Long Shot: An MMA Stepbrother Romance (23 page)

“Can you get over to the hospital, Nat?”

“I cancelled my shift for today. And if you’re not heading to the gym, I don’t see why we can’t just stay here and fuck.” She emphasizes that last word. I’ve learned she likes using it a lot, and I’m damn glad she’s let a little of that dirty girl inside come out. God knows I like hearing her say it. I shake off the urge to forget Katy ever texted me and push Nat to the floor and shove my cock in her mouth. The image sends more blood rushing to my cock—not just at the thought of slowly and fully fucking her face, but at the thought that she’d fucking love it. She licks her lips like she’s reading my mind, and I take one more step back from her.
 

“Nat, I’m serious. Katy just texted me and said Frank found out where you live. He’s trying to fuck with me, and damned if I know what his next move is. I know he’s fucked up fighter’s apartments in the past—and I wouldn’t put it past him to do the same to yours.”

“Shit, are you sure he knows where I am? How would he know?”

“He’s got ways. And I’d be a lot more comfortable if you were
gone
.”

“Send the weak woman away?” She raises an eyebrow at me, but there’s a quiver in her voice. She knows I’m right—she just can’t resist getting in one jab before I leave.
 

“You need to leave, Nat. You can borrow Linda’s car from the main house, right? Promise me you’ll get out of here pronto.”
 

She nods and brushes a piece of hair behind her ear. “I promise,” she says.
 

I look back at her once more before walking away. Her steady gaze reminds me of the look she gave me when I left her at her father’s wake, mourning and confused. I shake off the old feelings of guilt and shame. Even now though, when I look at her, there’s a drop in the pit of my stomach. I’m not the man who falls for the girl, who lets a woman take him over like Natalie’s done to me. Maybe I’ve just been kidding myself about what type of man I am. Nat’s always been my soft spot, even when I’ve walked away from her.
 

All for her,
I think.
It’s all for her.
The thought somehow steels me against what lies ahead. I walk out to her Civic and hop in. I pull out, feeling strange, like I’m doing something I shouldn’t be doing. But soon I’m en route to Nat’s, and I swear I’ll figure out what Frank’s up to—and then I’ll be on my way to the gym and back in the game I planned.
 

***

When I get to Natalie’s, the air feels quiet—eerily so. Her house looks untouched, sitting there among the row of identical little shacks that adorn the street. The crepe myrtles out front have just started to drop their flowers—the first sign of real autumn around these parts. Since the trailer park moved out from behind these places, the whole row looks kind of peaceful.
 

“This can’t be,” I say. I park the car carefully, pulling up right in front. I’ve driven to some of the young fighters’ places with Ash before when Frank’s been in the intimidating mood. It wasn’t pretty: furniture destroyed, piles of burned pictures in the middle of the room, walls ripped open. It’s amazing what you can get young kids to do when they’re amped up on steroids and cocaine—and that’s what Frank did. He pitted kids against kids, targeting anyone who tried to leave, making up debts and issuing icy threats to each of their family members. And most of them were just trying to do what I am—get the fuck out of the underground fighting world. I shake my head at the thought as I walk up the steps. There are hot pink petals from the trees dusting the steps—all intact. Not a one of them is crushed under a heavy boot print, and the door is still locked.
 

Even though I know I’ll just find Beatrice on the other side, I unlock the door anyway. Her meow greets me on the other side, and I feel the gentle nudge of her jaw against my ankle before my body is even all the way inside.
 

“Hey, Bee. No suspicious activity to report?” She looks up at me and meows again, plaintively. She’s used to being alone for long stretches of time due to Nat’s classes and shifts, but our stay at the Island Guest House has thrown her for a loop. I reach down and scratch her ears. The old grandfather clock that has been here since I moved in back when I was fifteen ticks on in the hallway, emphasizing the silence.
 

Funny, I barely noticed that thing when I was here.
I stand in the middle of the room, and there’s a pang deep in my gut. Something isn’t right. When Frank bullies a fighter, it’s very direct. It ain’t like this.
Maybe it’s Katy. Maybe she’s the one who’s fucking with me here.

My phone buzzes again. My movements slow down, and time seems to stop for just a moment. When I answer, I hear heavy breathing. There are wind chimes in the background.

“This girl looks a bit too classy for you, Joshie.” My pulse quickens, and my throat grows tight.
Frank. Fucking Frank. How did he find out—

“Where the fuck are you, Frank?” I already know the answer, but there’s the slightest possibility that this isn’t what I think it is, that I’ve jumped to conclusions that aren’t reality.

“Standing outside this nice yellow cottage. Doesn’t seem like your style, Joshie. Looks like you must
really
like this one.”
 

“Frank, I swear to Christ, I will kill you.”

“I’d like to see you try, Long Shot. I got Cole here with me—and you know how that sweet kid gets when he’s snorted a little blow—”

“Frank!” I yell into the phone, the sound echoing against the empty walls of Nat’s house. There’s a click on the other end.
 

This time, Frank’s the puppet master, and I’m playing right into his hands. But I don’t give a shit—because one of the pieces in his little game is Natalie.

And he’s going to fucking pay.

“Come on, Nat, get your shit together, girl.” I talk to myself as I pull on my panties and leggings, trying to get myself in some sort of presentable manner for the hospital. It’s not like it’s a super formal work environment, but I don’t think they’d want me to show up without any pants. A lot more people would be applying for medical school if that was what being a doctor was all about. I giggle at the thought, but the sound is thin and nervous when it comes out.
 

Frank has been a looming threat for our entire time at the quaint little cottage. The problem is, I don’t know what that threat truly
means
. This is Josh’s world, not mine. The threats in my world are predictable: there’s the threat of fucking up a patient, the threat of having a patient die, and the threat of getting sick from a supervirus. That last one doesn’t cross my mind too much—only on particularly bad days.
 

“Josh knows Frank,” I remind myself as I pull on a bra under my shirt and stumble into my shoes. “And if he says that I’m fine just heading off to the hospital, then I’m fine.” I bite my lip and pull on the long cardigan I picked up last time we went to feed the cat. The mornings are cooler now, which means Josh’s fight is approaching. The promise of that money hasn’t seemed to propel him forward in the past week or so. Instead, he’s standing still. It’s nice that he’s standing still
with
me. But nothing about this sits right, not now that the haze of lust is clearing, and I’m in an empty cottage, pulling together my shit so someone won’t come and beat me up. I buzz Linda from the landline right as I’m about to walk out of the door. She answers, and I hear that same teasing tone that Summer gets when she’s giving me shit during my shift.
 

“You folks need some food or anything? I’m happy to send along some sandwiches, as long as y’all are decent.”
 

“No, Linda. That ain’t—isn’t—uh, necessary. I’m needed at the hospital, and Josh just left with my car. I’m wondering if you’d let me borrow yours, just for a couple hours.”

“Sure thing, sweetheart. Linda’s got you taken care of, no worries at all.” Her accent is as thick as molasses, and something about it is comforting to hear. “You just go ‘round back to the garage, and you can take it right on out. Keep safe, darlin’.” I hang up and sling my purse over my shoulder, then head for the door. When I go to twist the knob, there’s resistance on the other side. Then I see a familiar face.

“Cole, what on earth are you doing here? You should be—” Cole pushes the door open and pulls me into a choke hold before I can say another word. I claw at his arm with useless hands.
 

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles. “Frank said his guys in the mob know where my mama lives in…” I can’t quite make out the name of the town as my hands go slack and I can’t claw anymore. The colors around me start to fade out, turning gray and then black. I hear what sounds like Frank’s voice in the distance. It’s the last sound I hear before my thoughts drop out and I slip into unconsciousness.

***

I wake up some time later—groggy and lightheaded, bumping up and down in the back seat of an old pick-up truck. I feel around and try to pull myself up, but my wrists are bound together with what feels like a zip tie. I know that I wouldn’t have gone unconscious for more than a few moments with a knock-out like that, and from the sore spot on my arm, I can only guess that someone got me with a sedative.

And how in the fuck did they get that?
Josh always told me Frank had his ways, but a short-acting sedative like that would be hard to get ahold of.
 

“Fucking asshole,” I mumble. “What the hell do I have to do with this?”

“Oh you’ve got everything to do with this, kid,” Frank says. “It looks like our man Joshie has a thing for you—that true?” I don’t respond. Instead, I’m working out how to get the zip tie to loosen up. Fucking zip ties. It just feels tighter now than when I started fiddling with it. “I said, is that true, sweetheart?”
 

“It’s none of your goddamn business, Frank,” I spit. The truck slows to a stop, and I see the red glow of a traffic light just ahead and to the right. When Frank turns away to look at the road, I crunch my legs up and kick hard against the door handle, screaming as loud as I can. The car door doesn’t budge, even when I angle my toes under the door handle and pull as hard as I can.
 

“It’s locked,” Cole says dumbly from the front seat. “You can’t get out.” He chuckles a little bit, and I realize his voice sounds different from when I last saw him. There’s none of that sweetness anymore—it’s like it’s all been drained out of him and replaced with ugliness. There’s an edge in his tone that I’ve heard before, and it dawns on me that he’s coked up. I open my mouth to yell at Frank, but Cole turns to look at me with a hard look in his eyes.
 

“Don’t even think about it, princess,” Frank says. “You’re some kind of doctor or something? Well, this kind of situation doesn’t exactly require brains or any kind of fancy degrees. It just requires that you shut the fuck up and let us get what we want.”

“Josh is smarter than this. He’s not going to come.” Even as I say the words, I know they’re not true. Josh is smart—far smarter than he thinks he is. But he runs hot, and he’s ready to fuck Frank up.

“He ain’t smart, honey. He came back to my gym, and then the stupid motherfucker disappeared again, because why? Because you told him to? Because you wanted him to come back?”
 

“He knows he’s better than you, Frank. He knows he can go pro without you, and he knows you’ll have to back down when he breaks big.”
 

Frank chuckles and then starts laughing. “Oh you think that’s what this is about? Joshie is trying to steal my gym out from under me, and you think I care that he’s trying to go pro? Or did you not know that, sweetheart? He was back for a whole week, and these kids kept disappearing—kiddies I was training myself. He’s got a whole goddamn underground railroad, and he and that motherfucker Ash have been getting the kids out of dodge. Those are
my
fighters, honey. And if he thinks he can do this, he’s a goddamn moron.” Frank’s New York accent is thick, his words spilling out fast, one after another.
 

“I guess you think you know a lot about what Josh is doing, don’t you? Does it make you feel big, picking on fifteen year olds, getting injured fighters high on cocaine, and then getting them to kidnap women for you?” I laugh, the sound sharp and loud in the truck. “Fuck you, you fucking asshole. I don’t know who you think you are, but Josh knows the illegal shit you’re up to, and he can prove—”

“Cole, I’ve decided I don’t want to hear this little bitch talk anymore.” I start screaming and don’t relent, and Frank swerves on the road. A car honks somewhere in the outside world, and Cole reaches back and smacks me squarely across the jaw. The pain sears hot, pulsing through my consciousness. Before I can open my mouth to react, Cole presses a piece of duct tape across my mouth, and my screams turn into quiet, innocuous moans.

“That’s better,” Frank says. He pulls into a parking lot, and the car stops. He looks back at me for a long moment and sighs. “You’re a pretty girl, sweetheart. But you’ve got mixed up in shit you don’t belong in. I’ve got that file, by the way—the one with all of my accounting shit for the past year, and the copies of the IDs for the kiddies. Very nice move on Josh’s part. But I was one step ahead of him. I always am. Always will be.”