Chains (22 page)

“Focus!” Mike yelled, squirting water in my mouth. “This isn’t how you fight. Where’s the Grave Digger? Show me the Grave Digger!”

I went back out on the bell for the third and final round, ready to get this over with. It was him or me and if it came to a decision right now, he’d win hands down. If I had a shot, I needed to knock his ass out.

I hung back this time and waited for him to advance. I knew his methods now. He liked to wait me out, then dart in fast, do his damage and go back to waiting for his next opening. The only way I could beat him was to strike with everything I had—hit hard and not stop.

I toyed with him a bit, making him think I was going down easy. When he came at me, I sprung on him. Everything became a blur—grunts, fists pummeling flesh, sweat, muscles bunching and releasing. It wasn’t the white noise. It was another kind of trance. The kind where the body takes over and the brain keeps it in check. I wasn’t losing it. I was in the zone, doing what I did best.

Folix was down. I stood back while the ref counted him down.

“The winner, Tyler The Grave Digger Graves!”

My hand was lifted into the air. Mike was running for me. The numbness made way for fucking ecstasy. I fucking did it. I won. I showed Mike I was in control. I could go pro.

But as Mike neared and I got a look at his face, the ecstasy turned to ice cold fear. It wasn’t celebration I saw lined across his brow. He radiated urgency and something else that I hoped to God wasn’t pity. “What is it?” I asked.

“Come on,” he said, taking me by the arm. “Locker room.”

“What’s going on, Mike?” My eyes jolted to the empty ringside seats. “It’s Danny.”

“No,” he said. “She’s fine.”

“Where is she, then? She’s supposed to be here with Alex.”

“Just keep walking.”

We pushed the locker room door open, stepped inside, and I turned to him. “Tell me, now. What the hell happened? Where are they?”

“Tyler, Danny called the hotel. They came and got me during the third round. Alex was shot on the sidewalk in front of your hotel. Nobody saw who did it. Danny said it happened so fast, she didn’t even know he’d been shot until he was on the ground.”

I started ripping the tape from around my gloves, frantic. “I have to get to the hospital.”

Mike grasped my hands between his to stop me. “He’s gone, Ty. He was dead when the paramedics got there.”

I fell away from time and place, enclosed in my own capsule of instant grief. I was apart—from the noisy crowd waiting for the next fight to start, from the normal people who woke up, went to work, ate dinner, watched TV and went to bed only to do it all over the next day. I was never like them anyway, but this was different. This was a severing of what was left connecting me to humanity.

How could someone do this? He was walking on the sidewalk. Coming here to watch me. And then…

Oh God, Danny.

“Where is she?” I asked, slamming back to reality. “Where’s Danny. I have to get to her.” Fuck, was she alone?

“She said to tell you she’d be in your room, and Cinda was with her.”

I shoved my feet into my shoes and grabbed my bag. “Let me drive you,” he said.

We exited out the back. His car was in the parking garage. “I’m sorry this happened,” he said, turning out of the garage onto the street. “I know you hadn’t been close with him the past few years, but I hope you had the chance over the past week.”

“I did,” I said, pushing down the overwhelming need to sob like a baby. “We were like regular brothers.”

I screamed inside. My head ached and pounded like it might explode. I just got Danny and Alex back, and he was fucking dead. Fucking shot on the sidewalk. I shouldn’t have let him come to Reno. He told me he wasn’t supposed to be here.

Gone. Jesus Christ, how can he be dead?

I pinched the bridge of my nose to stop the burn that threatened to flood my eyes. I had to keep it together. Danny would be a mess. I’d get us through this.

“If you need help with anything,” Mike said, “let me know. I’m here for you, Tyler. You’re like a son to me.”

It was the first spec of my old life—the one I had before coming out to Nevada and facing Jose—that I’d seen in a while. I never wanted to be without Danny, and I’d never regret the time I got to spend with Alex, but Jesus everything was fucked up now. No more afternoons spent fucking around with the guys in the gym, dreaming of the day when I was booking fights on Pay-Per-View. I couldn’t go back to that. My head had been so far up my ass for so long, pretending the past would take care of itself.

I couldn’t even ask myself the question, but I had to—was it fucking Striker who got to Alex? Even thinking it make me want to tear my skin off and turn inside out with rage.

It could’ve been Alex’s associates, or whoever the fuck it was who didn’t want him in Reno.

“Nobody saw what happened?” I asked.

“That’s what Danny said. It was a drive-by.”

A movie played out in my mind. Danny and Alex stepping out of the hotel, laughing. Cinda holding Alex’s hand, the promise of what was to come an unknown between them. Danny giddy from playing craps. Money in their pockets, because Alex always won—at everything. Except this time he’d lose. He lost it all in the time it took to blink.

Cinda shocked, falling to her knees beside Alex.

Danny, screaming.

Screaming.

The sound that haunted me for years. I’d never forget it, the shrill cry of a horror-stricken girl. The desperate, delirious, interminable screaming that filled my nightmares.

Mike drove by the front of the hotel. The drive up to the valet was cordoned off with yellow police tape. Cop cars were lined up, but their light bars weren’t flashing. They had all the time in the world to clean up the mess, because Alex’s time was over. A black van that said CORONER on the side sat front and center. I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to know if his body was still lying on the ground or stuffed in the back of that van in a body bag.

“I should’ve realized,” Mike said, turning the corner. “Why don’t I go inside and get Danny, and you two can come to the motel with me?” He rested a hand on my shoulder. “Let’s get her out of here, Ty. It’s not good for either of you to be trapped in there with this going on outside.”

“Yeah,” I said, the image of the coroner’s van stuck like a phantom in my vision. I didn’t want Danny anywhere near here. “I’ll get her.”

“I’ll wait right here. Text if you need me to come in.”

I opened the door and put one foot out onto the sidewalk, before turning back to him. “Thanks.”

“You don’t have to thank me. Now go.”

I looked into the eyes of the only man who ever cared, the only one who’d been a role model and a stand-up guy and saw someone who would do anything for me. Like a father. He didn’t betray me with Jose. He protected me from myself. It might have been a shitty way to do it, but it was an effective way to get through to me. I had to be hit over the head like Danny said. He knew that’s what it would take to make me see reason.

I darted through the casino and cursed as I waited for the elevator to climb to the twelfth floor. The place was deserted. Someone being shot out front wasn’t good for business. I caught the chatter of two maids on my way down the hall to our room.

“I heard he was in the mob,” one said.

“I figured it was drug related,” the other said. “They always get what’s coming to them.”

“Don’t talk about him.” I whacked the cart piled with towels and shit, making them flinch and back away. “You didn’t fucking know him.”

Fuming, I took off down the hall. Even being pissed that people who didn’t know Alex were talking shit about him, I hoped they were right. If Alex had to go down, I didn’t want him to be dead at the hand of Striker.

Stopping at our room, I noticed the door to Alex’s room stood propped open. I peered inside. Officers rummaged through his belongings and put things in evidence bags. My fingers itched to yank his things out of their hands. “Those belong to my brother,” I said from the doorway. “Shouldn’t you be looking for the person who shot and killed him instead of stealing his property?”

The three cops stopped and stared at me. One came forward and held out his hand for me to shake. “I’m Officer Lewis. You’re the brother of the deceased?”

“The deceased? Yeah. His name’s Alex Flores. I’m his brother.”

“My condolences, Mr.?”

“Graves,” I said shaking the hand he offered, realizing I still wore my gloves, had no shirt on and a cut eyebrow that was most likely bloody.

“We’re searching for any information that might lead us to the shooter,” he said. “Do you have any idea who might have done this?”

Back against the wall, it was tempting to tell him about Striker. About the stalking and threats. About the past abuse. Considering what Danny was running from, and that she was a minor at the time, she might not be charged with theft for stealing from him.

“Mr. Graves?” Officer Lewis said. “Do you have something to tell me?”

It would’ve been so easy to let it all out, but the fact was I wanted to find out myself. I wanted to hold that motherfucker at gunpoint and make him shit his pants. He’d tell me if he shot Alex, and those would be his last words. “No,” I said. “I have no idea why this happened.”

He didn’t believe me. It was my hesitation that gave me away. “If you think of something, let us know.” He handed me a card. I tucked it in my pocket on my way out.

Back in front of my room, I knocked, having left my key card in my bag in Mike’s car. The door unlatched, and my chest clenched knowing what was waiting on the other side. Danny upset would test my ability to keep my shit together and not break down with her.

Cinda appeared, glancing out through the crack of space she’d opened. “You’re Ty, right?” Her eyes were red and puffy. Mascara streaked down her cheeks.

“Yeah,” I said, wondering who else would be showing up looking like he just stepped out of the octagon.

She let me in and immediately hugged me, stopping me from getting to Danny. “I can’t believe this happened,” she said, her words broken by grief-stricken tears. “I can’t believe he’d show up here when he knew he wasn’t supposed to. That just shows how much he cared about you. He didn’t want to miss your fight. He wanted to be here for you, be the big brother.”

“I shouldn’t have let him come,” I said, doing my best to shield myself from guilt. It wasn’t time for emotions to take me under. I had to get Danny and leave this place. Then there’d be all the time in the world to analyze and blame, let guilt and regret crush me.

“He talked about you guys all the time.” She pulled back to run her knuckles under her eyes, collecting tears and eye makeup. “I’m so glad he got to have you back in his life before…” Her face scrunched and she closed her eyes, crying silently.

I put my arm around her and led her into the room. Danny was curled up on the bed, facing the big window over the jetted tub. She didn’t move. She didn’t make a sound. It scared me more than if she’d been lying on the ground in a puddle of tears. “Danny?” I said, helping Cinda into a chair.

I made my way over to the bed and sat behind her. “Dan, are you okay?” I lay down behind her and pulled her to my chest. “Please,” I whispered in her ear, “say something. Tell me you’re okay.”

She shuddered and whimpered, but didn’t speak.

“I’m so sorry. So sorry, Danny. I shouldn’t have let him come with us. I told him I needed him here to stay with you during my fight. I never should’ve said that. This is my fault. It’s—”

“No,” she whispered, her voice cracking. She rolled to her back and looked up at me. Her dry-eyed glare shot me to the heart. “It’s not your fault. It’s Striker’s fault. I know it was him.” She hadn’t been crying. She’d been silently seething. I wasn’t sure which was worse.

“I’m taking you out of here. Mike’s waiting outside. He’ll take us back to his motel so we don’t have to be here.”

“No,” she said. “We’re going back to Alex’s house. I’m waiting there until Striker comes. Then I’m going to kill him.”

The malicious look in her eyes alarmed me. “Dan, is my gun in the safe?”

She patted her waistband under her shirt. “No.”

I gripped the bottom of her shirt, but she shot up from the bed. “Let’s go if we’re going,” she said, dead-eyed. Alex’s death was the final straw. She couldn’t handle it.

In the corner chair, Cinda wept. Her face was in her hands and her shoulders heaved. It killed me. Alex had this woman who loved him—a woman he loved in return. They lost their way and were on the brink of finding it again, and now he was gone. Taken too soon. The three of us lost him just when we’d found him again.

“Can we give you a ride somewhere?” I asked her. “Are you going to be okay?”

She laughed, like it was the most ridiculous thing I could ask. It was. “I should’ve married him when I had the chance,” she said. “I spent all this time away from him justifying my decision to leave him, denying the fact that I still loved him. So, no. I’m not going to be okay.”

She waved a hand like she was being dramatic and I should ignore her. “I’m sorry. I’m fine. Go. I’ll get myself together and get out of here. I just need a few minutes alone.”

Danny knelt in front of her. “I know who did this. He’ll pay.”

Cinda reached out and brushed Danny’s hair back over her shoulders. “Alex wouldn’t want that. He’d want you to remember him and that he loved you. Be happy. That’s all he ever wanted for you both.”

Danny glanced up at me, the hardness in her expression fading. “Will you do something for us?” she asked Cinda. “Will you make his final arrangements?”

Cinda swallowed hard and nodded. “He wanted to be cremated and have his ashes spread in the desert.”

“You talked about it?” Danny asked.

Cinda smiled. “In his line of work—we talked about it.”

Danny leaned in and hugged her. “Thank you for loving him.”

It twisted my gut. All Princess Danny ever wanted for her knights was for us to grow up and be loved, to never suffer again. Alex had had it. Thank God he found Cinda again before he died.

Danny stood up and walked to the door. On her way past the small table, she picked up the waded drawing of Sir Tyler riddled with bullet holes. Her hand came down over the gun hidden under her shirt and she gave me a look that dared me to try and stop her.