The Fighter's Block

by Hadley Quinn

  She took a shower and got dressed, and when she knocked on Paul and Marnie’s door, they were ready to go to the courthouse with her.

  ***

  Van wasn’t naïve, but he was tired of Jack coaching him on proper courtroom behavior. He only planned on saying the minimum, but he knew to be polite, cooperative, and make eye contact with the judge. He felt no hope for bail because the evidence had stacked against him. At the beginning he was angry—pissed that he was arrested for something he didn’t do—but he was innocent, and he thought it would all get cleared up. Now he felt completely betrayed, like justice was never going to be served, but also stabbed in the back and hung out to die. Whoever was doing this to him couldn’t possibly hate him that badly, could they?

  He thought about Quincy, and like he always did, felt ill that he’d gone down such a dark path. Van thought for sure that Quincy—the kid that he’d literally pulled out of the street because he’d been left to die by a bunch of drug dealing thugs—would continue on a straighter path. But something had turned Q against him, and Van knew that person was Brian. It was a good thing he was already dead because Van wasn’t sure how long it would have been before he finally came face to face with the guy himself.

  When Van entered the courtroom he was prepared to see Dani. He knew it was going to be difficult to see her there and not be able to hold her or speak with her. She was sitting with Paul and Marnie, and behind them was Mickey with Cody and Scott, and a few other brothers from the Divehouse. An unexpected chill went up his back. Van couldn’t even imagine anyone from The Block being so disloyal, but then again, Quincy had. It made him sick to think he couldn’t trust anyone now. The disappointment and heartache he felt even stopped him for a second, and the guard had to push him along.

  Dani was startled to see him look so stone cold, but her heart went out to him, knowing that he was not in a good state of mind. The world had screwed him over, and it kept on screwing him over to no avail. Life didn’t seem fair and Van looked hardened from it.

  He sat down next to Jack and faced forward, even though he heard Dani say that she loved him. He wanted to turn around and speak to her, but not with Paul and Marnie there. He had no idea what would come out of his mouth.

  The judge entered the courtroom and the occupants stood. As soon as she was seated and the audience was as well, the bail hearing began. Van felt beaten from the very first word, and after both sides presented their messages for Judge Abernathy to consider, it was no surprise to Van to hear that bail was being denied. He was a flight risk; after all, he’d been trying to run when he was arrested, right? And as an ultimate fighter, he was dangerous and considered to be a deadly weapon.

  Dani was crying. She didn’t want to, but she couldn’t hold it in. She had been hoping and praying that he would be home with her that night, but she was subjected to a trial date of August 4 instead.

  That was ten days away.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Dani, what can I do to help?” Cole asked quietly.

  Her back was to him and he could tell he’d startled her, but her shoulders slumped again and she took in a slow breath of air. So far no one had even attempted to speak to her at the Divehouse while she sat in a chair by herself, observing the scene around her while thinking about her husband. It was almost as if Van were there with her, keeping her guarded with his invisible presence.

  She didn’t answer, so Cole took a few steps until he was facing her. “Is there anything in particular that you’re thinking about?”

  She automatically shook her head no.

  “Well...how long have you been here?”

  She glanced at the clock and shrugged. “Since eight or so, I guess.”

  Cole wasn’t surprised since Mickey had told him that, but he said, “Four hours?”

  He grabbed a chair from a few feet away, and set it next to her. When he sat down he was aware of all the eyes upon the two of them. He also knew what it was going to look like to some, but that was just the price he had to pay.

  “Dani, I think you should go back to work. Don’t you think you should keep your mind busy?”

  With a sigh she said, “I can’t concentrate at work. I try but I just… I can’t focus. All I can think about is Van.”

  “I know but…” He glanced at the clock and said, “Are you hungry? I’m starving and you look like you need to eat a few meals.”

  She barely cracked a smile.

  “How ‘bout you introduce me to the menu at Le Fleur?”

  She raised her eyebrows at him with an actual smile. “You want to eat at a French café?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, kinda. I mean it’s not something that’s been on my list or anything, but since you happen to be a convenient introduction to it…”

  That made her chuckle. “And what makes you think that?”

  “Well, because you were swearing at Mickey in what I thought sounded like French.”

  She smiled again. “I was not swearing at him…” But she was embarrassed, knowing that people had heard her raise her voice in Mickey’s office the day before. Van had been sent back to his cell until his trial, and she was beyond devastated.

  Cole rested his elbows on his knees and gave her a side-glance. “Look, I know how hard this is for you, Dani. I’m really sorry about Van. I am. And I know you’re having a hard time with it, but getting angry over it isn’t going to help anything. Trust me, I know. And I realize I have no place lecturing you or telling you what you should and shouldn’t do, but I don’t think you should be spending your time on things you have no control over.”

  “Well you’re correct about one thing,” she finally said. She looked at him as she stood and added, “You have no right to lecture me.” She left him sitting there by himself and then entered Mickey’s empty office.

  Cole sighed and shook his head. He was sure he’d screwed up big time and he had to think of a way to fix it. He was about to follow her into the office and play a different card—the pitiful I’m-a-stupid-jerk-and-don’t-know-what-I’m-talking-about card—but she came out before he could even stand.

  “Well let’s go eat,” she said with her purse in her hand.

  He stood, allowing his surprise to show.

  “Yeah, you’re right about one more thing,” she said. “I’m starving.”

  “I’m sorry I said all that,” he began.

  She waved it off and said, “Unlike other people that try to baby me about it, at least you’re honest. I appreciate that. If you had said something along the lines of ‘let’s go shopping, you’ll feel better’—like my mother had said—then I would have been pissed.”

  Something about that truly made him smile, and he was glad that she smiled as well. But he walked with her to the exit, fully aware that every set of eyes watched them leave together.

  ***

  “If I could just figure out why someone would lie about that,” Van said to Jack for the tenth time.

  “Maybe they really did think it was you.”

  “But it wasn’t. And I just… I can’t imagine who would even say anything even if it was. To call in an anonymous tip? That is fucked up. Someone did that to purposely throw me under the bus.”

  Jack looked over his client, feeling just about as low as Van did.

  Van shook his head and set his arms on the table between them. “What about Andy?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “You mean where is he?”

  Van barely nodded.

  “Still in town. He’s laying low, just going to work and home. He took care of funeral arrangements for his family. The funeral was yesterday, not too many people there. Just the mom and stepdad, a couple aunts and uncles, a few cousins, a grandma…maybe a few friends. Nothing big.”

  “I hope he’s rotting in hell.”

  “Sure. But it doesn’t change anything up here.”

  Van hardly responded.

  “The real reason why I’m here has to do with Brian Thompson’s financial situat
ion.”

  Raising his eyebrows, Van shrugged. “What about it?”

  “The guy had a good amount of money in the bank. He had a regular paycheck that was decent, but also several other deposits that were a little…out of the ordinary.”

  “So what does that mean? Gambling? Drugs?”

  “We’re working on it. I was just wondering if you knew anything about anyone…I don’t know, paying him for something?”

  Van narrowed his eyes, hoping to God that Jack wasn’t asking him what he thought he was asking him. “Are you talking about someone paying him off?”

  Jack shrugged. “Dani has been making a lot of money lately. Brian hadn’t bothered the two of you for a while. I just wondered—”

  “Get the fuck out of here, Jack! Are you kidding me!?”

  “Calm down,” Jack growled in a low voice. “You are in some serious shit, Van. I’m your lawyer, and it’s my job to get you out of it. There are some things that you just might have to face if you ever want out of this place.”

  “So you’re investigating her behind my back? Dani is not the person to look into. Just leave her alone.”

  “I have to look at every angle, Van.”

  “Leave Dani alone. Just…find a way to prove me innocent.”

  “In other words, don’t find out who really did this?”

  “Just find a way to prove me innocent.”

  The attorney took a long, silent breath of air and nodded his head. He didn’t bother telling Van that one could very well lead to the other…

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Dani returned to her apartment feeling beaten and completely defeated. She was exhausted, emotionally and physically, but no amount of sleep ever helped. She tossed her purse onto the coffee table and dropped onto the couch. She was numb at first, almost as if all the tears had been shed and all the emotions had been sucked from her body. Seeing Van the morning before made her feel worse, and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could stand him being detained like a criminal.

  The trial was in four days, and she was scared.

  “Why is this happening,” she whispered to herself, and that caused the numbness to wear off and the stab to her heart riled her emotions. She started to cry again, and she let the tears roll down her face as she stretched out on the couch. “God, what is going to happen to me?” she asked quietly. “Why is this happening to Van? He doesn’t deserve this. Why? What can I do?” She pleaded quietly for a bit longer, unable to make sense of why Van had to go through something so awful. She was glad that Brian was out of her life, but that guilt was eating away at her. Maybe that’s why she was being punished. A person had died and she felt relief because of it. Now she was paying the price for feeling that way.

  She heard voices rise in another apartment and then the sound of breaking glass startled her. With a sigh she sat up and wiped the moisture off of her face as she could faintly hear Paul and Marnie yell at each other two units down. She didn’t know what to do for those two and their love/hate relationship. It almost made her angry because at least they had each other. At least they could see each other every day. At least they could touch each other and hold one another. She didn’t have that with Van right now and it was horrible.

  She heard a door slam in the hallway and Dani waited to hear which of the two had stormed out of the apartment. She surely hoped it wasn’t Marnie because that meant she’d be knocking on Dani’s door and she really didn’t feel like—

  Her door pounded angrily and Dani’s shoulders slumped. She couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t listen to Marnie complain about her husband anymore. Dani got up and left the front room without answering the door. She felt guilty about it, but once she shut herself in the bathroom, she only focused on taking a shower and tried to push everything else out. All she could think about was Van, and in a way it was good because she was remembering some of the happy moments with him. That first night she ever stayed with him, to be exact. The memory made her smile, and as she let the hot water wash all over her body, she could remember almost every single detail about that time with him.

  She knew then that she was falling in love with him.

  Now she was married to him and her happy life seemed to be dangling by a thread. But even as she dried off and wrapped the towel around her body, she knew she would never give up on him. She would defend him until she gasped her last breath of air.

  As she stepped out of the bathroom she heard a knock at the door again. With a heavy sigh she redirected herself to the front room instead of the bedroom, and opened the door.

  “I’m really not in the mood to—” She stopped mid-sentence when she realized the person standing in front of her was not Marnie, and there she was answering the door in just a towel. “Oh. Hey Cole. Um…”

  “I’ll just come back,” he said, and motioned to the hallway behind him. He turned away before she could object, so she just shut the door and headed for the bedroom to get dressed.

  Cole returned to his apartment, unsure if his timing had been good or bad. He’d never worked a case that involved such an interesting figure—no pun intended—and he was tired of feeling distracted. Dani was definitely a keeper, and he could see why Van had done the things he’d done to keep her safe.

  He’d barely sat down on the couch when there was a knock at his door, and even though he knew he shouldn’t be surprised that it was Dani, he was anyway. She’d interrupted his memory of her standing in front of him in just a towel, the tops of her breasts barely visible and still glistening from her shower.

  He opened the door for her, trying not to imagine what was under her baggy sweats and t-shirt. She had on flip flips and her hair was still wet, but Cole thought she was absolutely gorgeous. She had the prettiest feet, and he considered himself an absolute pussy for thinking such a thing.

  “Sorry I was so rude when I answered the door,” she said right away. “I thought it was Marnie and…”

  He waited for her to finish, so when she didn’t, he invited her in. She entered his apartment for the first time and glanced around. It was pretty simple, almost like Van’s had been when she first met him.

  “You weren’t rude,” he replied. “I understand. So what about Marnie? You guys not on good terms or something?”

  He motioned for her to sit, so she followed him to a couch and they sat at opposite ends. She slipped her shoes off and tucked her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them.

  “No, it’s not that,” she told him. “Obviously you have the best apartment to avoid their fights. Quincy could never hear them either.”

  “Quincy?”

  “Oh, he used to live here before you.”

  “Oh yeah,” Cole nodded. “So they were fighting? About what?”

  “Who knows,” Dani replied, shaking her head. “They’re always going at it. I think I heard something about ‘the goddamn fucking garbage can.’ ” That made Cole laugh, even if he wasn’t supposed to, but Dani chuckled with him. “I know, but the fight would have been just as obnoxious if they were actually fighting about something of value.”

  “They fight all the time?”

  “You’ve yet to witness one?”

  With a smile he said, “Yeah, I’ve heard little things here and there, but nothing big I guess. So what’s their deal?”

  Dani thought about it for a moment but ultimately shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t understand them. I mean what makes people talk to each other like that?”

  “New Jersey?”

  She smiled at the tease, but assumed it was because of the way Paul and Marnie grew up. But it wasn’t something she knew too much about and decided not to discuss it. “Well, if I talked to Van like they talk to each other, I would feel terrible.”

  He studied her for a second before he nodded his agreement. “Well, I think you and Van have a different level of appreciation for each other. You understand the meaning behind love and respect. I don’t mean to sound off base, but maybe Paul and Mar
nie are a good example of how not to treat each other. Maybe in a way they’ve been good for you.”

  He waited for her to defend her friends, but she didn’t. She seemed to think it over for a moment before she barely nodded. “Yeah, I suppose.”

  “So…are you and Marnie pretty close? You two are friends, right?”

  Dani didn’t disagree, but she was slow to agree. Eventually she said, “Yeah, we’re friends. I just think that I’m not a very good one lately. I have no patience anymore. And if that really had been Marnie when I answered the door, she would have totally taken offense to whatever I would have said.”

  “Really? She’s that sensitive? Or that combative,” he added knowingly.

  “Yeah, that combative. She can say anything she wants and it’s no big deal, that’s life, but if someone says something to her… Oh God, I sound like a teenager,” she moaned, dropping her head back against the couch.

  Cole chuckled and said, “Yeah, I understand. I’ve been around her too and I feel the same way. But you’re selling yourself short, Dani. You’re not a bad friend; you’re just balancing the scale a little better. If you ask me, I think you’re too nice. You let Marnie walk all over you.”

  Anyone else might be offended, but he knew Dani wouldn’t be. She was smart, willing to be objective even about herself. She seemed to agree with him but didn’t say anything for a while. Finally she asked, “What was it that you needed?”

  “Huh?”

  “When you came over. What did you want?”

  “Oh. It’s nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Yeah, just…”

  “Just what?” Dani was more curious than ever and she sat up straighter so she could get it out of him. “You came over for ‘something,’ so it must be ‘something.’ ”