Brawler's Baby: An MMA Mob Romance (Mob City Book 1) Read online

  "You fight for me, you can have anything you want…"

  What kind of father tries to pimp out his own daughter?

  His point made, he wheeled away with his arms around Conor's shoulders. As they walked toward the bar, he turned to me and said. "Don't leave this place without one of my men by your side. Understood?"

  I nodded my head mutely, broken by not just the tension of the last few minutes, but of all of the last four years, and collapsed onto the nearest couch – scattering a few nearby party goers, who hurried away from me like I was a leper.

  My life was a gilded cage. Ordinary people were terrified of even making eye contact with me lest my father's men pay them an unwanted visit in the depths of the night; and the city's criminal classes treated me like a princess – but only because they equal parts feared my father, and hoped he'd marry me off to one of them.

  They don’t understand him at all.

  He was a criminal and a sociopath, but only looking at him through those lenses was like calling Genghis Khan just a troublemaker. It was too small – it didn’t even come close to scratching the surface of the man’s violent, all encompassing ambition. To my father, I was a business asset – a piece to be pushed around his chessboard with as much free will as an enamel bishop or an ivory pawn. That is – none.

  In Mikael Antonov's eyes, marrying me off to some local thug would be a criminal waste of his twenty-five year investment. No, he had far bigger plans for his only daughter. He'd choose a husband for me – that much was certain, but his eyes were on a bigger prize than just solidifying his already impregnable control over Alexandria, and I had more than an inkling of what, exactly, that prize was.

  My father's recent fascination with mixed martial arts was no passing fad. If I knew my father – and years of skulking about with one eye constantly attuned to his brooding presence meant that I knew him better than most – then he meant to dominate the sport as thoroughly as he dominated my life, my city, and my every waking moment.

  At least when they put you in your cage you can fight your way out, Conor. All I have is an ax, held by a thread, forever dangling above my head.

  I looked up, only to see my father's man staring balefully at me – clearly under orders to prevent me from departing alone. Big surprise. My dad wasn't just controlling, he was meticulous to a point – and he had the resources to make sure I did exactly as I was told. After the incident a few years ago, it had taken months before I’d been able to take a shower without some bumbling halfwit Russian gangster following behind me like a dog.

  The first two years had been the hardest. Anchored in Alexandria by circumstances out of my control – though circumstances I wouldn't change for the world – I'd desperately wanted, perhaps even needed to find a way out, and not just for my sake.

  But hour after hour, day after day and year after year spent living in closely-monitored quasi-captivity, with every attempt to escape callously knocked back, would be enough to wear even the sternest character down to the bone. Hope is like a flower – it grows in the unlikeliest of places, but it doesn't last long under a boot.

  When my memories of freedom faded away, so did my desire to reach out and grab it – I hadn't felt hope flower within me for a long, long time.

  Until now.

  But Conor's surprise appearance changed everything. It reminded me of who I'd once been – a girl who had been filled with life, a girl who was bold, confident and unafraid to grab the world by the horns. A far cry from this retiring wallflower who sat hiding herself from the world in a leather armchair in a room full of mobsters.

  Careful not to get myself caught staring, I let my eyes flicker over toward the bar and saw where Conor stood with a half-empty pint of Guinness in his hand, and my father's arm still draped possessively across his lower back.

  Even now, so many years later, Conor was still the same wary street-fighter I'd first met – he had his weight on the balls of his feet, lithe and ready to make a quick escape at any moment. And he didn't like the fact that my father was touching him. Not one little bit.

  I watched as he brought his drink up to his mouth, his thick forearm bulging, and drained the rest of his pint, and kept staring, spellbound as he handed the glass to a nervous-looking bartender. He looked older than I remembered, a perhaps unsurprising revelation, but also harder – a few more pounds of lean muscle, a couple more inches on his taut biceps, and a short, thick beard on his chin.

  The biggest change, though, wasn't anything physical – it was barely even detectable. I was probably the only person in the room, or perhaps even the state, who would or even could have noticed it. Conor carried himself more seriously now – with his shoulders pulled back, his gaze held firmly in front of him, and a calm sense of undisputed authority.

  You’re a long way from from the funny kid from the streets of Dublin I fell in love with.

  Then again, I guess, so am I.

  I kept my eyes on him, couldn't tear them away. I watched as he dismissively shook my father's hand off his back like another man might flick a speck of dust from his jacket. I saw the surprised, cold anger on my father's face, and I watched as Conor sauntered toward the restroom without so much as a word of farewell. As he passed the bar I thought I saw him stop and grab something out of the corner of my eye, but I couldn't be sure.

  Especially since my father was now striding toward me…

  The man was as predictable as a child. Except at least kids had some sort of excuse. He had no control over his emotions – the moment something angered him, he lashed out. Except for him, unlike a child, lashing out didn't mean resorting to tears, it meant hurting someone.

  Hurting me.

  Oh Conor, couldn't you have just humored him, for me?

  "You're just going to sit there?" He sneered. My head dropped half an inch as another of his verbal assaults washed over me.

  "I'm sorry, father," I said, hauling myself to my feet. I'd long ago learned that the best way to mollify him was to submit entirely. Fighting didn't help – it just made things worse. "Did you want me to meet someone?"

  "Why the hell would I want anyone to meet you?" He snarled, his narrow lips curling with anger. "Look at you – you're pathetic!"

  "Yes, father –"

  He hissed softly, venomously, careful as always to abuse me in secret. It wouldn't do, after all if the great and the good and the bad and the worst of Alexandria saw him cussing out his own family. "– sitting here with your head in your hands. How do you think you cowering here makes me look?"

  Conor's lilting, dulcet tones appeared from nowhere. "Everything alright with youse?"

  My father turned on his heel, his face puce red with rage as he searched for the offending voice, for the person who dared interrupt him in his own domain. I cringed, waiting for the inevitable explosion of rage, a volcanic eruption which I'd experienced many dozens, if not hundreds, of times before. Even my father's own men hung warily a few paces behind him, skulking out of sight in an attempt to avoid getting caught in the crossfire.

  It didn't come. If anything, my father blinked, like a long-serving alpha male of a lion pack coming face to face with a true rival for the first time. Any man might have felt the same – after all, Conor towered so far over the squat mobster that he could have been mistaken for a child.

  "Nothing," he blustered, finally reasserting control over himself. "None of your business."

  It was a weak, unconvincing reply, and judging by the looks my father's men were exchanging, they'd recognized it to. Judging by the wary looks they were shooting Conor, they were also weighing up what to do if they were ordered to attack him. And judging by the color – or lack of it – in their cheeks, they didn't much fancy their chances…

  "In that case," Conor smiled thinly. "I'd best be going. Nothing tires a man out more than beating another man unconscious, you know?"

  "I'm – I'm sure," my father croaked.

  I was flabbergasted. I'd seen my father go toe to toe with
a dozen men both broader and taller than Conor, and they'd backed down every time. Reputation went a long way in this town, and my father's was black as mud. Conor couldn’t have cared less.

  He has an aura about him now. Men are terrified of him… Even men like dad.

  He turned aside, ignoring my father. "And Miss?" He said, smiling warmly now.

  "Maya," I squeaked, my voice betraying my nervousness no matter how hard I tried to conceal it.

  "Maya," he repeated, savoring the word. "That's a lovely name…"

  What are you saying, Conor?

  I felt trapped between two giant, unstoppable forces – a former lover who would do anything to have me, and a father who wanted me for himself.

  My father cleared his throat threateningly. Conor didn't so much as bat an eyelid, his icy green eyes seeming to reach into my soul at will. I couldn't look away, even though I knew how severe and endless my father's rage would be once Conor had left. It was worth it. I could take it, now. For this.

  "That's a lovely name," he said in his lilting Irish brogue. "Anyway, like I said – I must be off." He leaned forward, cupped my waist familiarly with one of his broad hands and kissed me on the cheek, the wiry hairs of his beard brushing against the soft, delicate skin of my cheek. I wanted nothing more than to close my eyes and lean in, breathe deeply that familiar scent and let him nibble my ear, just like the old days. Of course, I couldn't.

  He pressed the solid, warm weight of his hand against my waist for just a second too long, and behind him, my father's men began to stir.

  And then, before they could do a thing about it, he was gone. I let out a long, deep breath – one that I hadn't even realized I was holding in, and – dazed, let my father's cold rage wash over me. I didn't care.

  What neither my father nor his men had noticed was that Conor's whole routine had been nothing more than an act – the sleight of hand of a man who'd spent his childhood pickpocketing the honest people of Dublin just to put food on the table. The thing is, the exact it takes the exact same skills to take something out of a pocket as it does to put something in.

  So when I realized what he was up to, there was only one thought in my mind.

  What did you slip me, Conor?

  6

  Conor

  Bottles, everywhere.

  Two words, but they described the state of my motel room perfectly. I would have felt sorry for the cleaning woman, but she'd get a fat tip. I could be an asshole, but not to people like her. They had a hard enough life as it was. I'd made enough that night to keep me in booze, threads and chicks for weeks, maybe months, so she'd get her slice of my winnings.

  The cash was there, just sitting on the bed – neat stacks of hundreds, all with pretty little green holographic paper straps binding them together. Ten thousand here, twenty thousand there, pretty soon you're talking real money.

  I didn't care about any of it. How could I when there was only one thing, one girl, on my mind. Maya. Of course, she hadn't been Maya when I first met her…

  I jumped to my feet, shaking my head to try and clear away the funk. I needed the place to look presentable, needed to seem like I wasn't two steps away from an early grave by way of the bottle.

  Whatever the truth actually happened to be… I grabbed the garbage bag from the can and leapt frantically, frenetically into action, sweeping up whole swathes of empty beer bottles with my arm and sending them crashing into the bag, crushing empty pizza boxes and stuffing them in behind.

  Jesus, Conor, this place is a dump. When this is all over, you need to take a long look at yourself.

  Two sharp knocks rang out at the door. It sounded like someone was in a hurry. I kidded myself, thinking that it might have been the cashier. I probably owed the motel money.

  Or maybe I'd been too loud when I stumbled back in from the bar last night. Maybe.

  Truth was, I knew exactly who was on the other side of that door – but for the first time in years I felt the cold clench of nervousness holding my body in its vice-like grip instead of feeling completely and utterly in control.

  I stumbled toward the thin wooden door-frame, not bothering to pull the curtains back and peek through the window. It was either her or it wasn't. There were no two ways about it.

  I pulled the door open.

  She looked every bit as beautiful as the day we'd first met, still I couldn't help but notice that she seemed…tired and not herself. Hell, I didn't even know her real name.

  Then again, I haven't seen her in years. I'm not the same guy, either.

  "Hi…"

  I looked down at my hand, suddenly remembering I had a half-full black garbage bag clenched between my fingers. I set it down, and the sound of the glass bottles inside clinking against each other finally startled me out of my stupefied daze.

  "Rachel." I mumbled.

  Her eyes opened wide at the sound, flaring briefly before returning to a suspicious darting motion, nervously scanning the balcony.

  "Can I come in?" She spoke hurriedly – uncharacteristically. There was something in that tone of voice, something that I didn't recognize, at least not from her. It was fear.

  It felt like a dream. I nodded, pushing the door backward with my thick shoulders as I stood aside to let her pass.

  "Close the door, please." She pleaded. I could see her hands trembling.

  I obliged without hesitating. I didn't have to be a mind reader to know that whatever the hell was going on here, she was terrified – about as scared as I'd ever seen a girl. I didn't like it.

  I felt the familiar prickling of adrenaline on the edge of my consciousness, that oh-so-pleasant rush of endorphins that was the only drug I'd ever needed. To men like me, who knew how to take advantage of it, it was no less potent than anything you can buy on any ghetto street corner.

  "What the hell's going on Rachel?" I growled. I didn't know how to react, so my mind fell back into its default setting – anger. It was the protective shell that had carried me through the last few years, and my mind wasn't going to give up on it that easily. "Or Maya – whoever the hell you are."

  Something was clutched in her hand, and I saw her hand clench around it, the backs of her fingers whitening with the slight strain.

  "I got your message," she said finally, thrusting the hand out toward me, palm facing down. "Thank you."

  "For what?" I asked curiously.

  She turned her hand over, opened it up and revealed a small yet undeniably ornate orthodox silver cross sitting in the palm of her hand. It was attached to a cheap steel chain and wrapped in a white bar napkin.

  She still has it!

  "Room fifty-seven, Sunset Motel," she said without answering my question. "What did you make on that fight? Fifty grand?"

  "Fifty, a hundred," I grunted. "Who cares – it's just numbers."

  She laughed. It was every bit as light, every bit as dainty as I remembered – and it seemed entirely out of place in a place like this. I looked around at the motel room, practically ashamed of where she'd found me. It was faded, old and there were cigarette burns on the sheets, on the pillows, and carpet that made a mockery of the no-smoking sign, yellowed by age and cigarette smoke, on the bedside table. "You haven't changed." She said with a slight smile dancing on her face.

  "You have." I said. It was a statement.

  My tone of voice was perhaps more accusatory than I might otherwise have chosen, but hell – it was true, wasn't it? I didn't even know this girl's name. Could she just walk in and expect everything to be the same? How was that fair?

  I'd searched for her for years, traveled a continent and half a world away from home – and yet it didn't feel as though I'd found salvation, nor the answer, just more questions. But how the hell was I supposed to ask them? How do you ask someone why they just upped and left without so much as a word of farewell, or whether you ever meant anything to them in the first place?

  And more than that, it had been so long since I'd accessed a range of emotions beyond s
imple anger, I barely remembered how. To be honest, if I looked back on my life the only time I'd ever been truly been in touch with anything more than the most heartless, brutish side of myself was during the brief few months I'd first spent with Rachel, or Maya or whoever the hell she was, back home in Dublin.

  The years on either side were… emotionally stunted.

  Her head dropped, and she didn't even have a sense of what kind of mental gymnastics my mind had just spun through. "That's fair," she said, her face dropping. "I just thought – I dunno – you might have stayed in a nicer place than this."

  I spoke before thinking. At least that was nothing new. Even if I had thought it through, I probably wouldn't have said anything differently anyway. "And I thought you might have said something before you left, so I guess we're both idiots, aren't we."

  She looked back up at me, her eyes filling with hurt tears. "I guess I deserved that." She said, a tremor in her voice. "I didn't mean –."

  "I'm sorry," I muttered, feeling ashamed of the way I was treating her. It wasn't a conscious decision, I just felt like my brain wasn't prepared to let its guard down.

  Fuck! This wasn't the way I had pictured things going. You'd think after two years of playing this scene out in my head every night before bed, and another two of practicing and polishing when Rachel, Maya inevitably drifted into my head as she always did, I'd have come up with something a bit more refined.

  I hadn't counted on my tongue freezing up, nor my brain turning into mush.

  "Don't be. You shouldn't be, it's true." She sobbed.

  I bit down on my lip. This wasn't the way things were supposed to go. There was a reason I'd made the decision to stop chasing her, to stop thinking about her, to give up on that dream. It hurt too goddamn much. I'd done fine without emotions for two years, so why start now?

  Don't lie to yourself, Conor. You haven't done without emotions, you've just hidden them from yourself.

  "What are you doing here, Rachel?"