Sneak Attack (23 page)

Somehow I found it in me to smile at the nearest EMT. “My girl’s going to be fine.”

“Yes, she is. Her vitals are good, but she has a concussion. And a broken arm.”

I grimaced. I’d had a couple of both of those. No fun. But I’d be there to help her get better, every step of the way.

Every day for the rest of her life.

“You know, MMA fighting is illegal in the state of New York,” the EMT added.

I glanced up and caught Giovanni’s eye. He had his arm around Carly, which was the least of my worries at the moment.

“Yeah.” Sighing, I shook my head. “Damn shame what kids today do for kicks.”

“
S
o now that
you’ve had a while to adjust, how you feel about living with your boyfriend?”

I bit my lip to smother my smile as I slid a glance at Tray, who was seated beside me on Dr. Phelps’ oh-so-comfy couch. “Well, I appreciate the easy access to sex.”

His eyebrow winged up, and I shrugged. He hadn’t been there the first time, so he wasn’t in on the punchline.

“You’re using humor to deflect, Mia. Or does Tray’s presence make you uncomfortable? Would you like me to ask him to leave for this portion of the session?” She shot an apologetic glance at Tray. “I have to think about what’s best for my patient. You understand.”

His fingers loosely curled around mine on the cushion between us. “Of course.”

“No, he’s fine. I don’t have any secrets from him.”

Dr. Phelps looked as surprised as Tray did. Though that was a better look for him than the slightly pea green cast he’d been sporting since we’d taken a seat. This was my third week of two sessions. He’d also been to the last session, but only for half. That was our way of easing him in.

Carly had been to one session so far as well. Baby steps.

I’d been on antidepressants for a week. So far so good. My mood didn’t seem appreciably better yet, and I still lived in an almost constant state of panic over Carly’s whereabouts, but I was trying to be patient.

At least I hadn’t had any more mental checkouts recently. That was a plus in my book.

“I suppose if I ask if you continue to use rough sex as a substitute for fighting, you’ll drag out your original answer as well.”

Wow, was Dr. Phelps actually smiling at me? Fondly?

I glanced at Tray. Smirking, he averted his gaze. He was leaving this one all for me.

Wuss
.

“No, I won’t. Because I’m going to start fighting again.” I sucked in a breath and let it out again. “Tray’s okay with it.”

“I think
okay
is a bit of an overstatement, since she just got out of the hospital a few weeks ago. But I’m dealing.”

He’d also deal when I set up a rematch fight with one Ms. Evelyn Pierce. That wasn’t a maybe. That was a
when
.

“I’m better off mentally when I’m fighting.” I lifted a shoulder and winced at the pull in my arm. I was always forgetting it was broken, which was kind of ridiculous considering the pain it still caused me. “I need that outlet, otherwise my mind just spins.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps you could also try other, safer outlets.”

“Oh, don’t worry. We still have rough sex too.”

Tray coughed into his fist.

“I won’t be fighting for a while obviously,” I added, pointing at the cast in my lap. “So if the medication helps, maybe I’ll change my mind by the time I’m in fighting shape again.”

I highly doubted it, but I was trying to be more open-minded.

The conversation went to other usual topics. A bit about the Olivia situation—which wasn’t much of one, because I had no evidence except a bunch of phone calls and a few texts—and what it meant for our relationship with Slater. I didn’t have much to say about it. Tray had nothing.

Slater wasn’t responding to us. Period.

It hadn’t been that long since everything had exploded at the fight, so I was trying to convince Tray to give his best friend time to come to terms with everything. He wasn’t nearly as patient as I was. His solution was to break down Slater’s door and force him to talk to us, and then knock some sense into Slater for falling for a psychopath. His phrase not mine.

Probably not the best approach.

And I wasn’t even going to get started about his desire to see Olivia in jail. I didn’t know if that would ever happen. She wasn’t bothering me anymore. That didn’t mean I wanted to forget the whole thing, but I’d adopted a wait-and-see approach.

Tray answered a few questions about his parents, and his mom in particular. She was still living with us, but she’d found an apartment to go see next week. She hadn’t mentioned filing for divorce or anything that permanent, but we were trying to take it day by day.

That was pretty much our life motto at the moment.

“Mia’s recent change in financial status has to have impacted your lifestyle.” Dr. Phelps consulted her notepad. “I imagine it’s been a big transition.”

The biggest transition I’d been dealing with lately was not sticking my big nose in Carly’s love life. She’d gone out with the Salad Hut dude again, and I hadn’t said a word. I also resisted try to put a lock on her jeans when Giovanni came around, something he was doing with distressing regularity now that Tray and Slater were on the outs.

I still didn’t like the guy, but nothing was going on with him and Carly that I could tell. And everything was all quiet on the Lorenzo front.

For now.

Tray locked his hands behind his head. “Not really, because Mia won’t touch the money.”

I frowned. “That’s not exactly true.” Mostly true.

Aunt Patty hadn’t exactly enjoyed being confronted about the settlement money, but she’d handed the bulk of it over with surprisingly little argument. She hadn’t wanted me to pursue legal action, though that had never been my intention. She’d already spent some of the cash, and I’d told her to keep a large chunk. The rest she’d given up fairly willingly, saying the Lord would provide.

Why that hadn’t occurred to her when she’d hoarded all the money that wasn’t rightfully hers in the first place, I didn’t know.

“Do you feel undeserving of good fortune, Mia?”

I rolled my eyes. I couldn’t help it. “What do you think?”

Tray cleared his throat and I tried again. He was trying in spite of his many reservations when it came to therapy, so I had to also. Even when it was hard.

Especially when it was hard.

“Yes. I feel undeserving. Good things make me wonder when I’ll lose them.”

“Good things like your relationship with Trayherne, for example.”

“Well, he’s not exactly ugly.”

His fingers tightened on mine. “Aww, honey. So sweet.”

I couldn’t hide my grin. “But yeah. He’s one of them. The money is another. But I’m going to use it. It’s going toward Carly’s education. She’s in culinary school,” I reminded my therapist, unable to hide my pride.

“That’s wonderful, and a positive use for money that came from a difficult situation. But you’ll still have some leftover. The amount was sizeable, wasn’t it?”

I snorted. “Uh, yeah. You could say that.”

“She wants a treehouse,” Tray offered, and I narrowed my eyes. “She’s going to make me build her one when we buy a house.”

“Yeah, like you can build. Shut up.”

Dr. Phelps smiled. “Is that something you plan to do with the money? Buy a house?”

“Eventually, maybe. I’m happy where we are.” I bit my lip. I didn’t want to assume. “Are you happy where we are?” I asked quietly.

“Yeah. Just need that big screen TV we talked about, and maybe a cardboard cutout of Megan Fox, and the place is perfect.” He squeezed my fingers to let me know he was kidding.

As if I didn’t know that. He’d much rather have a cardboard cutout of Scarlett Johansson.

“I actually had another idea for some of the money.” I searched Tray’s face for a reaction. He only waited.

“And what would that be?” Dr. Phelps asked pleasantly.

Here went everything.

“I want to open a kind of shelter for the lost. For missing and endangered kids and adults who have nowhere else to go. A safe space, where there’s no judgment and you don’t have to share more than you want to. There will be counselors on staff, and people who understand, as much as anyone can.” I exhaled. “Like me.”

No one spoke.

“Well?” I demanded when I couldn’t take one more second of silence.

“I think that you’re the most incredible person I’ve ever met,” Tray murmured.

Then he slid across the couch and kissed me. Full on the mouth, with tongue. Right in front of Dr. Phelps.

Of course, I kissed him back.

My happily ever after started right fucking now.

H
e’s
willing to die for vengeance, until she gives him a reason to live…
 

The fighter… 

Giovanni Costas is the newest hotshot fighter in New York City’s underground MMA scene. From the outside, he’s on top of the world. Winning all his matches, getting all the women he could ever want. The truth isn’t nearly so bright. Isolated and alone, far from his family in Vegas, he’s struggling with inner demons that threaten to swallow him whole. 

The stakes…

The more Giovanni fights, the closer he gets to the people who ripped away the most precious thing in his life. Eradicating them is his only focus…until he meets his reason for turning his back on the seedy world that has consumed him for two years. 

The biggest battle he’s ever faced… 

Carly Anderson is living a double life. A culinary student by day and a dancer by dark, Carly spends her nights in a cage of her own choosing. Flirting with danger is the only thing that dulls the pain from her past. When she catches the eye of the wrong men, it’ll take the right one to save her. If Giovanni doesn’t break her—and himself—in the process…

I
used to feel invisible
. I was an ordinary girl with a sister with a not-so-ordinary background, and because of that, I’ve always lived in her shadow. I didn’t want her to worry about me, and I didn’t want to cause any trouble. But even the good girl eventually goes bad.

At least this one did.

The first time I got drunk I tasted the freedom I hadn’t realized I’d been missing. After awhile, you become so numb that it becomes easier to pretend it doesn’t hurt to deny who you are, down deep under the lies. You get used to breaking off pieces of yourself and tucking them away where they won’t cause any pain to someone else, someone you love more than life. Someone who would sacrifice anything to keep you safe. Claiming those real, true slices of yourself—even in secret—feels like a betrayal.

I didn’t want to hurt Mia, my older sister. My hero. She’s the strongest, bravest, sweetest person I know. And she’s been suffocating me for years, trying to ensure that I never have to endure what she did.

Now she’d become part of a set. Her boyfriend, Fox, was almost as bad as she was when it came to being protective of me. I love him like he’s my own brother, and I’m so happy he’s in Mia’s life, but my father is dead and buried. I threw the roses on his casket years ago and I never signed up for another one. My sister smothers me enough. She doesn’t need any help.

We’re so different, Mia and me. Night and day. I used to think she was the night and I was the day. Not anymore. She’s fought her dark with every ounce of who she is. I chase mine.

I also have a big fat chip on my shoulder about making my mark. Wherever and however I can.

Hey world, Carly Fucking Anderson is on this planet too, and she’s not here just to be the walk-on in someone else’s show.

I want my own. My own existence. Even my own tragedy, if it comes to that.

If Mia knew part of me wanted to be in the spotlight, no matter the cost, she’d never understand. She lived through a trauma. Survived it. But that’s the thing. As horrible as that experience was, she
lived
. She didn’t cling to the walls of her world like a paper doll, as thin and insubstantial as the wind.

People passed by me and through me and few of them ever realized I’d suffered too. I was the one who had to pick up the pieces after my sister’s kidnapping. I took care of my dad as best as I could and I went through the motions. Even at eleven, I learned how to put on the mask. I was normal. I was okay. Nothing or no one would ever harm me because I was too strong.

Not anymore. Now I wasn’t hiding from trouble. I was seeking it, eyes wide open. Hoping like hell it could find me where no one else ever had.

That unnaturally warm October night at The Pyramid Club, it did.

The club was slamming on a Thursday night in the city, as it always was. At eighteen, I lived the usual college girl’s life. I went to school all day at the International Culinary Institute, and I worked part-time three days a week at a salad shop in midtown. And two nights of the week, I danced nearly nude in a cage at a club.

Okay, so maybe not quite so usual.

I’ll give you a clue which of my two jobs paid more—and it wasn’t the one where I was adding up neat rows of figures for my two-hundred-year-old boss.

P
REORDER
NOW

S
he's
in for the fight of her life...with the man who only wants to be her lover.

Fighter Mia Anderson has faced the dark side of life and survived. But just getting by is no longer enough. To fund her new life with her baby sister, she’s determined to beat the reigning king of the male fighters in New York’s underground MMA circuit, Tray “Fox” Knox.

Tray refuses to fight a woman, until he learns Mia’s tougher than anyone he has ever known. He soon realizes he wants more from her than blows and blood, and he’s willing to hit below the belt to get it. He’ll fight her, but if he wins, she spends the night in his bed. All night long, his rules. No tapping out.

Mia agrees, certain that he’ll lose. What she doesn’t realize is that Tray loves to fight dirty…and that this match may end up being the most important one of their lives.