Combative Trilogy

by McLean, Jay

  When the car slows to a stop in front of us, I open the door leading to the basement of the bar where the underground MMA fight I’ve been planning for months is in full swing. I signal to one of my men, he signals to another, and a moment later, one of the bartenders is hauling a keg filled with cash down the narrow hallway and into one of the storerooms.

  I wait, hands in my pockets, while Tiny leads one of Franco’s men into the room, duffle bags of our merchandise in each of their hands.

  The exchange doesn’t take long. It never does. We stay at O’Malley’s until the fights are over so I can make sure the cash I handed over to the owner is split between him and the winning fighters. Then we wait for the place to clear out so we can share a drink at the bar after another hard night’s work.

  Halfway through the second beer, Tiny gets a call. Benny, of course, but it’s after midnight, and he has no reason to call unless it’s an emergency. Eyes narrowed, I listen to Tiny’s phone exchange, my pulse quickening when he looks at me with concern in his eyes. Immediately, he’s on his feet, and I do the same. We make our way outside, well aware of the set of eyes watching us from behind the wheel of a black SUV parked across the road. He thinks I don’t see him. That I don’t know him. Detective Jackson Davis isn’t the first to follow me around, the first to attempt to get inside my head, my job. But like the others before him, he won’t find any dirt on me.

  I don’t carry it around.

  All my dirt is where it belongs.

  Six feet under.

  Chapter 3

  It takes a good ten minutes of us driving around in circles to lose the detective. Once we’re sure he’s no longer tailing us, we make our way to Benny’s. The gate’s already open when we get there, and a familiar car sits in the driveway. According to Tiny, Officer Declan—a fine upstanding member of the Philly P.D…. who just so happens to be on our payroll—needs to notify us of something. Something that involves me. Something that obviously couldn’t wait until tomorrow.

  That’s all the info Benny was willing to give Tiny over the phone.

  Benny’s in his usual spot behind his large desk, his hair and clothes disheveled. He looks pissed. Either from being woken from his sleep or because whatever Declan has to say is bad. Or both, going by the way he works his jaw as he watches me casually stroll across his office and flop down on the chair opposite him. His gaze shifts to Tiny, who stands by the doorway. I realize now that Benny’s alone. His capos who usually flank him aren’t here, replaced by Officer Declan, who stands next to him with his arms at his sides, a manila folder in one hand, his phone in the other. Wearing gray sweats and a black hoody, he looks more like the loving husband and father of two little boys than the intimidating member of law enforcement he showcases on the daily.

  “Nathaniel,” Benny greets, and I hate when he calls me that. My mom was the only person who used my full name.

  And then Bailey.

  I keep my anger in check and raise my chin at him, nod toward Declan. “What’s going on?”

  Declan takes a step forward while Benny leans back in his chair and runs a hand down his face. The folder lands on the table with a loud thwack. Declan keeps his eyes on mine, and I stare back. After a moment, when he realizes I have nothing to say, he opens the folder. “You know him?”

  I let my gaze fall to the picture on display. An unknown man stares back at me. He looks like every other guy who steps foot inside my MMA gym. A scrapper. A fighter. And going by the fact that the picture I’m looking at is a mugshot, it wouldn’t surprise me if he is. What does surprise me is his eyes. It’s my job to read people, to be able to figure out within seconds of meeting them if they’re trustworthy or not. This guy, though, his eyes give away nothing. Nor do any of his features. His stare is blank. Empty. My eyes lift, land on Benny, even though my words are for Declan. “Should I?”

  “Not yet, but you will.”

  I pick up the picture, inspect it closer. “Keep talking.”

  Declan goes on to tell me the guy’s name: Kyler Parker. He was arrested last night for assault and battery even though the guy he’d beaten the shit out of was barely able to make a statement. Officer Declan had spent the majority of the past twenty-four hours tailing him, an order given by someone who had spent the majority of their past twenty-four hours tailing me. My stalker, Detective Jackson Davis. According to Declan, Davis and Parker cut a deal: Parker has to get inside my head and then inside my circle.

  He’s going to be an informant.

  Just like the man standing in front of me.

  The only difference? Parker’s target is me.

  I run the back of my fingers across my jaw, taking in every word Declan has to say while my heart beats unsteady in my ribcage. I glance at Tiny, and just like the picture in my hand, his eyes give nothing away. Not here. Not yet. My gaze locks on Officer Declan, my neck craning back and forth, ridding the impending tension building there.

  Declan pushes the open folder toward me. “This is all his information. Address, date of birth, what I can gather of his past.”

  I scan the page quickly, the words Army and Afghanistan sticking out.

  “What’s Davis’s hand in any of this?” I ask.

  Declan clears his throat, his spine straightening. “I did some investigating of my own…”

  I’m getting sick of Declan’s verbal mind games and Benny’s silence. “And…?”

  “Parker and Davis grew up together. Lived together in their teens.”

  I nod.

  Clarity.

  “And Nate?” he adds.

  “What?”

  “The drugs you’re pushing—they killed Parker’s brother.”

  All air leaves my lungs. “You don’t know that for sure.”

  He nods toward the folder. “It’s all there.”

  Benny’s silence ends, and he heaves out a breath as he leans forward, his elbows on the desk. “He died the same night Pauly did. PJ says he was with the girl.” His voice hardens on the last two words, and my heart stops, my throat closing in.

  “What girl?” I ask through gritted teeth. Tiny shifts, a move so inconspicuous I’ve no doubt everyone else in the room missed it.

  “The girl who killed Pauly. The one you shot in the head and threw in the river… so you say.”

  I lick my lips, ignore the truth in his accusation.

  “Parker knows who you are,” Declan cuts in. “And he knows your hand in his brother’s death.”

  A beat passes before I ask, “So that’s why Davis is following me around?”

  “It’s personal for both of them,” Declan answers. “Parker wants revenge. Davis wants justice.”

  I drop my hands beneath the desk to hide my trembling fingers.

  “They might not be blood,” says Benny. “But, they’re brothers.” He glances at Tiny, and I get his message loud and clear.

  “Parker’s going to be at the fight in a few days,” Declan states.

  I nod, the heaviness in my heart forcing my eyes to close.

  “Nathaniel,” Benny sneers, and my eyes snap open, my jaw tight. “Be careful. Don’t let this guy get inside your head,” he says, tapping at his temple. “One wrong step, one wrong decision, and your life is over. After everything you’ve worked for, everything you’ve built, you can’t let one man take you down.” His stare on mine hardens. “Your father was the same. Too soft. Too trusting. Look where that fucking got him.”

  My nostrils flare. “My father died because he had a bad heart.”

  “No.” Benny shakes his head. “He died because he had a weak one.”

  Chapter 4

  My mother once told me that she’d only ever seen my dad cry once. The day I was born. There were no sounds to accompany his cries, just the tears that streaked down his cheeks. There were three of them, she said, one for each hole in my heart.

  The holes are still there.

  One each for my parents and one for…

  I look down at the laminated fall le
af in my hand, the one that lives permanently in my wallet. I try not to think about her, not to let the thoughts consume me. But it’s hard. It always is. And Tiny knew that. That’s why he came up with the plan for her.

  That’s why I’d agreed to it.

  He stands next to the car a few yards behind me, giving me the space I need. We’d driven around for a half hour after we left Benny’s, going around in circles, just like the thoughts that were spinning through my mind. I didn’t say a word. He stayed quiet. Until: “Benny’s right.”

  My eyes narrowed, and I looked down at my phone, tapped it randomly so he wouldn’t see the anger flowing through me. “Fuck off.”

  Tiny huffed out a breath, releasing the wheel and then gripping it again. “Not about that Parker guy getting in your head—well, maybe a little. But Bailey?”

  I snapped then. “We had a deal.” And we did. After he took her that night, we weren’t to speak of her again. It was best for everyone involved.

  “Fuck the deal, Nate. Bailey was with this guy’s brother?”

  “Don’t speak her name.”

  He sighed, defeated. “You want me to take you home?”

  I thought about what was waiting for me there, and it was the last fucking thing I wanted. “No.”

  His shoulders relaxed with his heavy exhale. “So, we’ll just keep driving then?”

  I took a breath, my chest aching with the weight of it. “Can you take me somewhere?”

  Without flicking on the blinker, he turned around quickly on the empty road, already knowing where I wanted to go.

  I’m grateful he understood my silence.

  I’m grateful for him.

  Like almost every other time I came here, the gates of the cemetery were closed, but Joe, the night guard, saw us coming. As soon as he saw us, he came up to the window with his hand out, palm up, and Tiny handed over a hundred-dollar bill for him to open the gate and act as if he never saw us.

  Now, I’m here, sitting in front of my parents’ graves, trying to make sense of the mess I’d created.

  Because Tiny’s right.

  And so was Benny.

  At some point since I’d taken over my dad’s role in this dumpster fire of a company, I’d gotten too soft.

  Too trusting.

  When the fuck had I let that happen?

  I remember Mom’s screams, muffled by my hands covering my ears. She was singing the song, pleading for me to do the same. And so I sang the stupid song, my throat hoarse, my seven-year-old body shaking with fear. Liquid filled my ears—sweat from my palms—and I cried out her name, “Mamma! Mamma! Mamma!” And then it got quiet.

  Too quiet.

  The front door opened and closed, and her sobs—though soft—felt like a freight train running through my mind. I got up from the floor and made my way to her room, wiping tears from my eyes. My dad had always told me that when he wasn’t around, I was the man of the house. I had to be a man. I had to be strong. I had to be just like him.

  Pulse in my throat, I opened the door quietly and whispered her name. She was on the floor, her clothes ripped, strands of her long, black hair sticking to the tears on her cheeks. I said her name again, a question this time, and she looked up at me, those hickory eyes clouded with red. “You’re a good boy, Nathaniel.” She said it in Italian, her accent thick. “And you must never tell your father about this.”

  She made me swear I never would, and stupidly, I kept that promise.

  Though I thought about it often, I didn’t truly understand what happened that day. Not until three years later, when I got home from school and walked in on it happening again. That time, I caught the face of the man, and that time, I was prepared. I raced through the house, my heart pounding, my fingers trembling as I picked up the gun…

  The gun that would inevitably end my mom’s life.

  After she died, I spent many nights alone in a house that felt forever cold. My dad couldn’t even speak to me: his son, the murderer.

  I held on to too many secrets, too many tears, too many different emotions. But, most of all, too much guilt. And then high school came along, and I fought all those things by fighting anyone who’d dare look at me.

  I remember the way Dad stared at me in the principal’s office as if I was a stranger. As if years had passed since he’d really, truly looked at me, and he couldn’t recognize the man I was becoming. We went home that night, a cloud of trepidation hanging above us. He sat me down at the kitchen table, a bottle of whiskey between us, a shot glass in each of our hands, and he told me exactly what he did and who he was. “You can be anything in this life, and I’ll support you… as long as you don’t become me, Nate.”

  My knees bounced, unease kicking at me from the inside. I wanted to tell him everything. All my secrets. All my truths. Instead, I poured whiskey into the glass and closed my eyes when the warmth filled my chest.

  Warmth.

  It was the first time I’d felt it in that house since my mom died.

  “Promise me, Nate,” he ordered.

  “Lo prometto,” I said. I promise.

  I held on to that promise until he died. A heart attack, so I was told. He’d been born with a heart defect, the same heart defect he’d passed on to me.

  I was a sixteen-year-old orphan, and the only family I had was The Family.

  After his death, I was given the opportunity to “honor his legacy.” That’s how Uncle Benny worded it. To me, though, it was a chance to finally let go of all the secrets, the tears, the emotions, and, most of all, the guilt.

  And maybe that’s when it started, this vulnerability. A hopeless, clueless, parentless teenage boy, standing in the Don’s office, an offer on the table, with only one thing on my mind: redemption.

  Or, maybe…

  Maybe it was six years after that… when a single girl broke through my facade, broke me down to pieces.

  Maybe it started with Bailey.

  Maybe Bailey’s the beginning and Bailey’s the end, and everything in between is just white noise, dead silence… page after page of blurred lines and empty spaces. Twenty-seven years of life and the only living I ever really did was with her.

  Maybe that’s why dying feels so insignificant.

  Leaves crush beside me now, alerting me to Tiny’s presence. I rub at my eyes while he squats down next to me. “It’s time,” I say, facing him.

  He nods, his eyes shifting between mine and my parents’ headstones.

  I push aside my nerves, my gaze meeting his. “You can back out any time, Tiny. I don’t expect—”

  “You’re my brother, Nate,” he cuts in, and I swallow the lump in my throat. “I’m all in.” He motions to where my dead parents lie. “Onora la famiglia.” Honor the family.

  Chapter 5

  I recognize him the moment he enters the basement because I’ve spent the past few days studying his profile, getting to know everything there is to know about him, both physically and otherwise. Kyler Parker has lived a life. Abused and neglected until he was sixteen, and then saved by his next-door neighbor—a scrawny, shy little kid who got the shit beat out of him in school until Parker stepped in and saved him. He was a junior when the school records updated his address and emergency contact to match that of the fine detective’s. Brothers—that’s what the crooked cop had called them, and I get it. They may not have been blood-related, but they were related in other ways not many people would understand. But I did. He has Davis, and I have Tiny.

  Ride or die.

  After graduating high school, he went straight into the army. After that, there’s been no paper trail showing any form of existence besides the military. No girlfriends, no leases, no registered address.

  Until now.

  Tiny and I chose to lay low until fight night, but we did a quick drive-by of his apartment building so we had an idea of his quality of living. Average. Everything about this guy is average. Even his physical presence.

  “He says he wants to fight,” Tiny says through
a chuckle as he makes his way back to me. We noticed Parker watching the crowd instead of the fights and figured it was the perfect opportunity to break the ice.

  I offer a short nod, keep my arms crossed as my gaze focuses on Parker. I’d expected as much. If his aim is to get to know me, he needs to do more than just show up and be a face amongst the crowd.

  The current fight goes another round and ends with an armbar that results in a broken bone. The crowd goes crazy for this shit, which, stupidly, makes me happy. At least they’re getting what they’ve paid for. Since Tiny left their conversation, Parker had been watching the fight, enthralled, and no doubt impressed by what he saw. I take my chance to approach. “Idiot,” I murmur once I’m behind him. “He should’ve tapped the second his arm was locked.”

  Parker turns to me, his eyes holding mine, giving nothing away.

  “Tiny tells me you want to fight?”

  “Tiny?” he asks, and I crack a smile, jerk my head toward my best friend. “That’s Tiny.”

  He stays silent, not letting his mask slip. The guy’s good. Almost as good as me.

  “Meet me up at the bar tomorrow. 1400 hours, soldier.”

  Parker’s eyes narrow.

  I don’t let my smirk show. “Your dog tags.” I pat his shoulder twice, let him know I’m in charge. Then I walk away, my back to him, hands in my pockets as I take my first full breath in days.

  Chapter 6

  “Well, that was one of the best dick-measuring contests I’ve ever seen,” Tiny says, chuckling.

  I can’t help but laugh with him. “How many of those have you seen?” I ask, settling in the car. I wait for him to get behind the wheel, smirking when the car groans against the weight of him. “You like watching dick?”