by Lexi Whitlow
Her mouth drops open as I hold out the plain gold band, then she lifts her hand automatically. It feels natural when I slide it onto her finger, like it’s something that’ll always be there, even after we part ways forever.
“I don’t have a ring for you,” she whispers.
The priest rolls his eyes at us and yells to the back of the pulpit. “Sign this fucking thing, will you?”
Summer nearly jumps out of her skin when another old man lifts his head from one of the choir seats, holding out his hand like he can’t bother to move. The priest brings the marriage certificate over to him, has the man sign it, and rips off a copy for the two of us. “I’ll file this thing this afternoon, and it’s done. Congratulations.” He looks at us like he wonders why we’re not the fuck out of his church already.
I walk down the aisle with my bride, clutching her hand in mine. Before we get to the door, I sweep her off her feet and carry her out of the heavy wooden doors, kicking and laughing, all the way to my car.
In the light of day, it’s easy to forget that that anything’s changed. We can both ignore it for a little while, before things start to get complicated.
I smile and roll down the windows—the day is getting warmer. I drive her straight past my apartment until she’s punching me in the arm and demanding I tell her where we’re going.
I don’t let her know that I’m supposed to be in a safe house, awaiting orders to cut up her face or break a knuckle while her aunt listens over the phone. I don’t tell her that I’ll be in big fucking trouble with Cullen no matter what, so we’re taking a little vacation until I care to face him again.
If our marriage is what it is, then I’m going to give her a good goddamn honeymoon while I can.
Present Day
“I shouldn’t have left,” I say.
Josh swings his punch around to the right and almost knocks me over, even though I’m holding the punching bag close to my chest. The boy has a good right hook, even if he’s gotten good at it in this shithole. I’ve been looking to upgrade this gym I own for a while, and Josh and I have been saving and saving. Now I’m standing here thinking about forking all money over to save Summer’s mother.
This gym I own is empty and dilapidated—but why is Summer’s mother more important than my own business?
The man who owns the other gym in town—Frank—pushes me and Josh around just like he does every other fighter in the area.
And all I want is a clean game, a running, working gym that’s not falling down or built on criminal activities like Frank’s.
I think about my empty-ass gym, Frank’s bullying, the building down the road just asking for a $30,000 down payment. Josh swings again, and delivers a right knee strike, and then another.
“The girl? The girl whose name you won’t give me?”
“Yeah, that one,” I say, shifting my center of balance.
Josh grins and kicks me again. He’s got two fading black eyes, but at least he’s not drinking anymore. “The one with the mother who needs your help?” He comes around to my back and tries to take me down. I might have multiple leg injuries, scars running up and down my side, but I don’t let someone like Josh take me down. I toss down the punching bag and catch him as he comes around, knocking him down to the floor of the cage. The nasty, gray plastic smells like blood and piss. I keep Josh down, and he struggles to get up, laughing hard. “You ginger son of a bitch,” he moans. “This isn’t supposed to be part of training.”
I bring my hand close to his face and slap it. “It is if I say it is. I’m your sponsor, remember? This is part of your... amends. For being an asshole.”
He laughs and pushes me up. “For what it’s worth,” Josh says, clapping me on the back, “I’d take that cash and put it where it counts. We’ve got sixty more days until we have to get the down payment sorted on that place.” Josh turns around and winks at me, a smile building up on his face like he has his own secret. “Do it for love, man. I’m going to win that fuckin’ fight. We don’t need your money.”
“Idiot,” I shout after him. The door opens behind us, and I hear Frank slither in. I can almost smell the oil he uses on his hair as Josh disappears into the locker rooms. I crack my knuckles and jump down from the cage.
“I couldn’t help overhearing,” he says.
“I’m sure you could help it.”
Frank strolls over to me, looking like a relic from a bygone era. He was with the mafia in New York, but now he runs a small time fighting ring in North Carolina. A petty criminal, a thief, a guy who has kids beat up for a living. I’d gotten my own gym so I wouldn’t have to be part of this fucking mess, but here I am, trusting that my cocky fighter in the locker rooms will win us $50,000 and a title in the championship fight. And I’m standing here thinking about spending my money—scrimped and saved over three long years working for this asshole—on a girl. Not just any girl, sure. But there’s not even a guarantee she’ll be mine. Not like she used to be.
Was she ever?
“You thinking about leaving here, Ash?” Frank grins greasily. “You probably should have been done with this place years ago.” This place is his girl—but it’s an abusive relationship. He hoards his fighters and hurts everyone who comes through here, clinging to the idea that he’s still a big time criminal in a big time place. Years ago, he might have scared me, but I’ve been through hell with bigger fish than him.
A few of Frank’s younger fighters wander in from the barracks he keeps in the barely passable building next door. One of them is fifteen, maybe sixteen. Another has sores on his face, and nausea hits me as I realize the wounds are probably from drugs Frank has been feeding them.
I know I should keep the money I have in reserve so I can get the fuck away from here. But Josh is talking big with his plan to win even more, make our down payment even bigger, so we have a much smaller monthly payment.
Keep the money, spend it on something else, he says. Do it for love.
I shudder. “I probably should have, Frankie.” That’s all I say. The ‘but’ in that situation is that I needed the cash. A new business is a leap, even on the best day.
“I don’t like the idea of you leaving,” Frank says. “You’re my best trainer.”
“I’m the only trainer that’s not fucking crooked.” I wipe myself down and throw on my shirt. Frank’s building up to something, and I don’t exactly like where he’s headed.
“If you need money, I’d be happy to help.”
“Out of the kindness of your fucking black heart?” I throw a towel over my shoulder and slip into my shoes. Summer’s waiting just across town, maybe showering and changing by now. Josh slips by me, and I know he’s off to see his girl because he’s grinning like an ass and ignoring the shit going on around him. He likes Frank and his business just about as much as I do, but the high of training for a big fight like this has him on a different plane of existence, at least for today.
“No, out of my need for a little muscle,” he tells me. “I’ve got a few thousand handy for someone who can recruit and train up new kids. For someone who can get the people who cross me back in line. Shit like that.”
It would be nice to have a solution—something to assure me that I could help Summer’s mom and still get out from under this asshole’s thumb. But not if it involves working for the asshole in question.
“No. Fuck you. I’ll be out of here on my own terms.” I pull on a jacket and start walking towards the door. My stomach churns, like it used to when Cullen was planning something. My senses heighten, and I feel a couple of shadows behind me.
“I wouldn’t recommend this course of action, Jonny. I’m giving you a way out that doesn’t involve... any friction.” Abusive, controlling, a fucking bad relationship. And I got myself to the point a long time ago where Frank saw me as part of the whole damn thing.
Fuck. I turn around slowly, and my face starts smarting where Summer stitched me up, like it knows what’s coming. The last time, I refused to “haz
e” some of the new kids, which involves shooting them up with steroids and beating them until they’re bloody. I’ve refused more often than not, even though I’m probably stupid as fuck to refuse, because every time, it leaves me with less money than I would have had and a fucking black eye, or worse.
Cullen liked to leave his marks on people’s faces. Frank prefers the eyes.
The fucker knows he can’t intimidate me himself, but the three fighters I eyed earlier are all lined up beside him. They’re just kids, but pumped up on meth and steroids, they’re as likely to take chunks out of my skin as to look at me. And he’s figured out—they all have—that I won’t injure a kid, not seriously. I’d hurt Frank, and that’s been a long time coming, but the measly paycheck I get depends on him.
“Look, kids,” I say markedly. The boys standing in front of me are no more than seventeen, each of them. They look mean, but they’re just teenagers. They should be waking up and having two bowls of cereal just in time to catch the bus for school—they shouldn’t be here as hired hands for Frank. “This isn’t what you want. The man behind you—he’s the one controlling you. I don’t know what he told you—“
“He said he’d give us each $500 if we did what he said,” the one with the sores on his face says. He shrugs casually and steps toward me. I place my feet wide and put my arms up, fists in front of my face, and sigh heavily. This is how this shit is.
“And what did he tell you to do? Beat down the redheaded guy who’s been lobbying for you to get more money and cleaner fights?”
The kids look at each other, eyes darting back and forth nervously. One of them puts his hands down by his side. They all know there are better ways to live, even if they were initially lured in by Frank’s promise of fame and fortune. If they have half a brain—and maybe the one with the sores on his face doesn’t—they know who the bad guy is here.
“What are you hoping to get out of this, Frank?” I turn to the man in question. His gaze is unchanging. This gym is the thing he protects, and Josh is the fighter everyone associates with this place. It’s been brewing for a while, this idea that I’m somehow taking the best fighter in the place somewhere else by starting my own business with him. But since Josh sobered up, he’s been bound for better things, and this asshole has never been able to see that.
“I can’t hope for loyalty anymore,” Frank says. “Not after the way you’ve treated my hospitality. But I can hope to get a message through. Boys, do your thing.” Frank steps back, and two of the boys approach. The one with his hands down gives me a sad look and puts his fists back up.
The kids are fucked up, that’s for sure, but Frank tends to their muscle content and keeps them fed. One of them lunges at me, and I move away, landing an elbow strike on another’s face and nearly knocking him down. With each blow I land, it hurts me more than it hurts them. I was lucky enough to come along in New York, fighting clean and getting better opportunities with each win. These kids, even if they have talent, they don’t get that.
“You’re worth more than this,” I say, nodding to the kid who keeps standing back. The big beefy boy with the sores approaches and deftly lands a punch on my face, bone crunching against bone. I feel the healing wound on my face come splitting open, beads of blood pooling along the smooth edge of the cut. It smarts just enough to bring me back to reality, and I land an uppercut along the big kid’s jaw, making him stumble back. The other two come in, pursuing me, weaker and less self-assured than the boy who’s reeling back into Frank. Frank falls backwards and nearly goes down, catching the boy and cursing at him.
Things move fast after that. I take a deep breath and concentrate, picking out weak points and pulling my body in tight. The big kid is still lying on top of Frank, holding the side of his face while Frank yells at him to get up. The other two kids are sloppy and untrained, their movements loose. I strike them both in one fluid motion, taking hits to my ribs and back. One of them knocks me to my knees, but I pull him down by the leg in the process and slam his body into the floor, careful to avoid his head. Maybe someday, he’ll want to use it. The other one crumples down, guilty, staring at my bleeding eye.
I get to my feet while they’re all panting, and I nod to the kid who didn’t attack when he had the chance. “He won’t pay you,” I say, striding out of the door before any of them get the idea to follow me.
I peel out of the dusty, graveled driveway and make the drive out to my condo, wondering why Frank would try a brazen move like this. It doesn’t seem like him. But he’s seen Josh leaving each day, happy, tucking away money of his own, making plans to remove himself from this place.
It hits me. He thinks I’m to blame. If I’d stayed and did what Frank said, he would have taken it as a sign of my loyalty, a sign that I’d stay under his thumb. A year ago, even six months, I would have taken whatever work he offered. But even at the cusp of giving every single bit of my money away, it seems like there are greater things ahead.
I touch the side of my eye and draw my breath in sharply.
A pang of guilt strikes me. I can’t see Summer like this. This is one of the reasons I’d let her go before.
I text her as I climb the stairs to my condo.
Not tonight.
She’ll be getting off her shift now, and she needs time away, she said as much. I won’t be able to hide this forever, but maybe I can keep her from some of the worry that this will cause.
A long time ago, I’d married her to protect her. And then I let her go for the same reason.
It strikes me as I put an ice pack over my eye that it might be more selfish than anything else to try to win her back into my life. And maybe that’s something I need to think about while the smarting, throbbing pain brings me to my senses.
Because I’m about to be broke, and out of a job.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Three Years, Three and a Half Months Ago
“You made coffee yet, Ash?” I roll over in bed. There are several muscles I wasn’t fully aware I had until I hopped into bed with Ash after our wedding.
Our wedding. It seems so strange to even think those words. Our wedding, our marriage. A sham.
I look at the gold band on my finger. It flashes in the light.
My aunt Bianca is safely out of dodge thanks to Ash, and not even she’s wise to our plan. She knows I’m in the Hamptons at a tiny bed and breakfast a mile from the beach, but she doesn’t even know which one. No one does.
We’re here, isolated, away from everyone. And we have been for two weeks. Instead of growing sick of Ash, or angry at myself for agreeing to this, I’m coming to know this man as part of my life. Each morning, we wake just after the sun rises, and he explores my body, seeing what it can do for him, pushing me to new extremes. We only leave the room to eat, go to the beach, and get condoms. Yesterday, when it rained, we stayed inside and he kept me naked the entire day, my legs tied to the bed. In the morning, he fed me grapes and cheese, and late in the day, he fucked me once and then again, coaxing me to come as many times as he desired.
My body, it’s still sore.
When I wake, I find myself wishing I could stay safe here forever. But I know Ash’s finances can’t handle being away for much longer. And then there’s the ever-changing idea about what I should do with my life. Whatever it is, I know it has to be far, far away from New York, far away from my aunt. Cullen knows where I live, and he’ll find out what I’m doing. But as long as the marriage continues until he loses interest, I can go where I want, when I want to.
I could have left after the wedding, as soon as we stepped out of that church. But instead, Ash brought me here, and this is where we’ve been ever since that day. Ash’s cell phone is turned off, and I’ve checked mine only rarely.
He strolls into the room and walks to the coffee pot, clad only in a towel casually draped around his waist. I watch as he pours me a mug, adding the right amount of cream and sugar. “We have to leave tomorrow,” he says, stirring the coffee and then bringing it
over to me. He hasn’t worked out in the past two weeks, but his abs still look as tight as they did the first night I saw him. Now I know his body almost as well as I know mine, like it’s a part of me that I’ll never be able to get rid of.
“We have to leave tomorrow,” I repeat, like I’m trying to convince myself it’ll be okay. My stomach leaps. I have one month until I have to decide what I’m doing with my life—whether it’s a residency at home or with Doctors Without Borders somewhere far away from this mess.
Ash nods and hands me my coffee. “That means I have to go dark for a while. I have to talk to Cullen, have to smooth things over with him and make sure he understands that you’re not to be touched.”
“I should—I should go. After that.” I look at him and hold the hot mug in my hands, like I’m trying to absorb the heat. It’s comforting, but it’s not nearly enough. I want Ash’s body, I need it to reassure me that everything from here on out will go as planned. I take a sip and let the caffeine wash through me. Ash lets his hand rest against my thigh and pulls the sheets away from me.
“No, you shouldn’t. You come stay in my apartment. I want you waiting there, just like this when I get back. Legs spread, pussy wet.” He brushes his thumb over my mound, and I shiver, taking another sip of my coffee. My pulse rises. He’s talking shit, but it sounds fucking good to my ears, better than any job I could find away from him. “In fact, I’ll call you when I’m on my way home. And when you hear my voice—” He pauses, moving to the edge of the bed and kneeling down. “You get in a position just like this.” He opens my legs and sets each heel down on the bed frame. I move to set down my coffee, but he catches my hand and keeps it in place. “Drink your coffee, Sunshine. And when I come back to you, I want to see you with a glass of whiskey, drinking it naked so I can come home and do this.”