Broken: An Alpha Bad Boy MMA Romance

by Scarlet MMA, Simone

  The crowd roared and clapped good-naturedly – drunk enough for this display of affection to appeal to them.

  But in amongst the hundreds of laughing, clapping faces, there was one person who was unimpressed.

  Lyssa stared at her former lover, as he pawed and squeezed the pretty blond girl up on stage.

  His fiancée?

  Lyssa’s plate went crashing to the floor.

  The fucker. So that’s why he didn’t want her staying with them in Las Vegas!

  Chapter Eighty Nine

  Lyssa

  Travis Oates was easy enough to find. When you’re a rangy, 6’ 4” Texan with ash blond hair, you tend to stand out.

  Dressed in jeans at a Lynyrd Skynyrd t-shirt, the towering MMA fighter was ordering himself a Budweiser when Lyssa Meadows came barreling up to him at the bar, and demanded: “What the fuck, Travis?”

  Travis wheeled around – and his eyes widened as he recognized the pissed-off little Jersey girl eyeballing him.

  “L-Lyssa,” he stammered, nearly dropping his beer. “What in the Sam Hill are you doin’ here, sugar?”

  “Don’t you sugar me, asshole,” Lyssa spat – attracting the attention of everybody around them. “How long has this been going on?”

  She pointed up at the stage, where Nikolai and this ‘Harmony’ chick were dancing and laughing, while the DJ wrestled the microphone back from them.

  Travis looked at his best friend, and then back at Lyssa. And then realization spread across his face.

  “Ooooh, shit,” he groaned.

  “Oh, shit, yeah,” Lyssa snapped, poking a finger hard into Travis’ broad chest. “So that’s the reason you didn’t want me staying with you in Vegas? Nikolai has his own little side-bitch out here?”

  And then it was her turn to get hit by a realization.

  The facts sloshed over her like a bucket of cold water.

  “Oh, fuck,” Lyssa slumped against the bar as she realized the horrible truth. “She’s not the ‘side-bitch’, is she? I fucking am.”

  Travis put down his beer and grabbed Lyssa’s arm.

  “C’mon. You’re causin’ a scene. Let’s take this outside.”

  Hauling her to her unsteady feet, Travis started guiding Lyssa towards the doors opening to the balcony.

  Lyssa mindlessly stumbled along with him, too stunned to protest.

  They left the hustle and bustle of the crowded ballroom, and stepped out into the chill night air of the Las Vegas Strip.

  Chapter Ninety

  Lyssa

  “What the hell, Travis,” Lyssa blinked away hot tears, as they ran down her face. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”

  She slumped against the wall, shivering in the chill night air.

  “Oh, Christ. I’m such a fucking idiot.”

  “No, no, honey,” Travis reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “You’re not an idiot. We… Shit, not we. I…” He gulped dryly. “I should have told you something.”

  Lyssa shrugged his hand off of her.

  “Yeah,” she growled, wrapping her arms around her shoulders. “Yeah, you fucking should have done.” She sobbed bitterly. “How long has this been going on, Travis? You guys are out in Vegas, like, twice a month.”

  Travis looked down at Lyssa, and the guilty expression on his face suggested she wouldn’t like the answer he was pondering giving her.

  But good ol’ boy Travis was raised right, and ultimately he admitted: “Four months.”

  Lyssa blinked the tears away, and looked up.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Four months,” Travis nodded. “Nikolai met her at club, and hit it off.” He snorted bitterly. “I was supposed to just be a one night thing, but my boy got bit by the bug hard.”

  Lyssa tried to do the calculations in her head. Four months ago would have put the timeline right in the midst of her three-way affair with Travis and Nikolai.

  “So, the two of them start datin’,” Travis admitted guiltily, barely able to make eye contact with Lyssa. “And they make it a long-distance thing. And Nikolai doesn’t think it’s a big deal, us fucking you when we’re back in New York. I mean, you’ve seen that girl…”

  Lyssa had the image of that tanned, leggy blond burned into her memory.

  “…she doesn’t exactly strike you as the monogamous type.”

  Lyssa sniffed miserably.

  I mean, she shouldn’t have expected anything different. She, Travis and Nikolai were just ‘fucking around’, right?

  Those long, steamy nights and lazy mornings were just something casual, she tried to rationalize to herself.

  The logical part of her brain tried to justify things. It was understandable that two handsome guys like Travis and Nikolai like them would find other girls to fool around with while they were away.

  But Lyssa wasn’t exactly driven by logic.

  And Travis wasn’t helping.

  “Then it started getting serious,” the Texan continued explaining, looking down at Lyssa. “Nikolai and Harmony got all loved-up. Started renting hotel rooms together. Shit, they got matching tattoos…”

  Lyssa cringed as she remembered Nikolai returning from one of his weekend trips to Vegas with fresh ink.

  Did that blond skank have a matching tattoo on some hidden part of her lithe, lovely body?

  “So, I tried to do the right thing,” Travis held up his hands, to feign innocence. “I told Nikolai it’s not right to fool around with you back in New York, if he’s gettin’ all serious about this girl here in Vegas. And he agreed with me. That’s why you and us had that fight, remember?”

  Lyssa did remember. The argument that had set off her adventure with Silas – when her two lovers had kicked her out of their brownstone apartment the first time, and Nikolai had sneered mockingly: “What did you expect, Lyssa? A commitment?”

  She laughed bitterly.

  “So it wasn’t me,” she sighed. “It was him. And despite the fucking insensitive way you did it, you were just trying to do the right thing?”

  Travis’ face softened, as he saw her anger dissipate.

  “You know,” Lyssa looked up sadly, “you could have just told me. I’d have understood.” She wiped the tears from her eyes. “Not knowing why you kicked me out hurt more than finding out about her could ever have done.”

  Travis said nothing. He just reached into his jacket pocket for his handkerchief and passed it to her. Lyssa reluctantly snatched it from his hand.

  As she dabbed her eyes with the crisp, white cotton, the rangy Texan continued:

  “So we all broke up, and you went off the radar. And then you came back from Spain – and it was all my fault I invited you back to the apartment again.”

  He snorted: “I guess I missed you… But I should have known what was going to happen.”

  Lyssa’s cheeks burned as she remembered the string of orgasms, and the moans of passion from the second act of their three-way love affair.

  “But after that first night,” Travis shook his head, “I guess it was too late. We all just fell right back into that old routine.”

  “That old routine,” Lyssa snorted, passing the damp handkerchief back: “Fucking your side-bitch when you’re back in New York, but Nikolai wining and dining that blond whore while he’s out west.”

  “She’s not a whore,” Travis growled. “She’s actually pretty cool.”

  “Ha!” Lyssa snorted. “I guess I’m the whore, then.” She shook her head. “But I guess I knew that all along.”

  She sobbed again, and angrily snatched back the handkerchief.

  “I’m a fucking moron,” she sobbed. “I knew what this was all along. Fuck, Nikolai had even told me. But for some reason, a part of me kept believing that there was something more to it than just… just fucking.”

  “I’m sorry,” Travis held out his hands to hug her. She angrily pushed them away.

  “You should be sorry, Travis,” Lyssa growled. She poked a pointed finger into his broad che
st. “Nikolai I can understand… But you could have at least told me. You could have warned me about what was going on.”

  She sobbed again.

  “It’s embarrassing,” Lyssa tearfully admitted. “I’m humiliated.” She turned away from Travis, and looked out through tear-filled eyes at the twinkling lights of the Las Vegas strip.

  “I didn’t ask for you to be in love with me,” she sighed. “But I wanted you care enough not to hurt me.”

  Looking over her shoulder, at Travis’ handsome face, Lyssa sighed: “I thought I meant that much to you.”

  Travis just stood there, his face a mask. It was clear he didn’t know what to say, or how to respond.

  So Lyssa didn’t give him the chance.

  Wiping her eyes, she walked away from him, back into the loud and crowded ballroom.

  Her flight back home wasn’t until midday tomorrow, and that gave her plenty of time to sleep off the hangover she was about to give herself.

  Chapter Ninety One

  Lyssa

  Sometimes, when you’re suffering, you just want to suffer more.

  Kindness can almost hurt.

  And that’s why, when Lyssa finally stumbled off a bus, outside her apartment back in Jersey City, the last thing she wanted to see was a big bouquet of flowers.

  But there they were, sitting in the lobby of her building, with “Lyssa Meadows, Apartment 203” written on the address card.

  Two dozen beautiful red roses.

  As Lyssa picked them up, she burst angrily into tears.

  It was difficult to wrangle both her suitcase and the flowers up the stairs, and Lyssa was sniffling and cursing by the time she managed to unlock her rattling wooden doorway, and stumble into her apartment.

  The suitcase thudded to the floor, and the flowers landed unceremoniously in the kitchenette sink.

  Sobbing, Lyssa flopped onto her bed, and kicked her shoes off.

  God, she felt horrible.

  Half of it was a hangover. After storming away from Travis the night before, she’d proceeded to down the complimentary mini margaritas like they were going out of fashion. How she’d even managed to find her way back to her hotel room was beyond her.

  But the other half was bitter, angry regret.

  She should have seen it coming. She should have realized that there was a reason Travis and Nikolai had refused to let her stay with them in Vegas.

  But like the stupid, sex-drunk chick she was, it had never even occurred to her that one of them could have had another woman over in Nevada.

  It had never occurred to Lyssa that she was nothing more than a sexy little distraction for those two boys, on the long, boring nights when they were back home in Brooklyn.

  “Oh, God,” Lyssa angrily thumped her pillow. “I’m such a fucking idiot.”

  Her pillow received a volley of punches that any MMA fighter would have been impressed with, and then for five minutes Lyssa just buried her head in the cushion and sobbed.

  But eventually, she pulled herself together.

  That’s what she always did.

  Because say what you want about Lyssa Meadows – but never say that she’s a little bitch.

  Wiping tears from her eyes, Lyssa clambered into a sitting position on her rickety bed. With a sniff, she decided to distract herself by opening the card that had accompanied the beautiful flowers she’d received.

  She half expected it to be from Travis, or maybe even Nikolai himself. Belated apologies for the way they’d treated her.

  But as she opened the card with trembling fingers, Lyssa found another message inside, instead.

  Cariño,

  Here’s hoping your trip to Vegas was a success. I can’t wait to read your column.

  Besos,

  Silas

  Silas.

  Silas had sent the flowers.

  He’d got her the hotel room. He’d given her a metaphorical pat on the rump and convinced her to ‘go get ‘em, girl.’ And now he’d rewarded her with this beautiful bouquet when she got back.

  Flowers she knew he could ill-afford.

  Just the sheer sweetness of it hit Lyssa like a freight train, and tears sprang to her eyes again. Taking a rattling breath, she squeezed shut her eyes, flopped back down on the bed, and cried her lungs out like she hadn’t done since she was a little girl.

  Chapter Ninety Two

  Lyssa

  “Damn,” said Steve, as Lyssa’s editor turned the page and finished reading her submitted column. “This is good.”

  Looking up from his desk, the balding editor growled: “I can’t reimburse you for flying out to Vegas – but I’m not going to lie. This column about the Winogrodzki fight is the best damn thing you’ve ever written.”

  Sitting across the desk from him, Lyssa’s cheeks burned with pride.

  “I mean it,” Steve nodded, slipping the printed piece into his ‘For Press’ tray. “Reading it was like I was actually there.” He snorted bitterly. “It’s good. Don’t tell anybody I said this, but it’s too good for a rag like the Herald-Tribune.”

  And that’s when the atmosphere in the drafty little office changed.

  “Yo, get that door for me, Lyssa,” Steve ordered. Lyssa barely had to move to be able to click shut the door to her editor’s office.

  Leaning across the desk, Steve lowered his voice, and murmured: “I mean it, Lyssa. If you’re going to knock out shit like this, you deserve to have it printed somewhere better than the third page of the Sports Section.”

  And then his lowered his voice to a whisper.

  “And, just between you and me, I’m not sure how long that’s going to be an option, anyway.”

  Lyssa’s eyes widened as she heard that.

  “W-what do you mean?” She gulped. “Are you… are you firing me?”

  Steve snorted in laughter.

  “Hell no.” But then he shook his head. “But the writing’s on the wall, Lyssa. They’ve cancelled our Friday edition. They’re cutting down the print run.”

  He leaned in even closer.

  “Between you and me, I doubt even I’ll have a job in six months’ time. So…” He reached over and patted her hand – a move that for any other guy might have seemed sleazy, but came across more as fatherly when Steve did it. “So… Maybe you should be smart. Start looking.”

  Steve let Lyssa’s hand go, and turned to look out of the grimy window, across the less-than-inspiring vista of downtown Elizabeth, New Jersey.

  “Times are changing, girl. I think it’s time we started changing with them.”

  Lyssa sat there and looked at Steve’s silhouette, as he stood framed by the light pouring through the window.

  She’d been a writer for the Herald-Tribune for years now. It wasn’t steady work. It didn’t pay that well. Hell, even the caché of her press card was fading, now that club owners and restaurateurs favored hot, new blogs over tired, struggling print newspapers.

  But this was her life. This is all she knew.

  Hell, this is what had brought her back from Spain, despite the butterflies that had churned in her stomach when Silas had looked deep into Lyssa’s eyes and murmured: “You don’t have to go.”

  “I-Is that all?”

  A little stunned, Lyssa waited for Steve’s curt nod, to dismiss her. And then, grabbing her laptop bag, she walked out of her editor’s office as if it was the last time.

  Chapter Ninety Three

  Lyssa

  “Did you get the flowers?”

  The Internet connection in Spain was bad, so Silas’ face was a flickering mosaic of pixels – but Lyssa still smiled when she saw it.

  “Yes,” she said, settling cross-legged on her bed. “They were gorgeous. You shouldn’t have.”

  The pixelated Silas broke into what Lyssa could only assume was a smile.

  “I thought it would be nice to come home to,” he purred, in his sexy Spanish accent. “How was Vegas?”

  Lyssa cringed when he asked that question, and hoped
that the Internet connection was too bad for Silas to have noticed.

  “It was fine,” she lied. “Did you read my column?”

  “Best thing you’ve ever written,” Silas replied. “It sounds like one hell of a fight. I’m sorry I missed it.” The speakers crackled, as Silas snorted into them: “But it should have been me up there, fighting Jackson.”

  Lyssa blinked when she heard that. In all the weeks they’d been in Skype contact, this was the first time Silas had ever expressed regret at what had happened.

  “How are things?” She tried to change the subject. “Any word on the court case?”

  Silas seemed cheerful enough, but she knew the threat of losing Bodegas Batras must be weighing on his mind.

  “Nothing good,” confirming her suspicion, the energy fading from Silas’ voice as he explained: “The lawyer Alberte hired says he can file an injunction – but it will cost us 10,000 euros.” He shook his head, breaking his on-screen image up into a dancing mosaic of pixels. “With where we are financially, he might as well have told us a million.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t be wasting money sending me flowers,” Lyssa growled, and that at least got a laugh from the handsome Spaniard.

  As the laughing died down, so did Silas’ good humor.

  “I don’t know what to do, Lyssa,” he admitted. “Alberte is a mess, and Celestina can hardly keep this place together.” He took a deep breath, and rattled in his lungs. “The Buenaventuras might as well have already taken this place, the way it feels here at the moment.”

  Lyssa bit her lip.

  “I-I’m sorry,” she murmured, even knowing how utterly useless it was to say it. “I feel so bad for you.”

  “Ha!” That stubborn laugh again. “Don’t feel bad, cariño. It’s not your fault.” He snorted. “I guess it’s lucky I got out of that wheelchair. I might have to start looking for a job.”