting in a fold out chair, his arms resting against his muscular legs. “I think you need to talk to someone.”

I stretch out my arms. By now they’re so tight, they pull against the bones. “I am. I’m talking to you.”

I don’t have to see him to know he’s shaking his head, or that he’s looking sad, disappointed, and maybe something else, too. “I’m not who you should be speaking to,” he says. “Not for what’s going on in your head.”

“You’re enough,” I say, even though I know it’s no longer true.

“Finn,” he begins.

I don’t wait for him to finish, leaving the changing area and heading toward the showers. “Go find Sofia and Wren,” I call over my shoulder as I strip out my shirt. “See if they’re up for some dinner.”

I don’t remember peeling the rest of my clothes off. That numbness I’ve been feeling too much lately claiming me like a mist until it fully engulfs me. Fuck. It’s like I’ve stopped living even though for the most part I think I’m still alive.

I lean against the tile with my arms spread, allowing the water to beat against my back. It’s too hot. I should turn it down, but I don’t bother. Eventually, like everything else, the sensation fades.

I’m not sure how long I’m in that position. A few seconds? A few minutes? But then Easton and his trainer Yefim are suddenly there. “You got lucky, O’Brien,” Yefim calls out, taunting me with his thick eastern European accent.

Shit. Like all the trash talk before the fight wasn’t enough.

“Did you hear me, you pussy?” he fires back when I don’t answer. “Did you hear me, you goddamn coward?”

Coward? Fuck you.
It’s what I think, but not what I say, focusing instead on the streams of water that gather along my feet before they swirl into the drain.

It doesn’t help. The rage that’s building, the one I only manage to barely keep in? It stirs in my gut like a heavy pot filled with hate, sin, and all the curses my Ma would still beat my ass for saying.

“What’re you doing?” Yefim asks.

His voice is closer, he’s drawing near. It doesn’t matter that I’m standing here naked. He wants to be next to me. I shudder, that feeling I keep buried drilling its way up.

“I know about you,” Yefim says, not bothering to keep his voice low. “But everyone knows, don’t they? Even if you don’t want them to.”

My body shakes a little more, but it’s not from the cooling water. It’s from his words and all that anger they trigger.
Don’t do it. Don’t go there
.

“You like to keep it a secret. Don’t you, pussy?”

Yefim laughs when I keep my trap shut. He thinks I’m backing down, just like Easton did before his face met the mat. “He’s crying,” he calls out to Easton. “What? Not so tough now?”

That’s where he’s dead wrong. Every muscle I’ve conditioned serves a purpose―to take down those who fuck with me. And right now, Yefim is seriously fucking with me.

“You like to pretend that it’s girls you like, don’t you?” he says. “But that’s not true, is it? Oh, no, that’s not true at all . . .”

I raise my chin, knowing that someone’s not leaving without bleeding, and I’ve bled enough tonight.

Yefim kicks at my calf. “What? Nothing to say? Can’t speak without your boyfriend here?”

“Boyfriend?” Easton asks, laughing. “No fucking way.”

“Yes. Way,” Yefim insists. “Didn’t you know this little pussy takes it up the ass―”

I punch him so hard, I feel his teeth crack against my knuckles. For someone with decades of boxing experience he never saw me coming. But I see Easton flying at me out of the corner of my eye. I toss him over my shoulder, slamming him hard onto the ceramic tile floor. Like in the octagon, I throw myself on top of him, my fists colliding against his skin.

Voices rush forward, telling me to stop. A woman screams, but I don’t stop fighting off the bodies trying to grab me, breaking through the arms wrenching me back. I need to hit him―I need to feel my fists meeting his face―I need to feel
something
.

God damn it. I need to feel alive.

I don’t want the pain.

I don’t want the terror.

But once more, it’s all I feel.

READ ON FOR AN EXCERPT FROM

Feel Me

An O’Brien Family Novel

Cecy Robson

Chapter One

Melissa

I stare at the nameplate perched on my father’s desk:
District Attorney Miles Fenske
. It proclaims his position, allowing those who read it a glimpse of what he’s accomplished. Yet it’s only a glimpse. It’s not a true representation of all he is, or all he means to me. The nameplate is cheap, unlike the generous soul who stares back at me with the same loving expression he’s held since the first moment I saw him.

What are you thinking, Melissa?
He signs to me, moving his hands in beautifully fluid motions.

We’re alone in his office. He doesn’t need to sign to keep our conversation private. He could whisper, and I would still be able to read his lips. But he knows I’m more comfortable communicating with my hands, probably because American Sign Language is one of the many things we learned together. As a child I considered it our very own secret language, something he and I could share away from the hearing world.

That you’re making a mistake
, I sign back.

My comment earns me a smile, but I can see his concern, despite the crinkles around his eyes that deepen when he grins. “You’re going to have to trust me,” he says aloud.

I let out a breath. He knows I trust him. How could I not?

I was brought to the Lehigh Valley District Attorney’s office when I was about six years old, after my biological mother had attempted to sell me in exchange for drugs. My mother probably thought it was a brilliant plan. Being born with profound hearing loss, I couldn’t speak, couldn’t communicate, and couldn’t understand. Which meant, I couldn’t tell anyone what was about to take place.

My primal instincts ordered me to run, that I was in danger, so I did―thank God I did. I kicked and fought, dodging the hands trying to grab me, and scurrying out of my window.

To this day, I remember the way the cold metal grating of the fire escape felt against my bare feet, and the way my mouth struggled to form what I thought were words as I banged on my elderly neighbor’s window. Miss Lena, the lady with too many cats and twice as many grandchildren, yanked me into her apartment when she saw me. She called the police, but by the time they arrived, my mother was gone. I never saw her again.

Not that I regret it.

I was placed in foster care, confused and frightened about what was happening and certain I’d eventually return “home”. Instead, I was brought before the young Assistant D.A Miles Fenske. He was supposed to handle my case, dispose of it, and move on. He was never supposed to welcome me into his heart. Yet that’s exactly what he did.

“Melissa,” he says. His words aren’t clear―not as clear as they can be, my hearing aids can only do so much, but I hear enough to sense the emotion in the way he speaks my name. “Why are you so sad?”

I raise my chin. “Declan O’Brien will never be the man you are. He’s not the right D.A. for this position.” I shake my head. “He belongs in the Trial Unit, Arson, Fugitive, anywhere else but where you’ve placed him.”

“I know you don’t like him . . .”

I raise my brows.

“. . . and that your first encounter wasn’t a positive one . . .”

“That’s because he was an asshole,” I mumble.

He chuckles. “I assure you he deeply regrets what he said. But Declan is smart, quick, and kind.”

I don’t agree. Not completely. Is Declan intelligent? Brilliantly so, and absurdly astute in court. With short wavy blond hair and a dashing grin that lights his blue eyes, he’s also gorgeous, and he knows it. But is he kind? I’m not so sure that he is. “He’ll never be the man you are,” I repeat.

“I’m not asking him to be. I simply want the best person for the job, someone who will help the victims who need him most.”

“That’s what you claim. But he doesn’t have experience handling delicate cases where offenders often inflict irreparable trauma.”

“No, but as the head of Victim Services, you do,” he offers with a knowing gleam.

My nails dig into the wooden armrests. “If you’re trying to hook us up, I’m going to be seriously mad at you.”

The edges of his mouth curve. “I’m only asking you to help Declan as he transitions into his new role. This new assignment won’t be easy on him.”

“Because he doesn’t want it. He wants to be the head of Homicide.” I stand with my hands out, pleading. “Daddy, please reassign him. The Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Unit is not where someone who seeks glory belongs.”

My voice trails as I catch a glimmer of his pain. “Daddy?”

At once, his face scrunches, flushing red only to grow alarmingly pale. I race around his desk, clutching his shoulders to keep him upright as he grips his side and beads of sweat gather along his receding hairline.

It’s only because he lifts his bowed head and a healthier shade of pink returns to his cheeks that I’m not screaming for help and dialing 911. “Daddy?”

He offers me a weak smile and pats my arm. “I’m all right,” he says, leaning back in his chair.

“No, you’re not,” I say, my eyes stinging. His light blue dress shirt clings with sweat along his arms and plump midsection. He’s not well. My father is . . .
sick
. “What aren’t you telling me?”

His hand slowly eases away from his side. For a moment his eyes search my face, as they’ve done a thousand times throughout my life. “The doctors discovered new tumors along my colon,” he finally says. “They’re planning to resection my bowel and dispose of the affected area with the hope of avoiding chemo this time around.”