Since I gave Old Man Stephens my word that wouldn’t happen, I head for the locker room at the back of the warehouse to warm up, hopeful as fuck today won’t be the day I bow out of my family legacy for good.
“Put this on.”Mario tosses me a satin robe professional fighters wear before instructing the two goons by the door to make a path through the crowd of rowdy spectators. I don’t know much about my father’s side business. I avoid his shady ‘enterprises’ as much as possible, but a gimmick like this seems strange. Even more so when Mario instructs, “And pull the hood up. We want your identity to remain a secret until it’s time to fight.” When my eyes stray to a gym bag my father dumped onto a bench without peering my way twenty minutes ago, Mario spits out with a chuckle, “No gloves. We fight bare-knuckled around these parts.” He cracks his bloody and bruised knuckles to emphasize his point. “You’d know that if you weren’t a pansy.”
I slant my head to hide my smirk that he thinks I’m gay. The more disapproving my father was of my so-called ways, the looser his reins became. His belief gave me a range of freedoms Roberto and Dimitri never had.
If he hadn’t caught me with my hands down the front of a cheerleader’s pants my final year of high school, I doubt I’d be here now. He’d never place himself in the position of being embarrassed, and me losing this fight tonight would do that, wouldn’t it?
Dread fills me when I follow two of my father’s goons out of the makeshift locker room at the back of the warehouse. The hum of the crowd makes it difficult to determine one voice from another, but from the tidbits of the conversation I catch from reading their lips, it seems as if tonight’s fight is the feature match. Words like ‘undefeated,’ ‘possible world champion contender’ and ‘blood bath’ are used far too often to exclude them as a minor detail, but regretfully, my name is never associated with them.
Not a single man filling the outdated building of steel and glass know who I am. They don’t hiss in shock when my slip through the frayed ropes of the boxing ring exposes my face. They’re not even glancing my way. They are too busy taking in the exchange between Ophelia, our father, and a man I’ve never met but is so well known in this industry, he has the attention of everyone in the room.
And the attention grows when he stands up to my father like I did when I was six.
Although the stranger’s stance is strong, there’s only so much controversy a man can endure before his knees eventually buckle. Mine bent from hope. His bow under the pressure that it isn’t just his life at stake, it is my baby sister’s as well.
Mario has his gun directed at the back of Ophelia’s head. If the unnamed man denies my father’s terms, Mario will kill the woman the stranger is endeavoring to save without an ounce of remorse on his face. Ophelia is worthless in this industry. All women are. That’s why my father so blatantly used my mother as a shield, because to him, her life would never be more valuable than his.
Mercifully, Ophelia’s date doesn’t feel the same way. After bartering with my father for what feels like minutes but is barely seconds, he alters the direction of his steps. He heads for the boxing ring instead of the exit he was racing for mere minutes ago.
My identity is disclosed when Ophelia begs for him not to fight by disclosing our connection. “No, Isaac, please. He is my brother.”
In an endeavor to slow his strides, she claws her nails into his arm. It does little to weaken his strides. Even men not born in this industry understand the consequences of reneging on a deal. Isaac knows as well as I do that someone’s life will perish tonight, but what he doesn’t know is that for some reason, my father pinned the target on my back instead of the boyfriend he swore Ophelia would never have.
There’sno uncertainty to my claims forty minutes into our match. Isaac and I have fought a bear-knuckled and honest fight. We gave the thousands of spectators their money’s worth, but my father still wants more.
He always wants more.
With blood gushing from a cut above my eye and my right thigh corked from an earlier kick, I swoop down low to batter Isaac’s midsection with a quick left-right-left combination. The skillset the crowd of mostly mafia men raved about when I walked to the ring is proven without a doubt when Isaac deflects my onslaught after only two hits in with a brutal upper cut knock to my chin.
I sail back with a grunt, my landing distorting more than my ego. It also cracks my wrist. The weird way it hangs when I leap back onto my feet sends a collective hiss across the warehouse. The only one not sickened by its deformed hang is my father. He looks bored. Like forty minutes of blood, sweat, and anarchy is something he faces every day.
My hopes of getting out of this situation alive dampen even more when it dawns on me how accurate my comment is. If it’s gory and controversial, my father is first on the scene, and tonight’s event is as scandalous as it gets.
It is proven without a doubt when Isaac argues on my behalf. “Throw in the towel. He’s your fucking son!”
I have a broken wrist, fractured ribs, and a painful whistle in my good ear that won’t quit no matter how many times Isaac’s foot connects with it. I’m battered, bruised, and bleeding from multiple cuts and abrasions.
Isaac isn’t fairing much better, but no matter how many times the referee strays his eyes to my father to get permission to end the fight, he denies his numerous requests.
My father’s brief headshake to Isaac’s request adds fuel to the fire brewing in my gut. I knew tonight’s target was nailed to my back. I just can’t fathom why. I’m no good to my father dead. If I die, the millions of dollars I was awarded in what my family called a ‘botched FBI sting’ gets placed into a trust for Ophelia.
People assume I’m slow because I have a stutter, but I’m not so stupid to sit by and risk the chance of my father benefiting from my mother’s death more than he already has. I would burn every dollar before I’d ever let him have it.
My focus shifts from my father’s stoic face to Isaac when I notice he’s heading my way. His knuckles are busted and bruised, his body is covered with a range of contusions, and his dark hair looks black since it’s soaked with blood, but he too knows only one of us will leave this mat on their feet, and regretfully, that man won’t be me.
Isaac wants to protect my baby sister from a monster, and since I’ve craved the same the past decade, I’ll succumb to the pleas in his eyes. No man wants to lose, but it’s the least I can do given that Roberto and I left Ophelia’s safety in Dimitri’s hands the past four years. He’s only a year older than Ophelia, so we should have been sheltering him just as much as he protects Ophelia.
“I’m sorry,” Isaac mouths, his words only for my ears.
I nod, acknowledging the utmost empathy in his eyes before bracing my stance.
Isaac favors kicks over punches, so the roundhouse kick he does to my temple to end our fight isn’t shocking, but the horrendous screech it rips through my ear is. It’s more deafening than Ophelia’s screams when I lifelessly flop onto the mat, and almost on par with the bullet my father fired with no concern his six-year-old son’s head was almost resting on his gun.
Despite what my payout tells you, I’m not deaf in one ear because of a federal agent. My father is responsible for the loss of hearing in my right ear.
Just like he will be for my left ear as well.
ChapterTwenty-One
