Alpha Fighter (17 page)

Cooper

A
s a Navy SEAL, it was crucial to the success of my mission to be able to hyper-focus on the task at hand, completely disregarding everything else going on around me. I use that training to make it through the week. When I’m in the gym, in the ring, or pounding the streets on training runs, my mind is completely turned off to anything else. It’s just me and the street, or me and the bag, or me and the weights I’m smashing.

Exhausting my body helps me fall asleep at night, but it doesn’t change the fact that every waking moment outside of training, I can’t stop thinking about her. She blew in and out of my life like an F-5 tornado, turning my life on its head and completely wrecking the no-emotions, no-attachments, no-problems system that I had going. And I had it going well, it was really working for me. I had girls to blow off steam with work, was crushing it in the gym, had more money than I needed saved away and was continuing to pull it in at rates that would have been unimaginable to the childhood trailer park kid version of me.

Sure, I didn’t spend much of it. Heck, I’m in this mess because I lived so frugally that I decided to go for a roommate in my simple apartment, just so the second bedroom wouldn’t stay empty. And sure, I didn’t get anything but a quick, cheap release from the desperate groupies who fought each other to get to be the one in my bed for the night. But I was making it to the top and I was fine with my life. I was showing them. I was showing everyone who thought I was white trash because my mom got herself knocked up before she could get her GED and never managed to make it out of Hooters-type jobs.

Now, post-Savannah, I’m still killing it professionally. I lost some major sponsorships and my seed in the tournament, having to fight from the bottom up, but I’m doing well in trainings, hyper-focusing like the ex-Navy SEAL that I am, and will be back up before Vlad has time to stop grumbling about ‘those fucking flaky girls.’

Still, I’m not content the way I was before. Getting random sex from girls I pick up at a bar doesn’t appeal to me after what I had with Savannah. Emotionless, meaningless sex with yet another bubble-brained girlfriend-wannabe who doesn’t understand that having a loose vagina and pants so easy to get into that they might as well fasten with Velcro isn’t going to make her mean something to me.

I’m killing it on Friday, slamming into the bag like it fucked my mother, when Vlad stops me.

“Look, man,” Vlad stops, sighing and shaking his head. “I don’t know what you want me to do, but something has to be done. You’re just not right.”

“I’ve been training just fine,” I snarl, grabbing the bag from him.

“You’ve been training just fine,” he admits, stepping aside as I start swinging at the bag again. “But man, you’re not you. For weeks, you were walking around like every day was some kind of gift and nothing could go wrong, but now you’re moping and sulking and it’s impossible to get you to smile or even just wipe that grimace off of your mug. Man, this isn’t like you.”

“There’s nothing for you to do,” I say, without looking at him. I just keep swinging.

“Then what can YOU do.” Vlad says it as a statement, not a question. He stops the bag and I stop swinging. I may have adrenaline flowing through my blood by the bucketful, but I’m not about to swing at the one guy who I can always depend on, the one guy who always has my back.

“Get out of here, get your mind right, and I’ll see you tomorrow.” Vlad claps me on the back and gives me an easygoing smile, but there’s worry in his eyes. He’s worried I’m going to do something stupid, I can tell.

And with the state that I’m in right now, maybe I will.

“I’ll handle it,” I say. “I’ll see you later, man.”

After a quick shower, I go to the place where I always went when I needed to reset my mind and blow off my steam. It’s been weeks since I’ve been to the bar, since I had Savannah and she was all the woman I needed or could even want, so I don’t know whether my usual Friday girl will be there. If she has any self-respect at all, she won’t be. But I’m not concerned, if she’s not Savannah, then a girl is just a girl and it doesn’t matter which one it is. I’ve never had trouble finding a willing lay and I know I can have whoever I want in the bar.

As I walk through the door, though, I immediately see my Friday girl. She’s sitting by herself in the middle of the bar, all dolled up like usual. God, she looks as cheap as a dirty penny after Savannah. Her hair is a brassy, fake blond, her makeup is caked on way too thick, her clothes leave nothing to the imagination. She’s boring to look at. You can see all that you’re getting and you can get all you’re looking at without any effort.

I half feel like turning around right then and just getting a pie from Bennie’s and heading home, but I need to do this. If I can just fuck a chick and get back into my schedule, maybe I’ll be that much closer to being over Savannah.

“Hi,” I say, sitting down on the barstool next to her.

She looks up from her bright green cosmo and looks beyond pleased when she sees me standing there.

“Well, hello, there,” she purrs, leaning forward so that she’s pretty much spilling out of her dress. “I’ve missed you.”

Her breasts look harder than Savannah’s—they aren’t as welcoming and don’t make you want to just dive into them and bury your face in their soft, supple warmth. Her smile is small and calculating, not uninhibited like Savannah. There’s no joyful freedom there, there’s no depth and friendliness. You can almost see the wheels turning behind her hard eyes—how she’s going to land a fighter, how she’s going to have a nice easy life where her only concerns are dressing up for the tabloids. She finger-walks her hand up the inside of my thigh, but I feel nothing but disgust.

I know that objectively, she’s a babe. She has big lips, big boobs, long lashes, long legs, and a waist you can wrap your arm around. But I just don’t see it. All I see is how she fails in every way compared to Savannah. She tries so hard, where Savannah doesn’t seem to try at all, but all the effort isn’t enough. It can’t change the fact that Savannah is a one-of-a-kind girl and Friday’s girl just is no Savannah.

“Cooper? Earth to Cooper?” The chick is looking up at me expectantly from under her thickly mascaraed eyelashes.

“What?” I ask. “Oh, yeah. Listen, I gotta go. I got this.” I slide some money toward the bartender for her drink and the beer I didn’t even touch, and get up.

“Wait—you don’t want company?” The chick looks confused. “But, but...” She pushes her chest out more, like that’s going to change my mind.

“No, I gotta go.” I don’t look back as I walk out of the door and across the parking lot to my car.

I do not go backwards. I do not downgrade. When I have made it to first place, I do not settle for second in the next round. When I have had the best, anything less isn’t worth the effort. I don’t want some okay, hottie-tottie in hooker heels and hot pants.

I want Savannah. I want my girl.

Cooper

I
’m awakened sometime after one in the morning by a loud crash that sounds like it’s coming from the second bedroom. I’m immediately awake and on alert. I sit up quietly and silently slide the covers off. I swing my legs over the side of the bed and walk slowly and silently towards my door. I hear a thump. Someone is in the apartment. Then another thump. Thump, thump, thump, thump, and another thump. Seven guys and, by the sound of it, big ones.

My mind is racing, completely free of the grogginess of sleep, and I’m in mission mode. Issue: the premises have been infiltrated. Cause: unknown. Judging from the direction of the noise, however, I can speculate on a probable cause. She’s petite, dark haired, sweet, and currently on the run again.

I had already concluded that desperation, not flakiness, had driven Savannah away and thus that I would find her and help her. But this unexpected night time visit reinforces my decision all the more. How dare these fuckers come after Savannah? Seven full-grown thugs on one tiny little woman? They’re a pack of overgrown wusses to come in the middle of the night, in a big gang, to take a woman somewhere against her will. They make me fucking sick.

“The fuck!” A man’s voice yells, and something shatters. It sounds like he threw something. “Where the fuck is the bitch?” Hearing someone refer to Savannah like that, even after she ran away from me, makes me see red. Only common sense and military self-discipline keep me from storming out there and knocking some heads around.

I don’t need to restrain myself for long, though, because the thugs loot through the apartment quickly and end up kicking my door in just minutes later.

I jump on one of them, kneeing him in the groin and socking him in the eye. I don’t recognize him. He’s a redhead with a jagged scar down his face and botched tattoos on his clearly juiced-up muscles. He goes down with a groan while I’m already on a second, bashing his head against the meaty head of a third. Their heads thunk against each other with a satisfying crack and the men stagger, holding their heads as they crumble. I’m hugely outnumbered but I’m fueled by rage and adrenaline. How dare these fucking worms think they have any right to so much as lay an eye on Savannah, much less break into her fucking bedroom in the middle of the night! I think of them coming in through the window and seeing Savannah lying innocently in her bed in a thin tank top, pushed up a little over her boxer shorts. I’m seeing red. I want to take every single one of these men out.

I grab a brute with a buzzcut and a cheesy ‘I LOVE MOM’ tattoo and wrench his arm behind his back, flipping him over hard onto the floor. I chop another guy in the stomach, but the first are already recovering. Enraged or not, I’m way outnumbered. And even though they’re not real men—because no real man would dream of ganging up with six other men to go up against a woman, much less when they’re getting her sleeping—they are all big, muscle-bound, steroid plumped, experienced fighters. They eventually catch up to me and just as I’m body-slamming one, another four are on me. I’m kicking and punching and hurting them, I can tell, even as they’re tying me to a chair.

As I’m blinking through the beginning of a bad black eye, rubbing some blood off of my cheek with my shoulder, I start to come back to focus. Noting the injuries the thugs are sporting, significantly worse than my own despite their manpower advantages, brings a little smile to my lips. I smile through the pain, because these little bitches aren’t going to see me hurt.

I do a double-take when I recognize one of them. It’s the kid I fought against a while ago.

“Nate?” I ask in disbelief.

“Where’s Savannah?” he spits.

Cooper

“W
here the fuck is Savannah?” Nate yells, vein bulging in his neck. “Where the fuck is she? You better tell us
now
or you’re a dead man!” 

“I don’t know where Savannah is,” I say, calmly. “But I wouldn’t tell you if I did.” I spit at his feet. One of his brutes snarls and lunges at me, but Nate holds up a hand and he freezes. Clearly, Nate is the one calling the shots here.

“Are you sure that’s the truth?” There’s a hard glint in Nate’s eyes, the glint of a desperate man. A desperate man will do anything.

“I am,” I say. “I’m also sure there’s no reason you need to be busting through my girl’s window in the fucking ass-crack of the night.”

“Your girl?” Nate looks absolutely shocked for a moment, then his face twists into a bitter smile and he laughs. “You mean, my wife?” 

“You’re married to Savannah?” I don’t believe it.

“Not yet,” Nate admits. “But we’re engaged. She has been promised to me. She has been mine, since we were children. So you should just stick to the ring, pretty boy, and stay out of matters that don’t concern you. There are enough other girls out there. Come on, boys.”

“But boss,” Buzzcut says, “don’t you want us to, eh, take care of ’im?”

“No,” Nate says, coolly. He kicks my shin as he walks past me to the door, but he doesn’t look at me or seem too interested. “We have better things to do than bother camouflaging the hit of a champion fighter.”

There’s a fighter’s code, a man’s code, that Nate knows I won’t break. He knows I’m not going to go crying to the cops to fix my problems for me. And I won’t. But Nate also underestimates either how much I care about Savannah or how capable I am of being a threat to him outside of the ring. He thinks I’m all muscle and fighter training, but he doesn’t know about my intelligence training from my SEAL days.

I’m going to find Savannah. And I’m going to do it before they do.

The thugs walk out and I’m left tied to the chair. I squirm out of my bonds—my SEAL training has been becoming surprisingly useful as of late—and start puzzling things together. I think back to the locker room conversation I had with Vlad after the fight against Nate. He was talking about how Nate needed to find his runaway fiancee, and soon. It clicks into place—Savannah is the Santos girl. Savannah is the runaway motorcycle club princess and that’s why she couldn’t tell me who she was or where she came from. That’s why she was so scared to open up to me and to give in to her desires to be with me. Because she’s a walking mark for anyone who even thinks of touching her.

That’s what you get for getting involved with the mysterious girl with the sackful of secrets, I think to myself. Then I smile and shake my head.

Savannah is worth it. And I’m going to get my girl.

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Estimated Release Date: 12/29/14

The final part of Alpha Fighter, a two-part series from Amazon bestselling author, Ava Ashley.

Motorcycle club princess Savannah Santos did the one thing most forbidden to her: she fell in love. But just after opening herself up to love and losing her virginity to MMA fighter Cooper Quin, the skeletons in her closet come knocking. Forced to make a difficult decision between life and death, both for herself and her lover, Savannah goes on the run again. But once in love, the heart cannot forget.