Dirty Fighter: A Bad Boy MMA Romance Read online

  I paused there for longer than I realized. I didn’t count the heartbeats over the roaring of my thoughts.

  “She deserves how he treats her”, the old chorus I had beat down hundreds of times popped up. I hated it, hated myself for feeling it. She didn’t deserve any of it, nobody deserves to be abused, but it reared its ugly puce head at me again. Squeezing my keys tightly in my hand, I kept increasing the pressure until the pain drowned those thoughts.

  My mother wasn’t a good person, but she didn’t deserve to be a victim.

  She deserved to be able to live without fear, and maybe with this cop she could have found this.

  Maybe with this cop she wouldn’t have to flinch at closing doors or the smell of beer.

  She could have been happy; she could have made her life better.

  I’d waited until they were out of sight and then let myself in, quietly closing the door and sliding off my shoes. I wiped the blood from my punctured palm on the jean shorts I was wearing and tried not to think about it.

  The house was huge. Two stories and spread out like a labyrinth. I never realized how big it really was until I had friends over and then their reactions always made me feel like I lived in the White House. When I snuck in boys in the middle of the night they never heard. If they had my dad would have been hideously angry. I could play music, sneak out through the front door, smash plates on the kitchen floor, and they wouldn’t even know I was home from their bedroom.

  Though even if I did make noise they could hear I doubt they’d acknowledge I existed.

  I made my way upstairs and closed myself off in my bedroom, shutting the door and sliding on my headphones, I stared out into the back yard from my window. A perfectly manicured yard of dying grass. It suited the house, seeing how nasty it really was in here, even if it looked nice from the outside.

  I’m not sure how long I sat there. It could have been a couple minutes, or a couple hours, but I knew it sure as hell couldn’t be eight pm already when my dad pulled up. Yet, there was his car, oversized and red, pulling into the driveway from the back, out of site from my parent’s room.

  Shit.

  Shit … shit … SHIT.

  I slammed down my headphones and paced my room for a minute, not sure what to do. What the fuck was he doing home? He didn’t get home until eight? It was only seven. Fuck. I could taste my fucking heart in my throat as I watched him get out of his car and head to the back door that lead through to the kitchen.

  My dad had always been an angry man. The kind of guy that if you got one thing wrong on his order at a restaurant he’d yell until you cried or were fired. He didn’t have patience for anyone messing up exactly how he envisioned his life to be.

  Rushing from my room, adrenaline flooding me like ice water, I headed to the stairs and tried to act naturally. I couldn’t let him know something was up, I couldn’t risk it. Setting my right hand on the banister, I began to walk down. I could hear him stomping toward the stairs and into sight. His face was already red as he tossed his keys to a side table and missed, jangling down to the floor.

  “IS HE FUCKING HER?” my dad said. I was his seventeen-year-old daughter, and here he was asking me that shit. My stomach rolled so hard I was surprised I could stand up straight.

  “Dad, mom’s not home,” I said, trying my best to maintain a confused expression. I was a cheerleader, a performer, and I had to stick this landing.

  He didn’t buy my act.

  “Fuck your ‘she’s not here’. I see his fucking car,” said the man who’d taught me how to ride a bike, the man who helped me blow out my birthday candles every year, my dad. He started coming up the stairs towards me.

  “Dad, she isn’t,” I repeated, almost halfway down them, but frozen with terror as he approached me. My mom wasn’t a good person, but she sure as hell didn’t deserve to catch his fists anymore. He wasn’t stopping as he came up, this angry bull of a man who was supposed to be nurturing me as I made my progression into adulthood. He was basically having a temper tantrum.

  When he slapped my face, any semblance of the voice that ever blamed my mom for her abuse died. Any semblance of the child that had once loved my father was forever tarnished.

  The hit was hard, and God it hurt so much that I was sure he’d broken my jaw, the surprise of it knocking me down. I could feel the stairs catching me and tumbling me past him, down to the reprieve of the cool floor away from him.

  I was face down. I had hit my nose on the fall and I wasn’t sure if it was bleeding from that or the slap.

  It hurt so bad, I couldn’t believe he’d actually done that to me again. He had only hit me twice before and he’d promised after each time that he would never do it again. My ass, my stupid “daddy’s girl” ass had to go right back to believing him. I felt so stupid, so useless. I was so angry and so fucking hurt in both my heart and body.

  “Brooklyn!” a voice was saying. Great, now my dad was going to tell me he was sorry. I expected as much. A pair of strong hands found me and was slowly picking my face up from the ground, and as that voice said “Brooklyn” again, the name my father had chosen for me, I realized it wasn’t my dad.

  The world around me exploded into sound and reached full speed, my head swimming as I looked at a classmate I hardly knew. My head was throbbing and my dad was rushing down the stairs toward us.

  “What the fuck?” someone said, I wasn’t sure if it was my father or myself.

  3

  Adam

  I found the window that had let me hear them, in an office that was near the kitchen. I roughly hoisted myself through, scraping my hands in the process. Clumsy and rushed from panic, I slid down the wall, knocking a diploma down as I sped my ass out of there. HE hit her. He HIT her. I was furious. Madder than I’d ever been in my life, more mad than even when I’d been hit. He was her father and he hit her.

  I had almost left just minutes before he got home.

  I’d almost missed this and then what?

  As I rounded the corner I could see her, her dark hair like a veil to hide her face. She looked dead, face down on the tile, there was blood and one of her arms looked uncomfortably twisted. Her father watched me, not doing anything, as I quickly crouched down to her side.

  I’d never touched her before and she seemed so delicate in that moment, not the firebird that was so quick to destroy other people at school. Slowly I was able to get her to sit up some; her body was tense and uncomfortable. She peered up at me with those large eyes, and confusion and relief both seemed to fight for residence on her expressions.

  “What the fuck?” Brooklyn’s dad said as he turned to me. He was angry and a few steps up on the stairs. Actually, he was intimidating as hell once I got a good look at him. I started to help Brooklyn up, but for a moment there I wasn’t completely sure why the fuck I put myself in this situation again, so soon after the last time.

  “Chill out,” I said to him, lost for any word that didn’t sound like it would send him back down on us. I didn’t want to force Brooklyn to stand, so I picked her up and carried her over to a chair near the front door. I was fucking furious, but I knew that I wasn’t much in stature compared to this man. He had a good few inches of height on me, and his arms and torso looked thick but I couldn’t be sure if it was muscle or fat. I’d been working out for ages, but if he was angry he would be unpredictable.

  He wasn’t that much of a man if he had to slap around his fucking daughter,

  “You want me to calm down? He’s FUCKING MY WIFE,” he said angrily, turning and shouting the last few words up the stairs so he could be sure she’d hear him. His face was almost purple with fury.

  “Who are you, anyway?” he asked.

  “I’m Adam. I am friends with Brooklyn. We go to school together,” I answered.

  “Is that so?” he asked.

  “Yup. Alright, talk to me about it,” I said, trying to diffuse the situation. My hands were up, open with the palms out to show that I wasn’t going to be viole
nt, I could listen. I wasn’t sure what the fuck I had just climbed through a window into, but Brooklyn’s nose was bleeding and her eyes looked mostly blank. She didn’t look like she completely knew what was going on either.

  “And tell you what?” he asked snidely, his brows were so furrowed that the surrounding wrinkles were white against his angry red skin. “That my wife is fucking some fucking cop, so that she can turn around and fuck me in a fucking divorce?” he spat, almost literally. His right hand gripped the stair banister, his knuckles protruding from the back of his hand like the spine of an arching pissed off cat.

  Brooklyn shifted and as I looked over at her, she stiffened up, straightening her back and gaining some semblance of composure.

  “She’s not here,” Brooklyn said, shaking her head. She didn’t look like she could convince even herself, but it was amazing that she could still lie straight faced with that monster right there on the stairs. I was in awe at her bravery.

  “Don’t you fucking say that,” her dad said in a steadily raising voice. “Don’t you fucking sit there and lie to me,” he said. I wanted to knock his goddamn lights out for talking to her like that. Who the fuck was he to just go around punching and terrorizing his damn child like that? I didn’t want to make things worse though, so I forced my voice to stay calm.

  “Brooklyn has no reason to lie,” I said, trying to be somewhat more convincing than she was.

  “Oh fuck you,” her dad said, looking me over like I was a piece of shit as he took a couple steps down the stairs. “Her fucking mom, the slut up there in MY bedroom having sex with a fucking pig cop, is going to try to take all of this from me,” he motioned around us. “I’m not paying her for fucking someone else! I’m not going to fucking—to fucking let her come in here, screw the first man who walks by, and then waltz off with my hard earned money!” he said, angrily stumbling through his words.

  He was half yelling, half grunting out whatever came into his mind.

  “I built this home from the fucking dirt up; fuck I have money in every goddamn business in this town. She wouldn’t even have a cop to fuck if it wasn’t for me.” He wasn’t making any sense at this point.

  “So take her to court, but don’t pull this shit here,” I said, trying to calm him down. “You can hire a good lawyer with all of,” I motioned around, “this. Get back at her in the courtroom.” I was just trying to get him to calm down. Brooklyn’s nose was bleeding a lot and I was pissed. So fucking pissed that I could hear my pulse in my ears as I waited for his reply.

  “No. Fuck you, they always pay off the wife—it’s fucking impossible to be a man without being looked at like a piece of shit in the courts these days,” he said, borderline spitting his words at me. I didn’t really know how to respond to that, and was caught off guard when he started barreling down the stairs. “I’m not going to fucking see her ass in court. I’m not going to sit around and wait for her to screw me like she’s letting him screw her,” he said. His chest was heaving under his strenuous breathing, like a steam engine.

  “Look at yourself, this isn’t how you win,” I tried again. I usually didn’t get the chance to try to talk someone down from attacking someone else. He didn’t look like he gave a shit what I was saying though.

  “Fuck you! Fucking trash! Get the fuck out of my house,” he shouted. He was almost directly in front of me. I steadied myself, preparing for his punch. If he was going to punch me he’d better be ready to catch my return punch as it headed directly for his damn ugly face.

  Nothing.

  Instead he went past me, heading to the hall by the kitchen. I could feel Brooklyn’s panic spike immediately. I turned to her and she seemed to pop out of her trance. Her wide bright eyes were horrified as she looked at me, almost helplessly.

  “The hunting room is down that hall. His gun, he’s getting his gun, oh my God,” she said, her body seemed to shrink. “He’s going to fucking kill all of us,” she murmured sounding like she’d already accepted it.

  My heart stopped.

  I had to do it again.

  I had to.

  “You need to go outside. Get out of the house,” I said, panicking. She didn’t look like she was going to listen to me; she was frozen with fear.

  I got one last good look at her before I had to turn away. My legs carried me as if operating on their own, like a train on its tracks, my pursuit was hot and immediate. My heart was hammering, I was tired, and I was angry.

  I rounded the corner. He was in front of a gun safe, turning the combination knob. I didn’t pause, I didn’t think, there was no time. I grabbed the closest heavy thing, a lamp with a white base, decorated with a light blue floral print. And after that day, I’d never be able to forget it. I lifted it high and cracked it down hard against his awful balding head.

  The smell of blood was strong and immediate.

  4

  Brooklyn

  I was trembling, still shaken, from my father hitting me, from the yelling.

  The boy had told me to go outside, to get out of the house, but what was the point? Once my dad reached his guns, no amount of running would save me. He’d have a bullet in my back or head in no time, he was a hunter and that’s what he did. If he wanted me dead, I’d be dead.

  I waited for a gunshot. I expected it. My father was always the one to get his way. Not once in my life had he ever been made to wait or had even been disappointed in anything. He wanted my mother and she was his. He wanted promotions, businesses, fame and they were handed to him on a platter. He could have looked at a mountain and it would have jumped out of his way and apologized for the trouble.

  Instead of the gunshot I was waiting for, I heard a loud crack, followed by a heavy thud. It didn’t sound like it did when he’d hit my mother or me, slapping and punching. Those were softer noises, punctuated by her sobs, this was hard and sudden. This was completely different.

  I stayed there, glued to that spot on the ground as I tasted the blood from my nose making its way into my mouth. Taking in a sobbing breath, I was terrified. I felt like I was that seven year old who first saw my father slap my mom, I stood up.

  I knew the smart thing to do would be to run. If he killed that kid, if he hurt that kid, it’d be me and my mother next. I knew that. I could make it out the door, down the front steps and out to a neighbor. I could have them call the police and tell them what was going on. If I could also manage to evade his bullets and do it in a matter of minutes, then maybe I could save my mother and her damn cop. Yet my feet carried me deeper into the house, setting a groove into the recording of that day that haunts me more than anything else. I felt like I was being pulled to the back room. To my dad’s hunting room.

  That room had scared me as a kid. If I was honest, it scared me now even as a teenager. Boars, bears, and deer had their heads mounted and hung on the walls, looking still very much alive; they looked like they were peering through the walls to see what life was like for humans. A stuffed fox sat in front of the fireplace, its glass eyes reflecting your every movement. On the walls were dozens of pictures of him hunting and a few of me fishing with him. There was even one of me carrying a mourning dove back from a hunt.

  A couple glass cabinets showcased other trophies, arrowheads and old weapons, and a compass that looked older than the earth itself. The gun safe was his pride and joy, though. When I was younger he’d joke to me that he was better armed than some small countries, I thought that was hilarious at the time. It wasn’t until I hit my teenage years that it scared the hell out of me.

  The gun safe was closed when I walked in.

  My father, the unstoppable force that molded the world around him, was knocked out on the ground. A Goliath lying defeated, his David wielding a cracked lamp. I started shaking so hard that I could have collapsed right there. My father and I looked like more trophies to decorate the room.

  “Fuck, what did you do?” I asked, horrified. My father wasn’t one to be fucked with. “You knocked him out—oh fuck—wh
en he wakes up he’s going to fucking murder you,” I said, hardly able to look away from my father’s face. I felt like puking and laughing at the same time. My father, the infallible, laying on the ground like he had decided that was the perfect spot to take a heavy nap in. Defenseless and even harmless when unconscious. In that moment I was both relieved and so, so, anxious.

  “I had to, he was going to shoot us,” the kid said. I know now that his name is Adam, but at the time it wasn’t on the top of my priorities. He was still holding the lamp and he paused for a moment before setting it down.

  “I know,” I said, shaking. He had just saved my life. I need to protect him and return the favor. “Follow me,” I said, rushing out into the hall and into the kitchen. The house loomed around us like it knew more than we did. Rushing into the kitchen I pushed a chair to the fridge, climbed on it, and shoved the junk out of the way until I found an old plastic Wonder Bread box. “I need you to take this,” I said, grabbing the plastic bag of money out of it and shoving it against his chest. “Meet me at the bus stop on Ash and Gladstone.”

  I’d found out about my mom’s stash when my friends and I first got into alcohol. My asshole parents were happy to drown themselves in the awful bitter stuff, but they kept the rest locked up in the office. I had searched everywhere for the key to that cabinet: tops of door frames, insides of drawers, even in their bedroom. I’d tried keys from all their key chains. Nothing. Finally on a weekend they weren’t in I tore apart the kitchen, and found my mom’s breadbox full of “dough”.

  I stole a hundred or two here or there, which allowed me to pay people to buy me whatever booze I wanted instead of stealing their awful stuff. I don’t think she ever noticed, but even if she did, she wouldn’t ever tell me. It would mean admitting to my father and to me that she was saving up in secret. Secrets weren’t allowed from him, much less ones that implied she was planning on taking off without him. He’d kill her a thousand different ways before he would ever let her go through with the idea of leaving without him.