Fighting to Stay (Fighting Madly Book 2) (5 page)

What a difference space away does.

Gus tilts his head to the side, stilling any movement. “He’s it, isn’t he?” He hesitates asking me, his tone low.

Gus has become a close friend through the months, as close as I will let him get, but our relationship is built on laughs and fun. And my love life is neither fun nor laughable, so my mouth is zipped tight.

“That’s him.” My words slip past my lips as I confirm.

“You good?” His shoulders pull up and his eyes dart from me to the screen. Something in his head is working overtime.

Not hesitating and not lying to myself or him, I reply, “I’m good, Guster. Really good. Now finish your beer so we can go dancing one last time before you leave me.” I clink my Coke bottle to his beer, causing foam to rush to the top.

“You bitch,” he jokes.

And all I do is shake my head, and a giggle-
giggle
leaves my mouth
as he chugs it.

“What the hell do you mean, you still don’t know where she is?” I drill into Lance. His ass should have my answers. But nope. He has nothing. He’s had nothing for months. Nothing but useless dead ends and false hope that only served to darken this dreary-ass world I’ve been stuck in.

Bash should have answers. But he doesn’t know shit other than she and that dipshit James took a plane to Miami, then took another private plane to Brazil, only to rent a car and disappear somewhere along the way. What good is it to have a friend that finds people for a living if he doesn’t find the person for me?

I have Laura run social-media checks on all of Hadley’s friends, and when I mean all, I mean it. Not a friend of Hads that hasn’t been cyber stalked. But zip comes up each search. No word, not a post, she hasn’t even fucking liked a picture.

It’s like she just slipped into the equator down there and got swallowed up by the earth.

But we know that really can’t happen, so I still look.

These fuckers need to understand that nothing is keeping me away from getting Hadley back where she belongs.

Not a damn thing will stand in my way.

I have the money, I have the power, and someone should have a fucking clue where she is. But everything is coming up empty. She disappeared off the fucking face of the earth. With fucking James.

My calls, emails, and texts, everything sent to her is ignored. It’s like I made her up in my fucking head.

“Hadley still hasn’t said anything to Court, either. She turned off her GPS long ago, so searching it that way is pointless. And her calls to Court are sporadic and so short, all it does is bounce in somewhere from South America, which we already knew that. I’ll tell you about it if she tells Courtney anything, but I know as much as you, Rike.”

I call bullshit on that, Courtney has to know, she
has
to. Hads is her best friend, she used to tell Courtney when she broke a fucking nail, so why wouldn’t my girl tell Courtney where she is? That leaves Courtney either keeping where she is from Lance, or she’s holding her pussy hostage if he tells me. I’ll place a bet on either option right now.

“My life would be easier if Matt’s ass would tell me.” Life and easy never mixed well with me and getting him not to kill me is a feat in itself, not that I don’t wish that sometimes he would. But telling me where his precious sister is will only happen when pigs fly.

And I see no pigs in the damn sky today.

“Hads did say she would be the godmother, so hold onto that one.”

“That doesn’t make any of this shit bearable. She agreed two months ago, two months, Lance. So why the fuck did you say that?” What a stupid douche bag my friend is.

“Courtney was worried she would say no because you’re the godfather. But that’s all I got for you. Just try to focus on your fight and deal with the rest of the crazy stuff later.” He turns away and leaves me alone on the gym floor.

Focus on a fight, they say. Channel my anger, they tell me. But don’t they know that’s what I’ve been doing?

That’s all I have left.

I spent the first days after she left locked in my house—
our house
—drunk as shit, alone, dirty, and obsessively trying to contact Hads. The harsh thoughts replay, from us being good to only being fucking broken which in an instant sent me spiraling down a sick routine, and that shit I did, never faltered. I held the damn bottle of whiskey close. With every call to Hadley it was near me like my fucking baby, like it was an extension of her. I would take a shot, text Hadley, take another, call her, take one more and email her, and over and over and over again.

And not a damn reply coming my way. Never “Hey, I’m okay.” Not a message telling me when she will be back.

Nothing.

Not a fucking word back to me.

I couldn’t help but wonder if this is how she felt after I left her, after I walked out on her when she was still asleep with not a clue of what I had planned. But I don’t know because I never opened my mouth to ask about it. Because I was a fucking coward to hear the truth come from my girl.

The morning of the sixth day, I woke up on the ground with the hangovers of all hangovers. I knew I couldn’t play like that anymore. I was turning into my father and killing my liver in the process. And her never answering was making me go insane. Like legit crazy. I even thought I saw her standing over me once.

I had to change something, switch it up. So I put a stop to getting trashed and I slowed down my stalking, not because I wanted to, not because I didn’t want her to know that I’m fucking crazy about her but if I had to endure one more day of no reply from Hadley, my next stop would be in crazy town in a straitjacket, staring at a padded wall.

After my wake-up call, it left me with only a few other things to do, so I did the only thing I knew how to…train. But despite the cap I placed on contacting her, and the endless time in the gym, it never stopped me from trying like hell to find Hadley.

That’s it—my fucking life in a nutshell. Training and using all my resources to find her.

Maybe I need that one-way ticket to the land of lonely.

The sweat, the aches in my muscles, and the pounding on the treadmill aren’t helping anymore, though, because my fuse, my rage, my anger is swallowing me whole. Each day I wake up, reaching to the spot she isn’t in anymore, in the bed that’s half hers, and wanting to tell her everything, tell her the truth of what happened. That it’s not what she thinks.

But she’s gone.

So my fucking arms keep reaching, and I will till I can hold her again.

It doesn’t help that everyone looks at me like I’m going to burn them. Everyone keeps their damn distance from me, but that’s for the best. I want to light a fucking match, chuck it in gasoline, and watch the fire ignite everything till I get her ass back here.

Fucking January faded.

February and March vanished.

April and May disappeared.

It’s June—fucking June. My fight is tomorrow and my girl is away, God knows where. That’s six months, a lot of damn days, minutes, and too many fucking seconds to count. And Hads’s out there— not with me—not in my arms or in my bed. She left me living in my own fucking personal hell on this damn earth.

“Riker weighs in at 190.2.” Jamie Black, the MMPL CEO speaks in the microphone.

I move off the scale to the center of the stage, flexing my muscles for the crowd. Cheers boom over the room and flashes from cameras blind me from seeing anything past the first row. This is the part I hate, playing a role to these vultures. Usually I grin and bear it. It’s part of the shit that goes with hitting the sport mainstream. But between fighting off all the questions about what happened in December, and what I think of Krystal, I’ve had enough. And if one more person opens their trap and tells me how they think I can win tomorrow, I’m not going to be held responsible for their broken nose. I mean for fucks sake. Do I run around asking about who their dick was in? Nope, because I don’t give a shit. Do I show up at their job and tell them how to type numbers? No. Why? Because I’ve got no fucking clue what I’m talking about, so my trap stays shut. Stupid fucks.

A tap on my shoulder gains my attention. I turn my back on the crowd and face Chris “Speedy” Gilbert. He’s a great fighter, no doubt about that, but this fucker hits below the belt, and not just in the cage but all around. Tomorrow will be the last fight he’ll do for the league because he’s a doper, plays with the human-growth medicine cocktail. The beginning of next year, the league will start to test for it and he won’t be able to pass. To say he has shit to prove tomorrow is an understatement. And I’ll love to show him his ass can be beat by someone clean. Just one of the reasons he’s an asshole hands down and not just for show. He’s the “I’m going to sell my mother’s kidney just to do it” type of asshole.

The worst kind.

Most of the guys I fight I know; I consider them friends outside the cage and we’ve come to understand it’s not personal that we want to kill each other, it’s fucking business. Those piss-show pictures are all for show. But if you aren’t friends, and it’s your first time fighting them, you learn a lot in the forty-five-second stare down. If they flinch when you move, they’re scared. If their nose flares, they’re ready. If the veins in their neck pulse, you better be on your game. But Speedy’s locked up tight, no twitch of his lids, no dancing of his eyes. He could be made of stone and would give me more.

Jamie speaks to us about the clean fight we will have tomorrow. The same warning I can say in my sleep because he dishes it out the same way each time I fight. Once Jamie’s grip clasps down on my shoulder, it’s my cue to drop the dick contest and hit knuckles and leave. I bring my knuckles to Speedy’s but the fucker doesn’t want to play. Fine by me, I’ll be happy to touch knuckles with his pretty-ass face tomorrow.

“How’s that sweet bitch of yours?”

My feet lock mid-turn on the stage, my neck muscles strain, and my hands ball in a fist on damn instinct. I know he didn’t just say that shit to me. He’s fucking smarter than that. Has to be. “Repeat that?”

His face has a smile on it, a fucking grin on those rat lips of his. “You heard me. Wonder who she’s fucking now? I would tap that…”

My clenched fist flies up. I get the urge to pound him so hard, he’ll need more than stitches on his face. I marvel at the heat of his skin against mine, but the connection I desperately want, I don’t get. Lance’s hand surrounds mine, stopping the hit a moment too early for me. He’s saying something to me, and Laura is on the other side showing me something, but all I hear is my damn blood rushing to my head, and all I can see is this fucker damaged.

Him drowning in a pool of his own blood by my punches alone. That will be my satisfaction. My repayment for the words he fucking delivered. Fucking tap nothing, because he won’t have a dick to stick in anything.

Jamie places his palms on my chest, shoving me farther away from Speedy. My body trembles with hatred with each inch I step away, and the
want
, the
need
to do bodily damage to him grows stronger and stronger.

My throat burns like I swallowed acid. “I’m going to get you. Mark my fucking words. You are dead tomorrow,” I fucking roar out, and the vein on my temple pounds with each word I shout.

I dip away and Jamie’s gone, but the excitement is too short lived when tight arms hold me from all sides. I drop my head and surrender. I’m not a fool, and only a fool would fight now. Tomorrow he’s done. Tomorrow he will pay, he will get what he deserves after he spoke about my fucking girl that way.