Stacked Up: Worth the Fight Series

by Sidney Halston

  He ran toward the noise, losing his footing when the hardened surface turned into the sand. A moment later he could see Lawrence, who was facing the water and holding Belle, trying to calm her.

  The noise from the waves and the wind made it difficult to hear much, but as Travis approached the pair and Belle spotted him over Lawrence’s shoulder, he did hear one thing—something he would never ever forget until the day he died, something that made his heart grow so big it felt as if it would explode out of his body.

  “Daddy!” Belle yelled over Lawrence’s shoulder, her eyes fixed on Travis.

  Lawrence turned around. Seeing Travis approaching him like a steamroller, he didn’t even attempt to put up a fight; he simply held out Sarabelle. Travis snatched her up and held her close as the sobbing toddler clung to him with all her strength.

  Travis was torn between the need to hurt Lawrence and the primal need to hold Belle and soothe her. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. I’m here.” He could hear, faintly, the guys behind him.

  “Daddy,” she repeated into Travis’s neck.

  “Stay where you are. Hands where I can see them.” It was Jack.

  “I want Mommy!” she cried, holding Travis tightly.

  “Can you be brave for me, baby girl?” he asked, knowing she was too young to understand. “Be brave. Stay with Uncle Enzo for a minute.” Reluctantly he handed her to Enzo and asked him to walk away with her for a moment. He could hear her sobbing and crying for him and her mom, but he had to deal with Lawrence before the police arrived.

  All the guys were there. His brothers. Yes, Jack was a cop, but he would understand. And even if he didn’t understand, Travis didn’t care, because he had to take care of this right now.

  He charged forward, a roar he didn’t even recognize coming from deep in his chest. He grabbed Lawrence by the collar and swung hard at his face. “Motherfucker!” He kept hitting him left and right. “I’m going to kill you. You hear me?” He continued to hit Lawrence until he felt multiple hands trying to pry him off.

  “Enough, brother. Your girls need you,” Tony said.

  “Stop. Take a breath.” It was Slade this time.

  “Why’d you do it? Just answer me that,” Travis yelled, his own voice unrecognizable against the crashing waves from the beach and the wind.

  “My wife and I…before she left we tried to have kids, but it never happened. I didn’t even think I wanted kids, but then I saw Sarabelle and I felt so much regret. I wasn’t going to hurt her, I swear. I wasn’t even going to take her. I just wanted some time with her to get to know her. Just a little time with her, so that she knows who I am.”

  Travis charged again. “No, you don’t get time with her. Never! You fucking never get time. You left. She’s mine. They’re both mine. I will fucking kill you,” he roared. Then he heard sirens from behind him, and strong arms were holding him back and away from Lawrence.

  “Stop it, Travis. Get a handle on your shit. The other police officers are here,” Jack whispered. “Take him and get him out of here,” he said to the rest of the guys, pointing to Travis.

  The guys pulled Travis away as squads of police cars pulled up. “You did good,” Cain said somberly as they walked Travis down the beach. “He deserved it. Would’ve done the same thing.”

  “Go be with them.” Slade pointed at Penny, who was running at a full sprint toward Belle, followed by JL.

  Seeing Belle in her mother’s arms was the breaking point for Travis—his knees buckled and he fell to the ground. As he watched his two girls cry in relief, in fear, in love, he closed his eyes, and for the first time ever he prayed, thanking God for keeping Sarabelle safe. If something had happened to her…it wasn’t even a thought he could bear to have.

  Enzo put his hand on Travis’s shoulder. “They’re okay, man.”

  “Never been so scared in my life,” Travis choked out.

  Enzo squeezed his shoulder before walking away.

  “Daddy!” Sarabelle wailed from her mother’s arms. Penny looked around until she saw Travis on his knees on the sand a few yards away. She ran over and fell to her knees in front of Travis, who embraced the two of them as tightly as he could.

  “You found her!”

  “I love her so much, Penny.” Travis closed his eyes and hugged Sarabelle, kissing her head, her cheeks. “I love you so much, my little Belle.”

  “Wuv you, Twavis.”

  Penny teared up.

  Still holding Sarabelle tightly, he gripped Penny by the back of the neck and pulled her in, pressing his lips to hers. “And her momma—I’m crazy about her momma, too.”

  —

  Travis was eager to get his girls home after they’d given the police their statements. Francesca had taken charge of most of the legal matters, including having the escrowed funds wired back into Travis’s account. He couldn’t even process most of what was happening, but Frances insisted that Lawrence had breached his portion of the contract, and so Travis’s funds should be returned. Furthermore, even though he had returned the funds, legally Lawrence couldn’t revoke his relinquishment of parental rights.

  Travis didn’t give a shit about the money; he only cared about Belle and Penny. He refused to leave their side; even when the EMTs took Belle into the ambulance to check her out, he made sure he went with them. He felt like he was moving in slow motion while the world was moving at hyperspeed around him.

  It was the middle of the night when they finally arrived home. He carried Belle to the living room, and put her down on the couch. Penny sat next to her and put her arm around her daughter. Travis crouched down in front of them.

  “Are you really okay?” he asked Belle, who was sleepy.

  She yawned and said, “Bubba.”

  He ran to her room and came back with the teddy bear.

  “I think she’s fine,” Penny told her. “She’s too young to really understand what’s going on. I hope that someday she’ll have forgotten all about this.”

  “Maybe we should take her to her pediatrician tomorrow.”

  “I already called and left a message. I just want to triple-check.”

  “You’re such a good mother.”

  “I don’t feel like such a good mother right now.”

  “Not your fault.”

  “I turned away. I shouldn’t have been talking to that woman. I should’ve had my eyes on Belle.”

  “You really think that would’ve changed anything? He would’ve snatched her here, at the park, at the bus stop—it wouldn’t have mattered.”

  Her chin quivered.

  “Come, let’s put her to bed.”

  Belle’s eyes were closing and her head was falling forward.

  They put her to bed, kissed her, told her how much they loved her, and went back to the living room.

  “I feel like I’ve been gutted and then slowly put back together again,” she said, her eyes wet.

  “My one and only job in this relationship is to protect you both, and I failed,” Travis muttered, his elbows on his thighs and his head in his palms.

  “You think we need someone just to protect us?” she asked.

  “We should have stuck to sex. That would’ve been easier.”

  “I’m going to pretend you’re just tired and overwhelmed.” She tried to lift his chin, to see those beautiful blue eyes that were filled with self-loathing and anger but also with an enormous capacity to love. “Without you, who knows how long it would’ve taken to find her, Travis. You know that feeling you get when you think that nothing matters except who you’re with right now? Nothing outside this house means anything. Just you, me, and Sarabelle. The world could end tomorrow, and I’d know that all I ever needed was right here, right now. That is what makes this all worth it. Live here in the now with me. This all goes back to how badly your mother treated you, and that’s why you feel you’re not worth being loved. Forgive her so that you can move on. So that you can let us love you.”

  “Forgive my mother?” He finally
looked up. “Are you crazy? She’s the reason I can’t say all the things I want to say to you.”

  “Who gives a crap about the words, Travis? You show me every day how you feel. I don’t need the words.”

  “But I do. I don’t want to be afraid of saying them. I can’t forgive her for fucking me up. I can’t give her that satisfaction.”

  “Travis, I wish you would have a little faith. God brought us together. Maybe if you hadn’t had that kind of upbringing you wouldn’t have such a kind soul. Forgiving isn’t about the other person. Hell, your mother isn’t even alive anymore. Forgiving is about you. Forgive her so that you can move on. You’ll feel better for it, I promise you.”

  He leaned against Penny and held her, letting the words replay in his mind as he dozed off, trying to forget the absolute worst day of his life.

  Chapter 19

  Worth the Fight Academy had begun small. A place where two best friends, Jack and Slade, would come after school to train. A place where brothers were made and lifelong friendships were forged. Some fighters, like Jack and Enzo, fought for fun; for them, it was a serious hobby. Others, such as Slade and Tony, made it their careers. They lived and breathed the sport. They studied different types of mixed martial arts, perfecting them as if they were trained musicians about to perform the concert of a lifetime. Others, such as Cain, made it an escape. For them it was a place where all past guilt was suppressed through the sweat and blood of hours inside the cage. Working their bodies to the point of numbness. All feelings, except physical exhaustion and pain, forgotten.

  Then there were fighters created out of necessity. And those were the true fighters. The ones who had nothing to lose, who had nothing but time and will to give to the sport. That was Travis. He hadn’t chosen the sport; the sport had chosen him. When he was hustling for food for himself and his sister at a young age, he’d sometimes had to resort to violence. When he was angry at a life that he couldn’t change, he’d used his fists to get the aggression out. Even when he was happy, the only way to get the inner turmoil out of his system was by sweating it out inside the cage. Fist to flesh or fist to bag, it made no difference, so long as the adrenaline coursed through his body.

  This was the night for Worth the Fight Academy. The culmination of all the months and years of training. HBO was filming the final episode of Fight Night’s first season. Travis wasn’t a second-class fighter tonight. He was the main card of the evening. The audience wanted to see what would happen after all the training and trash talking of the last six months. Would Travis deliver, or would he fail miserably?

  He could hear the noise from the main room where the cage was located. This wasn’t the small venues he was used to—or even the bigger arenas in Miami where he fought as the main card. This was Vegas. This was hundreds of thousands of dollars in production. This was celebrities and champagne. Money and fame. This was it. This was what he’d worked so hard for.

  Travis paced around the room, the nausea setting in from the nerves. It wasn’t something he’d been expecting; he’d never experienced anything like that before. Something had changed, and it wasn’t just the venue.

  “What’s the matter, man?” Slade asked.

  “Don’t know.” He continued to pace. He jumped up and down, loosening his muscles. “Just nerves, I guess.”

  All the men from the Academy, his teammates, friends, and trainers, came in to wish him luck.

  “You don’t look so good,” Tony said.

  “He says it’s just nerves,” Slade responded.

  Cain put his hands on Travis’s shoulders and squeezed. “Look at me.” Cain had been training him for the last year with the help of Tony and Slade. “You’re ready.”

  “You got this, man,” Jack added.

  Enzo, his brother-in-law and best friend, came up to him next. “JL is out there rooting for you, brother. We’re so proud of you.”

  “Lose or win, it doesn’t fucking matter. We wouldn’t want anyone but you to represent the Academy,” Tony said.

  They all patted his shoulder and slapped his back before leaving. He was sitting alone in the room, trying to calm his mind, when there was a knock on the door.

  “Come in,” he yelled over his shoulder.

  “Had to sneak in and wish you luck.”

  He turned around to see Penny walk in. He stood up and pulled her to him, and she instinctively opened her arms and wrapped him tight. It was their thing. It was love without words. It spoke of support, empathy, protection, and possession.

  “Did I ever tell you I lived in the Academy? For about a year when I was about twenty. I had nothing. No money. No parents. Nothing. Francesca’s dad threw a mattress in a corner and let me live there. He even stocked up an old refrigerator every week with food.”

  “No, I never knew that. That was nice of him.”

  “Yeah, it was. I didn’t have anything else to do. I didn’t have any big dreams. Any big life plan. I had a gym and a mattress. So I started training all the time. At night when I couldn’t sleep because I was angry at the world, I hit the speedbags for hours. I kicked the bags when I was bored. I just trained all the time. Eventually I got good, and at some point it became my life. I trained all the fucking time. Because it’s my job. A job that I had to be the best at. Tonight I realized something had changed, though, and until you walked into the room I didn’t know what it was.”

  She looked up at him, a question in her eyes.

  “I trained like I had nothing to lose,” he went on. “I lived my life like I had nothing to lose. But then I met you and Belle. You two somehow clawed your way into my little inconsequential life. I don’t even think I was living before I met you. I was just existing. No real emotions; nothing. Now that you’re here…” He placed his fist over the spot on his chest where his heart beat, his eyes welling up. “My life has purpose. It has meaning, and this isn’t all there is for me. I am a fighter. I will always be a fighter. That’s my job; it’s who I am. But now I’m also a man who has love. You and my little Belle, I love you both so much. God, Penny, have I told you I loved you? Because I do. More than anything, I do. You’re my best friend, the person I want to tell that I’m fucking scared shitless right now. You’re that person to me. And I want to marry you and adopt Belle. I want to always protect her and be there for her. And I don’t want her to have one single moment of doubt in her life that she is wanted and that she is loved.”

  Penny was sobbing by the time he finished. “That’s a lot of realizations to make before going out there, cowboy.”

  He wiped his own eyes. “I know.”

  “I love you, cowboy. You’re going to go out there and show the world what a warrior you are, and you’re going to do it for yourself because you deserve to win. You’ve put all the hours and hard work into it. And that’s just what is going to happen.”

  He smiled. “I wish I was that confident.”

  “I’m confident enough for the both of us.” She smiled and pressed her cheek against his chest. “And then when you finish doing that, we’ll celebrate by finding the first chapel that has an Elvis impersonator to marry us.”

  He smiled and kissed her hard.

  A cough interrupted them. Slade stuck his head inside. “Twenty minutes.”

  “Gotcha, boss,” Travis acknowledged, his voice thick with emotion.

  “And no fucking before a match!” Slade added, his voice full of amusement, as he closed the door.

  “Good luck. Belle sent you this, but I’ll hold on to it.” She pulled Bubba out of her purse and showed it to him. “She says it makes you brave. Well, she said ‘no scared,’ but you get the gist.”

  Travis had a lump in his throat, but he did feel brave. Hell, he felt invincible.

  “You make us brave, Travis. You’re my Bubba. Go out there, and whatever happens, know that at home, where it matters, everything is finally perfect.” She kissed him softly on the lips and walked out of the locker room.

  Travis walked out to the cage feelin
g ten feet tall. If he was asked what song he came out to, he couldn’t say. His mind was absorbed with what he was about to do. He tuned out the twelve thousand screaming fans that filled out the sold-out arena, the lights, and the cameras. Instead he focused on Tony and Slade’s words. He was faster than Lemmon, and even though he had less experience, there was no way in hell that anyone had trained harder than he had. He had been born for this fight.

  Lemmon was known to be reserved and focused. He eyed Travis while the referee spoke, and then the cage was locked. Even through all the noise around the arena, the ominous click of the cage being closed was all Travis heard before he had to sidestep a jab to his face. He was on his toes, swinging left and right, avoiding hit after hit. Lemmon was bigger than he was, and his plan was to avoid being hit, tire the man out so that he could finish him off on the last round.

  By the end of the first round everything was going as planned. Travis looked like he was dancing with Lemmon, quick on his toes, swinging his hips and neck, and there hadn’t been a single point of contact between Lemmon and Travis. By the third round, Lemmon was noticeably tired, and Travis had yet to throw any combos or attempt any takedowns. The crowd was on edge; some were cheering, and some were booing because they’d paid for action and wanted to see action.

  Travis knew he should stick with the plan they’d devised, but Lemmon was moving slower and the crowd was cheering louder, so Travis threw a combination, landing a punch to Lemmon’s side.

  The crowd roared.

  Feeling more confident, he threw another combination, landing another punch. Then, because Lemmon seemed tired and slow, Travis dropped his guard in order to throw a kick, but Lemmon used the opening to throw a cross right to Travis’s face, which he felt immediately across his jaw and nose. The hit almost sent him down, but just then the bell signaled the end of the round—and it was a good thing too, because he barely made it to his corner.