Takedown (2 page)

She gasped, shocked. “How in the world did you know that?” she exclaimed. “Who told you?”

He grinned. “Everyone knows about it.” He turned away. “See ‘ya.”

She was left there with wide-opened eyes. Who could have leaked out that…

Oh, Benjie of course, Candace’s boyfriend, also a member of the Red Clan.

She stared at the check. This money must have come from his recent win.

Her fingers itched to rip it into shreds and shove it into his mouth.

“Wait.”

Travis stopped and looked back at her.

She quickly approached him. “I can’t take this,” she said, thrusting the check to his face.

“Why not?”

“Because I didn’t earn it.”

“Duh, it’s a gift. You took good care of me for the last two months, and that’s my way of saying thank you.”

She swallowed and lowered her hand. At least he didn’t say it was her share of his winnings.

“Alright,” she said a moment later. “Thanks.”

She turned away before she could get another glimpse of his grinning face.

It wasn’t his fault, she kept trying to tell herself, even if it looked like he had intentionally done it. If he had only stopped hitting Bryan at the referee’s first command, Bryan could have lived.

To be honest, Travis was not exactly the kind of heartless monster as portrayed by the press, and as she wanted to believe he was. Beneath his bulky frame and his tendency to go berserk in a fight, he had a soft spot within him.

Off the octagon, he was actually a cheerful person. He valued his friends. He liked to hang around more with ordinary people rather than with the rich.

He was also generous. On the first day she worked with him, he noticed that the zipper of her purse was broken. The very next morning, he had given her a Louis Vuitton handbag.

But all those good traits about him could be quite deceiving. If he were normal, he could have been a very likable man. But he wasn’t normal. At one minute, he could be laughing. The next minute, he’d be yelling and taunting anyone to come fight him.

His violent nature had been the concern of many people. He’d been from one psychologist to another, but it did little help. Of course, Ryder and Steven would always say he was doing good, but the truth was, he was not.

There was one usual trigger to his violent behavior, which she had observed over the course of two months she had worked with him—the mention of his family, especially of his brother’s name.

She had no idea what took place in his family. Why his father had disowned him and he’d been estranged from his brother way before they even made a name for themselves. The fact that they belonged to different clans was a proof of a bitter relationship between them.

Whatever it was, it was none of her business. Her job with him was over. She didn’t want to have nothing to do with him anymore.

She walked past the elevator and climbed the stairs to the second floor. She found Candace frowning in front of her laptop.

“Hi,” she greeted. “Sorry, I’m late.”

Candace glanced at her. “Megan, can you believe it?!” she exclaimed. “The SOB was here a while ago. He was looking for you.”

“Yes, I met him at the lobby.”

Candace raised an eyebrow. “You did?”

Megan dropped her purse on her desk and took her blazer off.

“So what did you do?” Candace asked. “Did you kick his ass?”

“I wanted to.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“You know he’s nuts. He’ll kill me.”

Candace sighed, as if disappointed. “So how did it go?”

“What?”

“You saw him?”

“Oh.” Meg understood her friend was talking about Bryan’s wake, the reason why she was not at work the whole morning. “I saw him.”

“You saw his parents?”

“They’re not there. Just the fans.”

Candace chuckled. “You’re the girlfriend, and you had to fall in line with the fans just to see him? That’s crazy.”

“More like pathetic,” Megan said and opened her laptop. She’d been crying about that a few hours ago, but after what just took place in the gym, there was another matter that she should be more worried about.

“You know, I’ve been thinking.” Megan paused and reached for the hand sanitizer. “If Bryan was really serious about me, he should have fought for me, don’t you think?”

Candace scuffed. “You should have told him that when he was still alive.”

Megan was quiet. She and Bryan had only been together for a few months. She thought that Bryan probably just wanted to make sure the relationship worked before he’d go to the extent of defying his parents’ wishes. None of that mattered now.

The phone rang. Megan quickly answered it to avoid further discussion about the subject.

“Hello, this is Janet Campbell of the Las Vegas Police Department,” a woman answered, which terrified the hell out of her, “Is Megan Riley there?”

With her trembling lips, it took a second or two before she managed to force the words out of her mouth. “I’m Megan Riley.”

“Well, Miss Riley. I’d like to inform you that we have your brother in custody for physical assault on the person of certain Blaze Rockwood.”

“W-what?!” she exclaimed. She was not shocked about Blaze Rockwood. She was shocked that Josh had been arrested. “Did he do anything?”

“We’re still investigating the incident. He said someone else did it, but we cannot ascertain that as a fact because as of now, Mister Rockwood is still unconscious.”

“There are no charges against him, is there?”

“None yet. But we have to keep your brother detained until Mister Rockwood can tell us what happened, or until we get the CCTV footage.”

She gasped.

Fuck! Why hadn’t she realized there was a fucking thing called CCTV! The moment they saw the footage, she’s finished.

“Alright,” she replied, her lips and fingers trembling. There would be no way out of this, so she’d rather go get her brother out of jail. “Can I come to the station to talk to my brother?”

“That’s why I called you. He said he wants to talk to you.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

As soon as she dropped the phone, she looked at Candace who was leaning in her direction, probably eavesdropping.

“Go.” Candace smiled. “I will tell them it’s an emergency, but you’d better tell me the whole story later.”

Megan nodded. “Thank you,” she said and stood up. She had barely warmed up her seat, and here she was again, running her ass off to the police station.

Chapter 3

“A what?!” Blaze roared, his voice echoing around his private office like a growl of a ferocious beast.

Richard, a friend of Walter Rockwood who happened to be the police investigator assigned in Blaze’s case, shrugged. “You heard what I said. The suspect is a woman.”

“Fuck that.”

“No kidding, Blaze. A witness saw a woman running out of the building at the time you were attacked. And the CCTV footage showed a woman entering the premises at that same time.”

“That’s bullshit! I felt the blow on my nape. I collapsed. You think there’s a woman in this world strong enough to do something like that?”

“Hasn’t your doctor told you? The mark on your nape is caused by a brass knuckle.”

Blaze was dumbfounded. So that explained why the blow knocked him unconscious. But still, he could not believe that it was a woman. Even with a brass knuckle, that person must be skilled to use it properly.

“I’m not convinced.”

Richard sighed and pulled something he had tucked in on his back. He handed Blaze a newspaper. “Read it.”

“It’s written here?” Blaze’s eyes were wide open as he pointed a finger on the paper. “They actually wrote that bullshit here? Who leaked that crap to the press? You?”

“Christ, Blaze.” Richard rose from the couch and headed for the door. “The witness had spoken to the media before he even gave us his statement.”

“Who’s that witness?” Blaze followed Richard to the door. “I’m going to blow the shit out of his skull.”

Richard sighed and turned back to Blaze. “You’d better stay away from him, son. If something happens to him, I will hold you accountable.”

“He’s lying. He just wants to make a name for himself.”

“He did not even give out his name. He wanted to remain anonymous.”

“This is a publicity stunt. Someone out there wants to embarrass me.”

“What’s so embarrassing about it?”

“Fuck, Richard. Do you know who I am? I am a former heavyweight UFC champ, considered one of the greatest. Never been defeated. Never been knocked out. And now you tell me that a woman has knocked me out there? Fuck you! Fuck the hell out of you!”

Richard rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you just cooperate with my investigation so we can find out who that woman is, and then you can fuck the hell out of her?”

“Why do you insist that it is a woman?”

“Why do you insist that it is not?”

“Because I know.”

Richard turned around and opened the door. “I’ll call you when she’s identified.”

“What about that kid in there? Did you ask him again?”

“The boy’s not talking.”

“I can make him talk.”

“He won’t talk even if you kill him. You know why? Because he’s got a sister.”

Blaze glared at Richard. “You don’t say his sister is your suspect.”

Richard sneered. “Who knows? I heard she’s one of those hot octagon girls at the Battledome.”

For a moment, Blaze was dumbfounded, and then he pointed a finger at Richard’s face. “Don’t you put that in the paper or I’ll kill you.”

“Blaze, there are things you cannot hide from the media, not especially some very interesting stuff such as this. I think your case will be hitting the headline tomorrow.”

“Fuck you! You don’t ruin my reputation in such a way.”

Richard laughed and stepped out of the room. “See ya.”

Blaze tightened his fists and hit the top of his desk. The glass cracked.

“Oh, shit,” he uttered and sank into his chair. Suddenly, pain shot through his head. It was cracking his skull open. “Damn!”

Gladys, his father’s secretary for over a decade now, peeked through the door. “Are you alright? You want to go home?”

“No, no. It’s just a headache.”

Gladys stepped in. “You should have stayed in the hospital for another day at least.”

“I could have died of boredom if I stayed there for another hour,” he replied. “Where’s Dad?”

“He’s on his way to the airport.”

“Where’s he going?”

“Dallas.”

His eyebrows met at the center. “I thought I was scheduled to go there this afternoon?”

“Walter assumed you couldn’t make it, so he cancelled all his appointments today to take your place.”

“No. I’ve got to be the one to go there. Call him. Tell him to come back.”

“Blaze.” Gladys tapped his desk and leaned forward to peer at his face. She looked like a mother scolding a stubborn child. “You can’t even sit still for five minutes without complaining about your headache. What made you think you can last three hours on a plane?”

He sighed. If this woman weren’t twice his age of twenty nine, he could have tried to argue. But out of respect, and because his father tend to trust this woman like his own wife, he might as well keep his mouth shut.

Gladys smiled and was to straighten up when she noticed the crack on the table. “What did you do with your desk?”

“It was an accident.”

“I told you to be careful with your hands.”

“I am being careful.”

“Since you’re no longer with the UFC, why don’t you start losing weight? You look like a walking boulder.”

“I’ve lost thirty pounds the past two years. Two hundred pounds isn’t bad for my height.”

“You could shed off ten more pounds.”

“Is that necessary?”

“You could save us another desk, and a few flower vases. Not to mention the figurines that your father had been collecting for the past twenty years.”

“It’s not like I did that on purpose. The shelf was not very sturdy, and there’s not enough room for me to move around.”

“If you weren’t that buff, there’s plenty of room for you.”

He grunted under his throat. Losing another ten pounds meant more time in the gym and less of his favorite sweets and pasta.

After he had retired from UFC two years ago, he thought he could finally be free from those strict, bland diets, but it turned out he had to do more cardio and dieting to slim down.

Everyone, even his father, thought he was too big for an office job. While in the UFC, his usual two hundred twenty pounds weight was too lean for a heavyweight. In fact, they even named him the sexiest MMA fighter for three consecutive years.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Gladys, who was about to walk out of the door, turned back to him. “A woman named Megan Riley wants to speak with you.”

“No,” he promptly replied. “I don’t want to entertain any visitor today.”

“She’s the sister of Josh Riley.”

“So what?” He suddenly stopped when he remembered what Richard had just told him a few minutes ago. Josh Riley? The kid in the gym. So that woman could be…

No, she couldn’t have been the one. He still could not believe that tale. But perhaps she knew a thing or two about it.

“Alright. Send her in.”

*****

Megan massaged her shaking fingers while sitting on the couch in Blaze Rockwood’s office.

“You want some coffee?” the office staff, who earlier introduced herself as Gladys Breen, asked. “Mister Rockwood is still on the phone.”

Megan shook her head. “It’s alright. I can wait.”

She wasn’t really in a hurry, even if Candace just texted her to come to work as soon as she was finished speaking with Blaze Rockwood because they had a lot of work scheduled for the day. She honestly wished Blaze would take his time while she tried to calm herself down.

She was about to speak with the UFC’s former heavyweight champion, the one they called the Octagon Demon, the older brother of the infamous reigning UFC champion.

She used to be a fan of his. In fact, she had this huge crush on him. She had bought dozens of magazines that featured him and for many nights, she had dreamed about him in her sleep.

Until the day he robbed her of her dream of becoming a UFC octagon girl. It reduced her to becoming a regular in the Battledome’s Thursday night fights.

But of course, he wouldn’t remember that. He barely took a glance at her while she had been standing before him, along with four other women who were all aspiring to be the next octagon girl. As the reigning champion at that time, Blaze had been given the privilege to choose who’d be strutting her ass around the octagon cage for his next match. He chose Leslie Adams, the now most popular UFC Octagon girl, more famously known for her D cups.

Apparently, Blaze preferred big breasted women. Compared to her size of 36B, she never stood a chance. No wonder he had completely ignored her.

“You don’t mind if I leave you here for a second, do you?” Gladys asked.

“Not at all,” Megan replied.

Gladys smiled and left the room. One minute later, the door of the interior room opened. When she turned her head, she found Blaze standing there, looking at her.

Quickly, she rose to her feet.

Aside from the fact that he had slimmed down a little, he still looked like the gorgeous hunk she had known two years ago. His dark brown hair had grown longer, and his pair of gray eyes still had that piercing glow that some said was scary but she honestly found enticing.

For some reasons, she found herself too attracted with his eyes. Whenever she looked at them, she felt possessed, absorbed into a world that she had created in her fantasies—a place where Blaze only had eyes for her.

But that world had since faded away when Bryan came into her life. She had stopped living in her fantasy world and was happy and content with her reality.

“Good morning.” She forced the words out of her mouth.

As if he did not hear anything, he approached her, stopped about three feet away in front of her and gave her a once over. She quickly hid her band-aid covered knuckles behind her back. They didn’t really hurt much, but she had some minor abrasions that she didn’t want anyone to see.

She swallowed. She was five feet six inches, but she felt dwarfed compared to his six feet two inches height.

He peered at her face and frowned. “You look familiar. Have we met?” he asked.

A few times, but she didn’t think he would remember it. “Not really.”

The crease on his forehead told her he was unconvinced, but to her relief, he moved away and sat on the couch across her.

“Sit down,” he said.

She obeyed and rested her hands on her lap.

“What happened to your hands?”

His question stunned her. Shit. She had forgotten about it. He probably had figured it out by now, especially that a witness had already identified a woman as his attacker.

What’s he gonna do? Is he going to hit her?

To her relief, his face remained placid. Maybe she was just becoming paranoid.

“I…” She decided to speak now. This was what she had come here for. She was prepared for any consequences. “I came here for my brother.”

“What about it?” he asked apathetically.

“He is innocent. He’s not the one who attacked you. You know that.”

“I know that.”

“Then why is he detained?”

“Why? Because he’s not cooperating. He refused to give out the name of the culprit.”

She took a deep breath. She had tried to convince Josh to tell the truth because they’d eventually find her out anyway, but he said he’d rather stay there than have her arrested. “He’s not going to talk.”

Suspicion sparked in his eyes. “Is it because he’s trying to protect someone special to him? A relative perhaps? Or a sister?”

Heat crept up her face. So he already knew. He was just playing dumb. “He’s protecting me.”

A scowl masked his face. For a moment, she thought he’d jump on her and break her neck, but he just sat on his seat, glaring at her.

Eventually, his eyes softened. “What are you up to?”

Perturbed, her brows met at the center. “What do you mean?”

“You and that witness who claimed it was a woman who hit me. You’re together in this, aren’t you?”

“No. I don’t even know that witness. I thought no one saw me. That’s the reason I’ve decided to come clean before you because I know that soon enough, you’ll figure it out anyway.”

“Stop lying to me!” he growled, stunning her that she almost jumped out of her seat. “It’s not you! I can tell by the impact of the blow it wasn’t a woman. Is it your boyfriend?”

She tried to contain the tears welling in her eyes, including her labored breathing. “I’m telling you the truth. I did it. So if you want to press charges against me, do it, but please release my brother.”

With lightning speed, he dashed to her and grabbed her on both arms, lifting her off her seat. “Your brother will rot in jail until you tell me the truth.”

She tried to wriggle off his grip, but she was no match for his strength. “You have no grounds to keep my brother detained.”

“I can make up one if I want to. Remember how they used to call me? I am the Octagon Demon, and they did not call me a demon for no reason.”