Uncaged Love #4: MMA New Adult Contemporary Romance

by JJ Knight

  “But what if it’s a security guy?”

  “Just be still.”

  My heart is hammering. I hate being afraid. When the car passes right on by and goes to the exit, I can see from a non-foggy corner of one window that it’s just an ordinary car. Someone working late.

  Everything in me feels mixed up and full of emotion. Panic. Love. Excitement. Fear. I’m breathing too fast, and Colt runs his hands along my back. “I know you’ve been afraid a long time. I’m going to take care of everything,” he says. “We’ll look into your past. See what’s happened. Now that I’m out of my father’s books, I can hire a lawyer.”

  His voice soothes me. I relax against his chest. We stay like this a little while longer, then Colt helps me back across the console to dress. Pantyless.

  We drive to a four-story condo building in West LA. Colt parks the Stingray in the bottom-floor garage next to his Harley.

  A gray fountain gurgles in the middle of the entrance. Its presence makes me laugh. Who puts a fountain in a garage?

  “I laughed the first time I saw it too,” Colt says. He reaches in his pocket and withdraws a quarter. “You should make a wish.”

  I take the coin, warm from his body. Water flows from the top level of the fountain into the next. What do I wish for? I think about fairy tales again, my frog-prince necklace that Colt rescued after I had to hock it. Then the big ballroom at the first drag show, just like in any princess movie. And that sense of leaving a carriage when we got out of his Mercedes to the flash of photographers.

  “Am I supposed to keep the wish a secret?” I ask him.

  “I think that’s how it works,” he says.

  I press the quarter to my lips and close my eyes. My wish is pretty simple.

  To live happily ever after.

  I open my eyes again and toss the coin into the fountain.

  Of course, everything is the same as it was the moment before. I’m pretty sure I’m already living my wish. Colt takes my hand and tosses my duffel bag over his shoulder. We ride an elevator to the top floor.

  This place feels typical of LA. It’s modern and full of glass and shiny countertops with sleek black furniture. I like it too, even if it doesn’t have the romantic quality of his place in Santa Barbara.

  Then it sort of hits me. I’m moving in with a man who has two homes.

  That Cinderella feeling washes over me again.

  We walk around his place together. Giant floor-to-ceiling windows look out over the city. I lean against the glass and watch the lights twinkle. We’re on some sort of hill, so we can see down over the buildings and streets.

  “As long as you stay with me, we shouldn’t have to worry about Annie,” Colt says. He comes up behind me and rests his chin on my shoulder. His arms come around me. I feel cocooned in his embrace. “I think if she comes after you again, though, you should think about pressing charges.”

  “No police,” I say, stiffening.

  “Of course,” he says. “Right. Not until we know your situation.” He stands up and leads me over to one of the sofas. “I’ll need to know everything when I talk to the lawyer. Your name is Joanna Mahoney?”

  I pull my feet up and sit cross-legged on the oversized cushion. My belly quivers a little. I don’t like talking about my past. “Yes. Joanna Renee Mahoney.”

  “And when did all this happen?”

  “Three years ago.”

  Colt settles next to me. “So, you were in high school?”

  “About to finish junior year.”

  “Did you go back to school here in California?”

  My cheeks burn. “No. I never went back.”

  “But you got a fake ID.”

  “It’s not so hard.”

  “Do you mind if I see it?”

  I stand up. “It’s in my duffel bag. I don’t keep it on me.” I walk to the bedroom where Colt dropped my bag.

  “Are you afraid someone will know it’s fake?”

  The bag is by the door. I kneel down and sort through it. “I doubt it’s very good. But it worked for getting me jobs. If a cop looked it up, it would probably come up as fake.”

  “Do you file taxes under this name? How are you getting away with this? Do you have a social security number?”

  I find the ID and tug it out. “I made one up. The jobs usually take tax money out, but I haven’t filed or anything. No telling where it goes.”

  “This might take some work,” Colt says. He stands up and pulls his wallet from his pocket.

  I hand him the ID.

  He holds both of our IDs up to the light, angling them. “This isn’t half bad. It’s even got the lamination seal.”

  “Yeah, I checked that.”

  Colt stares at the image of me from three years ago. “You look so haunted.” He passes the ID back.

  I look at it. My eyes are hollow, my lips in a bitter frown. “Wasn’t a good time of my life.”

  “Do you have any ID from your old life?”

  I head back to my bag to put it away. “I had a driver’s license, but I cut it up. Anything else, I guess my stepmother had.”

  “Is her name Mahoney?”

  “Yes. She wouldn’t change hers when she married my dad, due to her son. Then she made me change mine if I was going to live with her after my dad died. Said she didn’t want to look like she had a bastard kid.”

  “No other family?” Colt’s eyes are full of concern.

  “My grandma died before my father. She got cancer. That’s when Dad married my stepmother. He worked offshore, so he needed someone to watch me. If there was anyone else then, I guess I would have gone with them after he died.”

  I walk by him to sit down, but he reaches out and pulls me into his lap. His voice is husky, full of emotion, when he says, “I don’t like the idea that meeting me put you in danger.”

  My forehead fits against his neck. I feel comfort in him holding me so close. The effects of the wine are long gone. “But meeting you means I know how to fight.”

  “You were a fighter long before that.”

  It’s true. But now I have power. I know what to do. And how to control it. I picture my stepbrother on the floor of the bathroom, bleeding on the fallen curtain. Probably not a day goes by that the image does not flash into my head. If I’d been in control, I could have stopped him sooner. Before he took it so far as to grab me naked in the shower. Before I overreacted and beat him.

  “What do you think Annie wants from all this?” I ask.

  “I have no idea.”

  “She said all the other fighters shunned her.”

  “I didn’t hear a word about it.” He sighs. “Maybe Brittany would know more.”

  I’m not sure how to say the next thing, but I have to. “Don’t you think the timing is sort of strange? You kick Brittany off the team and lock her out, then Annie shows up?”

  Colt gets very still. “I can’t believe Brittany would do that.”

  “Okay,” I say quickly. “You know her better than I do.”

  “We just need to find out the connection between her and that Lani girl. Maybe your trainer, Nate, will have found something out.”

  There is still one more question I have, but it’s hard to ask it. “Colt?”

  He tightens his grip on me a little, like he knows I have something hard to say. “Yeah?”

  “Annie and your father both seem to think your relationship with her was about to end. But it sounds like it sort of…crushed you. Your whole fighting style changed. You said that yourself.”

  I look up at him. His eyes are far away, fixed somewhere else in the room. His jaw is scruffy. I reach up to run my hand along the rough plane of his cheek.

  “I don’t think I was very good with her,” he says finally. “I don’t think I did a good job of telling her how I felt.” He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple sliding up, then down. “Probably I let all this happen.”

  I turn his face so that he looks at me. “I think she’s a seriously screwed-up gir
l,” I say. “I wouldn’t blame yourself for what she’s doing.”

  “I don’t think she’s done,” Colt says. “I know her. I know how she fights. She could have done a lot more to you, after you got knocked out. But she walked away.”

  I haven’t told him what Annie said when she left, that this wasn’t over.

  But it’s pretty clear to all of us that it isn’t.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Buster and a bunch of the girls I train are waiting for us when we arrive on Colt’s Harley the next morning. The banner is back up, the one I hung the first week I worked there. Once again it proclaims in bold letters “The Gunner trains here.”

  Colt shakes his head when he sees it. “I guess I’ll just have to get used to stuff like that.”

  The girls surround me with hugs. I’m glad to see them.

  Buster claps Colt’s shoulder. “Killjoy’s already here. He said he’d get a few things sent over tomorrow, but we have enough equipment to hold you for now.”

  “It’ll be fine,” Colt says.

  We head through the door with the blacked-out windows. My next fight is in two days, and I’m feeling worried that I won’t be ready. I need to be doing speed drills to manage Diva Delaney.

  Killjoy actually approaches me first when Colt and I pass through the accordion door to the addition. “I’ve been watching Diva’s fights,” he says. “Let’s get you started on some sprints and work on getting your movements more explosive.”

  I feel sort of shocked. Colt’s trainer has always acted like I was a nuisance. I strip out of my shoes and socks and sweats, down into fighter gear. As he explains that I need to get as comfortable as I can in this short time with rapid pivots, Colt heads back out the door. I know he’s planning on contacting that lawyer, but I force myself to focus on Killjoy’s instructions.

  The day passes quickly. When Killjoy spars with Colt, I work the girls who are still there. I know I’m neglecting them. I’ll have to find some sort of balance between my training and their workouts as we settle into a routine. I’ve never had so many people around me, needing me, or me needing them. I’m not sure how other people manage it. I’ve been solitary for a very long time.

  “So, what happened to you?” one of the girls asks. She points at the enormous bruise on my leg.

  “Just a bad hit while training.” I try to smile reassuringly and hand her a kettlebell.

  “Is that the fighter Colt McClure?” A redhead keeps flicking her eyes toward the cage, where Colt is working on his kicks. As usual, he’s only wearing his blue shorts. It’s hard for me not to stare, and I see him all the time.

  “Yes,” I say, and pass her a hefty sandbag weight. “Do some caveman slams with this.”

  She struggles with the weight, but gamely lifts it high and throws it to the floor.

  “Good,” I tell her. “Do twenty more.”

  That’ll keep her busy.

  A girl named Sammy finishes her sit-ups. She took a special interest in Lani back when both of us were working with her. I don’t expect Lani to come back now that Annie has told me they were in this together. But maybe this girl has had contact with her.

  I give her a pair of kettlebells. “Triceps,” I tell her, and show her the move. Once she has begun, I ask her, “Have you seen Lani?”

  “No,” Sammy says, her voice just starting to strain. “Weird she came back just for that one day.”

  She’s right. We trained with these girls right up until Lani took me to the fight with Parker, then claimed to be gone for a funeral. That was clearly a lie. She was so angry with me just hours before Annie attacked me. I thought it was because I blew off Parker after she tried to set us up. But now, I wonder.

  “Do two more sets,” I tell Sammy. “Rest sixty seconds in between.” I glance over at the other girls. They are all busy with their circuit work.

  I head out to Buster’s office. He’s sitting in his chair, pushing papers around. He seems annoyed, rubbing his bald head like it’s a magic talisman that will make them all go away.

  I knock on the doorframe.

  He looks up. “Hey, Jo. Getting some good licks in?”

  “Killjoy has decided he doesn’t hate me,” I say.

  Buster laughs. “About time.”

  I lean against the edge of his desk. “Did Nate ever find out about Lani?”

  “He called a bit ago. He met with Parker’s trainer,” Buster says. “I wish he was here to tell you, but he’s meeting some promoter. I’ll try to keep it straight.”

  My heart hammers. So, they know something.

  “This Parker fellow is friends with the Berend family. Lani is their youngest. That was her real name, first name anyway. The rest of her form was made up.”

  “So, she lied.”

  “Definitely. She signed on right after I knew Colt was coming here, but before it was announced. She must’ve had inside information. I’m guessing that’s where her brother comes in.”

  “I didn’t even know she had a brother.”

  “A fighter. He goes by Striker.”

  “Is he UFC? Or a beginner?”

  “Well, actually, he kind of stalled out. Seems like he was trying to get a UFC spot and decided to force Colt to fight him. I guess he thought it would give him a leg up.”

  So, none of this was random. I feel my hands go cold. “What happened?”

  “You can ask Colt more about it, but basically Colt wouldn’t do it. Told Striker to build his skills and try again later.”

  “That probably didn’t go over well.”

  “Yeah, it got bad. Striker decided to go full-scale media on it. When Nate mentioned it, I started to recall it a bit. It got embarrassing for him in the end. But Colt’s hands were pretty tied. His manager would never let him fight someone that far down the chain.”

  “You think Lani is trying to get back at Colt?”

  “You lost me there. I thought you two were friends.”

  I did too. “Thanks, Buster,” I tell him. “I should get back to the girls.”

  “Stick tight to Colt,” Buster says. “I don’t like any of this.”

  I nod and walk back to the addition. None of us do.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It’s not until we’re back at Colt’s condo that night that I get a chance to ask him about the lawyer.

  “He’s going to look into all of it,” Colt says as we ride up in the elevator. “You’re not in the missing-children system now, and he didn’t see any warrants. But he’ll get back to us in a few days when he knows more.”

  I follow him down the hallway to his condo. Now that my past is about to intrude on my present, I wish I could forget it all.

  He stops outside his door to pull me in close. “I hate that stricken look you get. I wish I could make this all go away.”

  “You already are,” I say.

  He kisses the top of my head. “You know, we should forget all this until after your fight tomorrow. You need to focus.”

  I give him a light jab to the ribs. “Yeah, we’ve seen what happens to your face when you don’t pay attention in a fight.”

  His laugh rumbles through my body. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”

  “Not as long as I’m breathing.”

  Colt turns to unlock his door, then freezes.

  The door is not pulled all the way closed.

  We look at each other. Something isn’t right. My belly vibrates with fear, but I shut it down. I am not going to be afraid anymore. Colt and I can take on anyone.

  Unless they bring in a weapon.

  Colt flattens his hand against the door to push it open, but I grip his wrist and give a plaintive look. He pauses. Doubt flickers across his face for a moment. Maybe he’s thinking the same thing. None of our skills are any match for a gun.

  But something comes over him. I don’t know if it’s rage, or if he’s thought through the people involved and decided he can take them. But he steps back and kicks the door open wit
h a blast.

  Paper flutters all over the room from the sudden movement. Colt charges inside, looking in every direction. I follow, trying to stay loose and ready. We both stand there as little colored bits drift back to the ground.

  Nobody’s here.

  Colt snatches at one of the papers. “It’s fake money,” he says, holding it up to me.

  I recognize it immediately. “It’s Monopoly money,” I say. “I used to play that board game.”

  We continue to scan the room, waiting to see if anyone will come out. But the room is quiet, the paper all settled to the floor.

  Colt kicks at it with his boot. I turn to look at the lock. “It’s not broken or damaged,” I say.

  “She had a key,” Colt says. His face is dark with anger. “We never stayed here, hardly ever. The condo was just in the family. But she had a key.”

  “You didn’t have the locks changed?”

  Colt moves through the room, listening. He walks to the bedroom door and flips on the light. “No. Didn’t think about it.”

  “I’ll find a locksmith,” I say. “We’ll get someone out now.”

  Colt nods. “Just tell them we’ll pay whatever to have it done tonight.” He disappears into the other room.

  I scroll through my phone until I find a 24-hour locksmith. By the time Colt is finished searching the condo, a man who can rekey the door is on his way.

  I kneel on the floor to start picking up all the fake money. “I guess we get the message.”

  Colt is still agitated and on edge. He paces the room. “No, Annie is the one who’s going to get a message.”

  “I’m not sure this is really about her.”

  Colt whips around to face me. “What are you talking about?”

  “Lani’s brother is Striker,” I say.

  “I see.” He heads over to one of the tall windows and leans his forearms on the glass. “So, he’s got his sister working on some sort of revenge?”

  “She probably knew about Annie. Figured she could be bought. I get the idea Annie needed money.”

  “I’m not going to fight Striker. He’s a two-bit grappler who can’t handle himself in the cage.”