Fierce (5 page)

She grinned. “I’m considering it. And I reckon I could take most of you.”

“Oh yeah?” He quirked an eyebrow, clearly doubting her. 

“Yeah,” she said. “As soon as I find my red cape and boots, you’ll all be tapping out.”

Marlon laughed. More importantly, several others saw him laugh.

“See? I knew you was alright, Randy.”

“Ross.”

“I meant Ross.”

She handed him the cloth for his handwrap. “So how often do you—”

A loud voice interrupted from the far side of the ring. “Ross, have you got a minute?” It was Luca, leaning out of his office.

Uh-oh.
She froze, recalling who was in there with him, then she dashed over with leap-before-you-look defiance, the only way she knew to handle situations like this. The alternative, chewing on a gigantic stress sandwich, was not something the new Rose was willing to do. She heard Marlon say “Later” to himself, but the only thought zapping round in her head was one she wouldn’t face unless it became reality…
What if Culver recognizes me?

“What’s up?” she asked her boss.

Culver looked up at her, the line between his eyebrows clearly defined. She swallowed hard and stopped short of the office.

“We need you in here a minute,” said Luca.

She glanced over her shoulder to see if anyone was blocking her way out of the gym. Nope, it was clear. At the first mention of her real identity she’d bolt so fast not even these ultra-fit men with quads the size of hockey pads would be able to catch her.

“What can I help you with?” she asked, inching closer.

“It’s Mr. Culver.”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“He wants to know which hotels our guys stayed at during those fights in question. Thinks there might be a pattern, because two of his people quit fighting just before they were scheduled to appear at the same tournaments Gunny and Marshall fought in. I told him all that stuff’s in our database. You rearranged the files, remember, to make the finding things more efficient?”

Rose’s sigh of relief wouldn’t have registered to anyone else, but it washed through her like the answer to an unconscious prayer, leaving her enervated. “Sure, we renamed the folders.” She acknowledged Culver’s presence with a quick “Hey”, which he returned, but otherwise she avoided eye contact.

Luca’s computer had a version of Windows she hadn’t seen since high school. His previous filing system had been so haphazard she’d spent more time searching for the correct folders than she’d spent actually working in them. This new one wasn’t exactly the bee’s knees, but it was a thousand percent easier for her.

“So much for efficiency,” she quipped. Avery snorted a laugh. “Okay, here you go: travel and accommodation—budgets and itinerary. It’s got the past three years.”

“Ah,
that’s
it,” said Luca, taking control of the mouse. “I can’t get used to all this—”

“Efficiency?” interrupted Avery.

“Shut it before I beat you to death with my organized chaos,” said Luca.

Both Avery and Culver laughed. Rose forced a smile as she attempted to sneak out.

“Ross, is it?”

Oh crap.
“Yeah.”

In Tyler Culver’s gaze, she saw a faint flicker of recognition and shrank from it. “Have we met before?”

She frowned, cocked her head slightly to the side. “I don’t…think so.”

“Are you from Mitre?”

“No,” she lied. “San Francisco. I moved up here a few years ago with my…girlfriend.” She was so close to saying boyfriend she felt her cheeks burn—not with embarrassment but because it would have thrown her entire performance off on a tangent she wasn’t remotely ready for.

“Oh. I could have sworn we’ve met somewhere,” he persisted.

Rose shrugged. “Not that I can think of.”

“Ross started here last week. Things are already running more smoothly,” said Luca, not altogether honestly. Then, he turned to Rose and said, “Go see if Marlon’s okay, will you? I’ll call you over if I need you.”

“Okay.” She could have kissed her boss right there. It was as if he could read her discomfort.

“Actually, could you do me a favor?” It was Avery this time. He fished a ten-dollar bill out of his wallet. “Head over to the pharmacy, four blocks down, and buy me some of that Tiger Balm ointment.”

Rose assented and took his money. The big knucklehead thanked her then returned to his scheming with the other two gym gods. It was a blazing hot afternoon when she left the building. She breathed in a tart, baking tarmac smell, and even though she didn’t much care for it, she’d never been as thankful to be outdoors.

***

Later that evening, when the guys had all gone home and Rose had finished all her chores, she changed into her workout attire—boxing shorts, baggy Gold’s Gym tee over her sports bra, and trainers—a reasonably masculine ensemble—and attacked the various punch bags. Her hitting power had always been too weak for her liking, too weak to assist her volcanic temper. Without that strength, she’d never be able to tackle Mike or the Twitches or any purse snatcher bigger than her. So she let rip. Pounded away like her life depended on it. When she was exhausted, she rested, drank Monster Energy, and then started up again.

It was during her fourth round of bag-blitzing that the lone light in her corner of the gym flicked out, leaving her in total darkness.

“Fuck.”

Using the light on her phone, Rose made her way to the circuit breaker panel on the wall next to the office. The master switch was in the OFF position.
Great.
Either it was glitchy or it was on some sort of timer she didn’t know about. She turned it back on, made her way back to her lonely, lit corner, and resumed her assault.

“You’ll do yourself a serious injury if you keep that up.”

She spun round so fast she tripped over her own feet and went down in a painful heap, landing on her left hip. She winced. It came out as a girly squeal. Despite the pain, Rose immediately sprang up, scanning the shadows. “Who’s there?”

No response. The only sound in the gym was the eccentric whir of the air conditioning. She tried to determine if she’d locked the doors tonight. Yes, yes she had, right after Luca had left. But had someone stayed behind, one of the members, or even someone else, a stranger off the street who snuck in while they hadn’t been looking? Maybe he’d waited in the toilets or the janitor’s closet or in one of the equipment storage rooms. Waited till she was alone…

“I said who’s there? Show yourself.”

“I thought this gym was for men only.”

Rose turned to the ring, certain the voice was coming from there, but she couldn’t see more than vague emptiness inside a scrawled, diamond-shaped outline. No movement whatsoever. Unless she was talking to the ghost of a dead boxer, whoever it was had to be hiding in the shadows around the ring.

“Who are you?”

Again no reply. She back-stepped and looked around for some kind of weapon. She carried a knife in her purse, but as Ross she couldn’t exactly bring a purse with her.

What else? One of the barbells? It would have to be a light one; most of those sumbitches weighed a ton.

“You’ve got three seconds to show yourself or I’m calling the cops. You’re trespassing.” No time to think that threat through to its conclusion. She just wanted to draw her stalker out, to know who she was dealing with. “Okay, have it your way.” She back-stepped to her jacket, plucked it off its peg on the climbing wall. “One…” She took out her phone, switched it on, and angled it so her stalker could see its light. “Two…” Rose pretended to press 911, held her finger over the “call” button. “Three…” She held it to her ear.

“Go ahead,” said the stalker. “Get them down here so you can explain what you’re doing training after midnight in a men’s boxing gym.”

“Who
are
you?”

Footsteps. The silhouette of a man drifted toward her along the side of the ring. He had to have been standing behind the far corner post, watching her, but she didn’t know for how long. He’d turned the master switch off.

What game is he playing?

“It all makes sense now,” he said. “Ross Jackson, the skinny kid dying to prove himself in a man’s world. No wonder you stick out a mile in a place like this. No wonder the guys think you don’t belong here. My brother doesn’t know, does he—that you’re a girl?”

She dropped the phone, reacting so quickly she almost caught it. But she fumbled it and the phone clattered across the floor in his direction. He plucked it up, nodded when he saw she hadn’t dialled a number.

She flushed cold, then hot, then a swirling mixture of the two, and stepped forward. “Avery?”

“You have me at a disadvantage.”

“What are
you
doing here?”

“Um, you sure you should be asking
me
that?” He stood before her, bigger than life, in dark jeans, a gray bomber jacket, and a Detroit Tigers baseball cap. “Who are you, honey, and why have you been pretending to be a guy?”

Rose hugged herself. “How did you—?”

“You move and hit like a girl. I know because I used to date one—a girl fighter, MMA. Only you’re not a fighter. You just want to be.” He paused, looking her up and down. “Plus, I can see what’s underneath.”

Rose glanced down in horror at her soaking wet shorts and T-shirt. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Look.” He had her trapped, cornered. She thought about making a run for it, but from where he was standing he could too easily block her exit.

“From the back,” he said. “The outline of your sports bra. And you’re not fooling anyone in those shorts.”

“I said
don’t look.
” Her words came out angry, but she could feel herself unravelling inside. It was all over. Everything she’d worked so hard for, everything she’d endured this past week, her chance at becoming tough enough to get even: all gone. In every possible way, he had her trapped.

“Okay, I won’t look,” he said. “This is no fun for me either. My brother trusted you; he saw something in you the rest of us couldn’t see. So before anything else happens, I just want to know why you did what you did. Why are you
here
? There’s a unisex gym on the other side of town. You could have trained there and no one would have thought twice. Why take such a big risk like this?”

“I have my reasons.”

“I kinda gathered that,” he said. “Care to let me in on a few?”

Rose glanced to the exit behind him, but it was too dark to see. “What are you gonna do? Rat on me?”

“I will if you don’t start talking.” He took a threatening step toward her. “What’s your name—your
real
name?”

She hesitated, then realized there was no other way out of this but to play along. Feel her way into his sympathy. Not with tears but with fighting talk; after all, that was what he lived for, the big ape. “Rose.”

“Rose what?”

“Jacqueline.”

“That’s better. Still doesn’t suit you, but it makes sense.”

“Oh yeah? What name does suit me then, genius?” She cringed as she realized…she’d just given him permission to ogle her at his leisure. Rose slinked behind the motionless punch bag.

“Becky,” he said. “You look like a Becky. Becky Hot-Buns.”