Brawler's Baby: An MMA Mob Romance (Mob City Book 1) (17 page)

Maya's posture stiffened as Mikhail's voice echoed around the arena, and she dropped her clipboard, staring at it in dull shock. For a good couple of seconds she didn't even move, as if her brain was in full fight or flight mode – and stuck between the two.

An old boyfriend?
I wondered
. Or worse, could it be someone she was afraid of?

"Father," Maya gasped. Her eyes had acquired an air of sheer panic, and she was glancing around, eyes raking every entrance to the massive arena, searching for something.

Or someone.

Mikhail's breathing had, finally, returned to normal by the time he replied. "What is it, girl?" He asked dismissively. I wanted to punch him for it.
She's your daughter
, I bristled,
not a slave
.

"What are you doing with Eamon? We agreed –."

Mikhail cut her off. "We agreed nothing," he said curtly.

"Besides, I don't need to justify myself to my own daughter. It' s about time Eamon grew up, and when I told him about Mr. Regan here, he asked to meet him. Who am I to refuse him that?" His eyes glinted dangerously as he saw off his daughter's meek challenge.

I stared at Maya curiously. I'd never seen her like this – she looked like a hunted animal, not the girl I knew. Strands of hair had escaped her ponytail, and hung waywardly around her face, and her cheeks were flushed with emotion – which emotion, I didn't know. If I'd had to guess, I'd have said fear, but I just didn't understand what she was so scared of.

A steel door clattered behind us, and Maya closed her eyes, seeming to give in and accept her fate. I turned to look at the newcomers, and my mouth fell open with surprise. A little boy dressed in a gray, maroon-accented school uniform, had wriggled free of his minder and was running full-pelt toward us.

I didn't know what I had been expecting, but it sure as hell wasn't a kid.

"Mama!" He cried as he barreled forward, his face full of childlike delight. "Mama! The man came and took me from school, mama. Are you happy to see me?"

The kid had a full head of black hair and looked about four years old. Four years old…

Who's he calling mama?

"Yes Eamon," Maya sighed. She sounded completely defeated. "Mama's happy to see you."

C
onor

Twisted fragments. Memories I'd thought I'd forgotten. Maybe I'd never even known they existed. I can't have been more than a couple of years old, are they even mine? Did my brain just make them up to torture me?

Are they even real?

A man's standing over my crib. I look around, but I can't move – something's holding me down. A blanket. I hear shouting, a man's voice, but a woman's as well. My mother's. I look up at the ceiling, and see peeling paint, on the walls too.

More shouting. Something crashes against the wall. I want to cry, but I know it only makes things worse. I can't remember how to say more than a few words, but even now I know not to say them. My mother's wails fill the room, a harsh, screeching sound. I want to comfort her, want her to come pick me up and hold me tight against her, but I know she won't. She never does.

I already know that she doesn't love me.

I look up at the man. His face is red, angry, and he's holding a brown bottle in his hand. I hear him talking, but the words aren't clear – he's slurring. He sounds deranged. He lifts the bottle to his mouth, tips his head back and finishes it.

My stomach clenches with a pang of hunger.

"I never wanted this little shit," he shouts. "He's your problem now."

My father.

My eyes burst open onto a scene not too dissimilar from the one I remembered in my dream. The rooms at the Sunset Motel were no nicer than the cramped, derelict terraced house I'd grown up in. I felt consumed not just by rage, but fear as well. My brain was dredging up fear from a thousand memories of a broken childhood, and fear of what was to come.

I lifted my sticky head from the pillow. My hair was soaked in an acrid sweat from a night of tossing and turning, and I threw a pillow accusingly at the broken AC unit by the window. It hummed for a second, just long enough for me to get my hopes up, then coughed and died.

Why do you pick these places? You don't feel you deserve better? You already lived this once.

I had to get out of this place, this hotel, hell, this whole freaking city. It was dragging me down and dragging me back, kicking and screaming, to the darkest corners of my mind – to memories I never, ever wanted to relive.

Was the dream real? I had no idea.

All I really knew was that my mother had told me the story a hundred times, probably more, each time over the barrel of a crack pipe when she was at her lowest ebb. The story hit as hard every time she told it.

"You." She said. "You're the reason he left. It's your fault you've no daddy, not mine." And then she'd inhale from the pipe, and her head would slump forward, and she'd disappear for another couple of hours into whatever land the drugs conjured up that was better than Dublin.

It was the memory my brain guided me to when I was at my lowest, darkest points; when I closed my eyes to sleep at night, or when my world was falling apart around me. Or both.

What if I just copy my da’s mistakes?

If Eamon
was
in fact my son – what did that mean for him, or for me? What the hell did I know about raising a child? I never had a da’, barely had a ma’ by the time the drugs were done with her – so what sort of life could I give him – and what sort of
love
.

I peeled the thin bedsheets off my chest and tossed them to one side, then let my ankles tumble off the bed. My feet hit the floor with a thud, and it gave me the jolt I needed. The walls were closing in on me, and I knew that nothing good would come of staying in that tiny, fetid motel room.

I threw on a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and a gray hooded sweatshirt and drew the drawstrings on the hood tight, building a fortress around my face. As I pulled the motel door open to leave, I caught a quick glimpse of myself in the window. My fiery red stubble was several days past needing shaving; and the cotton sweatshirt I'd picked at random from my bag bulged and stretched around my thick, muscular shoulders. They were bigger – a happy coincidence, perhaps, of spending more than a week in the city.

I looked terrifying – even to myself. Nobody would dare mess with me. I kind of wished they would. I was in the mood for a fight – needed to work out until I was too tired to hold on to this anger, or else I thought I might explode.

An invisible hand guided me to the boxing gym, or else my body went on autopilot. Either way, it felt like barely a second had passed before I found myself outside it, soaked wet through by a driving rain I hadn't even noticed.

A single, solitary streetlamp just managed to cast enough light through the storm to bathe the gym's dented metal signage in a flickering, violent orange hue – but the place otherwise showed no signs of life. I wasn't surprised – the gym was on the outskirts, and it was four in the morning. Besides, Alexandria didn't seem like a 24-hour gym kind of city.

Hell, most right-thinking people here probably didn't leave the safety of their homes past ten in the evening.

The gym building was old, made of the same red brick that seemed to be the city's calling card and still had its original wooden, single-locked door. I guessed they weren't too worried about anyone breaking in. There wasn't much worth stealing that didn't weigh at least five hundred pounds.

I hope it's not bolted from the inside, or this is going to hurt
.

I lined up a spinning wheel kick and let loose. My heel landed directly on the tarnished bronze lock and busted it loose. The hinges squealed, but otherwise the door clattered open easily.

I still had a few hundred bucks left that I hadn't given away to the stripper, Megan. Enough to pay for a new lock, anyway. I tossed a couple of notes down onto the reception desk and placed a pot of pens on top so they didn't fly away.

No alarm sounded, which I took as a good sign. If the worst case happened and I got picked up, then I assumed some mobster would be sent down to the police station to bail me out. Maya's dad wouldn't want to lose out on his cash cow, after all. Some crooked cop would no doubt be persuaded to look the other way. Alexandria seemed like that kind of town.

Maya
.

Her face popped into my mind, and I realized suddenly that
she
was who I was angry at. Not my mother, not my father – but my lover. How could she have done this to me?

She had betrayed me, just as surely as they had – except her betrayal was far worse than theirs. They had always been muck, the scum of the earth, the lowest of the low – and they hadn’t known any different. She was supposed to be one of the good ones, someone who had my best interests at heart.

Was it all a lie? Maya had had every opportunity to tell me that I had a son, and she'd shied away from it. If she'd found the time to fuck me, then she could easily have found a few seconds to tell me that I had a goddamn
son
, couldn't she?

How could I ever trust the lass again? The secret she'd hidden wasn't something that could just slip your mind – it wasn't a birthday surprise – it was a child! How could she have looked at me, seen Eamon's face in mine, and never said a thing?

Hell, it only took one glance for me to know he was my boy
…

How could she have stolen him from me?

Because that's what it was, at the end of the day – theft. I'd lost four years of my son's life. Four birthdays, four Christmases – and a birth I never got to witness.

All lost, all stolen.

I wrapped my knuckles quickly, carelessly in white cotton bandages and slipped on a pair of gloves. My jaw was set like I was about to walk into a real bout, hunched down into my neck. I was vibrating with anger. And something else, too.

I was
grieving
.

Tears prickled my eyes as I pictured Eamon's face. Or tried, at least, because I quickly realized that, perhaps because I was in shock, I could barely bring his face to mind. Dark hair, and pale skin, that much I could picture, but barely anything beyond that. What kind of man did that make me? What kind of man can't picture his own son's face? In the moment, I'd had no doubt that he was mine – and I still didn't. Maya's face had told the story, more eloquently than I ever could, that's for sure.

I knew one thing: I needed to see him again. Even if it was only once more, I couldn't imagine never seeing my own son again. Whatever it took, I was going to make it happen.

I'd already missed out on four years of Eamon's life and God knows how much more I’d miss – because he still didn't know that
I was his father
. What did Maya tell him about me? Not my name – that was for sure.

Who did he, no,
Eamon
think his dad was?

Did my boy think I was dead? That I was a scumbag, who'd left his mammy alone?

I threw back my head and let out a cathartic roar that startled birds roosting in the rafters of the gym. I made a tight fist and kicked out at the nearest bag, turning gracefully using my body's own momentum in a long practiced spin and followed the hit up with a stinging punch. I had enough rage built up inside me that the punching bag was swinging violently in seconds.

Punch after punch followed, and kick after kick as the bag absorbed the kind of punishment that could've killed a real man ten times over. I couldn't help but think that it was good for Alexandria's already spiraling crime rate that no one had tried to mug me on my way over.

They would have died, I was certain of it.

I punched and kicked until there was nothing else left in me. If this had been a real fight, and my opponent had somehow, against all the odds, managed to stay standing to weather my blows, then I would have been an easy target. I was spent, exhausted, and more than anything – emotionally drained.

A sense of loss seemed to pervade the very fiber of my being. The energy drink I sipped from was tasteless, and I could smell neither the sweat was pouring off me in bucket loads, nor the musty, fated sent that was the same in boxing gyms the world over – the smell of bags, old gloves and sweaty kit that I normally abhorred.

I'd pay anything just to feel normal again.

I was experiencing a completely alien emotion, to me at least.

Grief.

I hadn't mourned my father, or my mother, but this was different. I was mourning the fact that I would never be able to see my son grow up, not entirely, for no matter what happened from here on out I'd never see him take his first step, or say his first word, never feed him for the first time or change his diaper.

I sank back onto my haunches, uncaring as droplets of sweat showered down, peppering the light blue fabric of my jeans like specks of paint.

How could you do this to me, Maya?

Her ashen face appeared in my mind – the way she'd looked when her deepest secret had finally been revealed to me. I half-expected to see the woman gloating,

But I didn't.

What I saw was a desperate, scared little girl, doing her best to hold the world together while everything around her was falling apart.

And what I saw now that I was looking hard enough, was the smug look of self-satisfaction on Mikhail Antonov's fat, pudgy face that he'd yet again exerted his will over his helpless daughter.

You never wanted to lie to me, did you? You just didn't know whether you could trust me
.

Whatever happened with my son, I knew one thing: I was going to kill Mikhail Antonov.

M
aya

I lied to him.

Not just once. I kept doing it. He'll never trust me again.

And I can't blame him.

"You look tired, mama." Eamon said, tugging at my hand. "Mama, are you okay?"

I stood up straight and made a conscious effort to hide my distress. The fact that Eamon could tell at all was a bad sign. Apparently I wasn't hiding things as well as I thought I was.

"Mama's fine, kiddo." I lied, plastering a broad smile on my face. I wasn't, in fact my whole world was falling down around me, but I couldn't let him know that. Fucked up as my life had become, Eamon was the one bright spark in it.

I couldn't let him realize that I was on the verge of losing control entirely. Eamon was the one thing in my life that I hadn't yet managed to screw up. As far as I was concerned, anything I could do to let him grow up like any other four-year-old kid wasn't enough.

I love you, kiddo
.

Luckily, even though he could occasionally be uncomfortably perceptive, Eamon was still a child, and he forgot all about it the second something more interesting caught his attention. Today's
something more interesting
was me flipping him safely into his car seat.

He squirmed uncomfortably against his seat belt, and I softly squeezed his soft cheeks to get him to settle down.

"Where are we going, mama?"

"It's a surprise," I smiled.

"No fair," he complained. "I wanna know now."

I jumped into the driver seat, strangely excited that I was getting to drive at all. For some reason, when I'd suggested that I might take Eamon to watch Conor train in the Alexandria Arena before the fight, my father hadn't insisted that I take any of his goons along with me.

That had never happened before, but I wasn't about to turn the opportunity down.

And that meant I actually got to drive myself, something I hadn't been able to do in weeks. It was a little thing, silly really, but I felt like it signified freedom. I didn't let my mind dwell on the darker side of it – the fact that I had to ask permission to go at all.

"Come on, Eamon. You can be a big boy for mama, can't you?"

"I
am
a big boy,"

"Oh, is that right?" I asked, grinning as Eamon walked right into my trap.

"Uh huh," he nodded, jaw set proudly and his chest puffed out.

Just like daddy
…

"Then you know what big boys do, right?" I asked. I watched in the rearview mirror as his face fell. I cupped my ear and turned to face him, beaming.

"I guess so," he moped.

"Oh, you're not getting off that easy," I chuckled. "Tell me."

He folded his arms grumpily. "Big boys don't complain."

"That's right."

There was no traffic, so we made it to the huge Arena in half the time I'd expected. It was a brooding place, and it loomed over the city, shrouding the earth around it in shadow like a monument to violence. I just couldn't understand how Conor actually
liked
fighting in a place like this. It creeped me out

"I know where we are, mama. What are we doing here?"

"Be patient, angel, you'll see."

He was practically buzzing with excitement as we walked into the towering concrete edifice through an unlocked back door. A bored looking security guard looked us up and down, but the moment he realized who I was, he hurriedly waved us past. I knew the look on his face, I'd seen it a hundred times before. It said:
I don't want no trouble
.

I walked past him and shivered, remembering the way my father had confronted me in a maintenance tunnel identical to this one, right after Conor's first victory in the Arena.

Surely he can't pull it off again? Not now the stakes are so high…

Eamon giggled with delight the second he saw the sign labeled ‘Octagon’. I'd known he would, the boy was head over heels in love with the sport, and not just the sport, but it's newest and biggest star: Conor Regan.

His daddy
.

"Maya," Conor said in a dull tone of voice as he saw me emerge from the long concrete tunnel. "What are you doing here?"

"We need to talk, Conor," I said.

I wasn't looking forward to this any more than he appeared to be, but I knew it needed to be done. It wasn't pretty, but we had to discuss what to do at some point.

The reason why quickly became clear.

Eamon streaked out of the tunnel behind me, not even displaying a hint of concern about confronting the heavily tattooed, more than six-foot tall man in front of me. If it wasn't for the symbolism of the situation of a son properly meeting his father for the first time, I would have been forced to chuckle with excitement

"Conor!" Eamon shouted excitedly, pelting toward him with his arms and legs pumping. It was one of those accidents that was just waiting to happen.

"Hey, kiddo, slow down," I yelled.

But I was too late, not that he would have listened anyway. My hand was already traveling to cover my mouth in dismay as I spoke.

Eamon tripped over his feet in his excitement over seeing his hero and tumbled forward. His feet desperately scrambled for purchase against the smooth concrete, but it was too little, too late. My baby boy was desperately overbalanced, and every ounce of momentum he had was carrying him to a short, sharp and painful headfirst fall onto his face. I could already see his tears.

"Hey, kiddo," Conor said soothingly, unconsciously copying my nickname for his son. He grabbed the back of Eamon's canvas jacket and, seconds before his face would have hit the hard surface, Conor caught him and arrested his fall.

Eamon let out a startled yelp as he was suddenly plucked into the air.

Then again, so did I. Except my little outburst was for a completely different reason – my mother's brain was already picturing Eamon's face cut and bruised, with teeth missing and needing a trip to the emergency room. I practically had the keys in the engine!

But Conor had put a stop to all of that.

Will that be the only way he saves you?

"Thanks," I said, letting all the worried breath in my lungs seep away.

"No problem," Conor replied awkwardly. "Why’re youse here, Maya?"

Not exactly as happy to see me as I'd hoped.

"Like I said, we need to talk." You could have cut the awkwardness in the air between us with a knife. It seeped through everything we did, even the way I stood, hunched over.

He slumped down, seeming to age a decade in a few seconds. "You're right. What about the little man?" He said, indicating toward Eamon, who was happily running around us in circles.

I knelt down. "Eamon, honey?"

"Yes mama?" He said, his little face perking up as he looked at me. "Can you give da-," I cut myself off before I said something I might regret.

"Can you give Conor and I a few seconds to talk?"

He frowned, and seemed on the verge of complaining when Conor knelt down too. Eamon's little face brightened up immediately.

How does he do that?

"Hey, little man. How about you go check out them gloves over there," he said, pointing out his fighting gloves. "And I'll come play with you in a bit. Deal?"

Eamon's face wrinkled with a frown again, but this time it was a frown of concentration, and it disappeared in seconds. He held out his clenched hand for a fist bump. "Deal." He said decisively.

He ran off, and his father and I were left alone. Neither of us said a word for a couple of seconds. I don't think either of us knew what
to
say. Conor was the first to break the silence.

"So…"

"So," I agreed.

He laughed. "Shit, I feel like a teenager, all over again."

"You and me both."

Conor cut to the chase, asking the question I'd been dreading all along. "Why didn't you tell me, lass?" He said quietly, his accent coming to the fore and illustrating his pain more powerfully than anything he could have said. "How could you hide me own
son
from me?"

This time, it was my turn to slump forward. Hearing him say it, asked the question that had kept me up for so many nights finally brought home the pain that I'd caused him. I'd
understood
it before, but this was different. It felt real, aching, raw.

"You don't have to have any part in his life if you don't want to," I said honestly. "But I need your help."

He looked at me strangely. "No part in his life?" He said in a strangled tone of voice. "What makes you think I'd want that?"

"You mean," I stammered. "You mean you
want
to help raise him?"

I had a vision of us, together.

It was everything I'd ever wanted.

Don't torture yourself, Maya.

His face was full of angst. "I don't know. But I know I can't let him grow up like this. Not here. I can't just abandon him like my da’ did me, I know that much."

"So you'll help me get him out?" I asked desperately. Even if Conor and I didn't have a future
together
after what I'd done, at least Eamon could have him in his life. I could live with that no matter how much it hurt.

He nodded. "Yeah. I will. But we need to do it properly. We need a plan."