Chains (15 page)

“No. Everything’s fine. Really.” She wrapped her arms around me and leaned her chin on my chest, gazing up at me. “Would you want to stay here with me and Alex?”

“Stay here?” I asked, pretending I didn’t hear their conversation on the patio. “Like live here?”

“Yeah. The three of us. It would be like it used to be, but without all the bad stuff.”

I gathered her hair behind her head and threaded my fingers through it. “You know I have a job and a place in Detroit. I can’t just not go back. I owe it to Mike.”

“No you don’t,” she said. “You don’t owe him anything. He makes you fight and—”

“Wait, wait, wait,” I said, sitting down on the bed and guiding her down beside me. “Nobody makes me do anything. I fight because that’s what I want to do. It’s what I’m good at. It’s what I’m proud of.”

“You grew up fighting, Ty. How can you want to do it now? I don’t understand.”

“It’s what I know. It’s
all
I know.” I took her by the shoulders and made her look at me. “I have a criminal record. It’s not like I can get a job anywhere else. And I’m doing what I want. I belong in the octagon, Danny. I’d do it even if I didn’t win and get paid.”

I saw in her eyes so many words that her lips weren’t speaking. I wanted all of them, but she stayed silent. “What?” I whispered. “Tell me.”

“It’s dangerous for you.”

“I won’t get hurt. Not too bad at least.”

“I’m not talking about you getting hurt. I’m talking about you hurting someone else.”

I could almost see it playing back in her mind, like a movie rewound to the scene where the eighteen-year-old takes revenge on the abusive foster father by beating the crap out of him to the soundtrack of a fifteen-year-old girl screaming and begging him to stop. Begging him to run.

Fuck. I’d damaged her as badly as that mother fucking Striker. “I’m sorry,” I said, pulling her in against me and holding her tight. “I wish you hadn’t seen it. I wish I could take it back. If I could do it over, I’d leave and take you with me. I would’ve never left you there with him.”

“I’m not the one with the problem,” she said. “It’s not about me. It’s that tiger in you. You don’t see it. You don’t understand. You lose control of yourself. You can’t stop. It happened with Striker, it happened with Jose and it happened with Rollo. You’re going to end up killing someone Tyler. You’re going to end up back in jail.”

“I won’t end up in jail,” I said, recalling the white noise that filled my head when Rollo was down, and I didn’t stop hitting him until Danny’s screams pierced through and the dealer pulled me off.

“We made a deal,” she said, giving me a fierce glare. “I stop doing drugs, you stop fighting.”

I took a deep breath and took her hand. It was time to stop this conversation. There was no way I could stop fighting. “I haven’t talked to Mike. I’ve got nothing scheduled, okay?”

“And when he calls?”

“He knows I’m here. He’s not going to arrange anything for me.”

Her eyes darted to her phone, then she stood and turned away from me. “I don’t want you to be mad at me,” she said.

“I’m not.”

She rubbed her hands over her face, then wrapped her arms around herself. “I think I’m going crazy. I should go back to sleep for a while.”

I stood up and pulled the blanket back on the bed. “Hop in. I’ll cover you up.”

She lay down, and I tucked her in. “Stop worrying, okay? We’re here and everything’s good. We’ll keep it that way.” I kissed her softly, then again a second time, not wanting to pull away.

Downstairs, I found Alex in his office. “We need to get you a gun,” he said. “Unregistered, of course. I’m not fucking around with Striker. He steps onto my property and it’s the last step he’ll ever take.”

I’d carried a gun before, during the time I lived on the street and collected debts and spent the majority of my time awake higher than a kite. That was until my parole officer found out and hauled my ass to Mike instead of turning me in. I owed Ben Wallace as much as I owed Mike. Carrying a gun again seemed like a big risk. “Do you think Striker’s armed?”

“He’s held her at gunpoint before, Ty. Caught up with her once before she lived with me last time. He’s got some sick fascination with her.”

“God damn, motherfucker,” I said, punching the air and pacing. “She didn’t tell me.”

“What you don’t know is probably more than you want to know.”

“I want to know it all. I want to find a way to take it back. Erase it.” The image of that bastard holding a gun to her… I pounded my fists against my forehead to make it go away. “Get me a gun.”

My phone rang and I paced a few more times, calming myself enough to answer. I tugged it out of my pocket and glanced at the screen. Mike. “Hey,” I said, “what’s going on?”

“I can get you back in the ring out there. Three days. Reno. You can bring Danny.”

Her words crawled through my head.
We made a deal.
“I’m going to have to call you back, Mike.”

“What do you mean, you have to call me back? You’re a fighter, or you’re not. I need your answer Ty.”

Alex sat behind his desk and cocked the hammer on a .45.

Danny was upstairs sleeping—detoxing her system.

Striker was out there somewhere lying in wait.

Real life seemed like a joke. MMA seemed like play fighting when there was a man threatening to take away the person closest to you. But it was my real life, and I couldn’t just quit it. Didn’t want to quit it. “I’m in,” I said. “Text me the details.”

I hung up and fell back into a leather chair in front of Alex’s desk. “What?” he asked. “You got a fight?”

“Yeah. Reno again. Danny can come with me.”

“Good,” he said, aiming his gun at the dartboard on the wall behind him. “Having your whereabouts made public should lure Striker out again.” Alex jerked the gun, mimicking kickback. “Bang!” He spun around in his chair, smiling. “Dead.”

“Don’t get caught.” If he was going to find Striker and kill him, I wasn’t going to stop him, but I wouldn’t end up in prison again. What good would that do Danny? There had to be a way to stop him without it coming back on us.

“She’s going to shit when you tell her you have a match,” he said, putting the gun back in its case.

“I know, but she has to trust me. I can’t give it up.”

“Maybe you should get Striker in the cage. That’d be a match I’d pay good money to see.” Alex rolled his desk chair back, grabbed his wallet, phone and keys and stood up. “I’ve got a meeting. You’re the oldest, so you’re in charge while I’m gone.” He ruffled my hair on his way by.

Danny slept the rest of the night. I didn’t wake her to eat dinner. I roamed the condo and played with the dog, watched movies and drank beer out on the patio, living someone else’s life. Someone who lived in a nice neighborhood, had over two thousand square feet of roof above his head, and all the time in the world to piss away.

By midnight I was bored out of my mind. I did a hundred crunches and a hundred pushups, took a shower and crawled in bed beside Danny.

Sometime later, I woke to the dog barking downstairs. I figured Alex was home. After five minutes of constant growling and not hearing the door open, I got up to go see what the hell was going on.

The dog stood at the front door going ballistic. I looked through the peephole, and the porch was empty, so I threw open the door. Nothing. “What the hell are you barking at? A rabbit or some shit?” I went to close the door, and that’s when I saw it. One of my drawings from when we were kids. It was Princess Danny locked away in a dungeon. Underneath, was written:
Come Home Princess. Daddy’s wants you.

TEN

I darted into Alex’s office and grabbed his .45 out of the case. I left the dog inside so I’d hear him bark if Striker got in and went outside to search the yard.

There was no sign of him.

The rest of the night, I ran through the pros and cons of calling the cops. Did Striker have proof that Danny stole his money and credit cards? Would the cops believe us if we told them what we lived through with him and that he was still after her? He’d deny it. Child Services never found anything wrong on their visits. He was the perfect, upstanding citizen. No, they’d never believe us. And Danny was a runaway, addicted to drugs who lived on the streets and with Alex for a while—Alex, a drug dealer. Striker knew too much. Danny and Alex would both end up behind bars if I called the police.

No cops.

We’d handle this on our own.

I looked over the picture again. There was no way I was telling Danny about this. He’d be back, and we’d be ready for him. She didn’t need to be afraid.

Alex got home a little after four in the morning, smelling of booze and women. “What are you doing up?” he asked, finding me in the living room with his .45 in my hand looking out the front window.

“This was left on the door tonight. Few hours ago.” I handed him the picture. He took it and looked it over. His eyes narrowed and his lips turned white as he pressed them together.

“I’m going out.” I said. “I’m finding him and ending this. You stay with Danny in case he comes back.”

“Where are you gonna look? He could be anywhere.”

“I don’t know, but I can’t just sit here.
Daddy wants you
. Motherfucker, I will blow his brains out.”

“Wait,” he said, putting his hands on my shoulders. “I want to be there when you do it. If you find him, bringing back alive.”

It was something a crazy person would say, but it seemed totally sane. I wanted to see his head explode and his brains splatter on the wall, too. There comes a time after all the bullshit and beatings where it’s justified. He wasn’t a human being. He was a rabid animal that had to be put down.

“Give me your keys,” I said. “And tell me anywhere around here he might be.”

He rattled off the name of a couple hotels, and I hit the road. I couldn’t be gone long, or Danny would wake up and wonder where the hell I went. I drove through a gas station, walked through an all-night diner, checked out the two closest hotels, and finally gave up for the night. I didn’t even know if he’d be driving a car, let alone the model and make to look for. It was worse than looking for a needle in a haystack—at least you knew what the needle looked like. After four years and facial reconstruction surgery, I wasn’t sure what Striker would look like when I found him.

When I got back, Alex was still in his office and stashed the .45 away. “No worries,” he said. “I made a few calls. I’ve got people on it.”

I nodded, exhausted from the surge of rage that pounded through my veins for the past three hours. For once, I was glad Alex had shady connections. “I’m going up to check on Danny.”

“Get some sleep,” he said.

“Don’t tell her about this.” I held up the picture before crumpling it and stuffing it in my pocket. “I don’t want her to know.”

He shook his head. “No reason for her to.”

Upstairs, Danny slept like the dead. I got back under the covers next to her and wrapped my arms around her, nestling in like spoons. I pressed my lips between her shoulders and inhaled deeply, smelling her warm skin. Nobody would take what was mine.

“Something’s wrong,” Danny said the next day, rubbing my shoulders, noticing the tension I tried to mask. I’d made it until two in the afternoon before my walls started to crack and she saw through them.