Текст книги "Worth the Chance"
Автор книги: Vi Keeland
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Chapter 48
Liv
I don’t want to cry anymore. Sitting on the couch with Ally, I rehash everything in my head for the thousandth time, only this time I speak my thoughts aloud. Finally. Two days curled up in the fetal position alternating between crying and sleeping scared her. Scared me. I feel bad for making her worry. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought losing a man would affect me so profoundly. Although Vinny’s not any man, and the loss affects me deeply. I finally own up to why.
“I’m in love with him, Ally.” A trail of dried tears stains my face, my eyes puffy and nose Rudolph red against my pale skin. Perhaps the well has run dry, I’m ready to talk now, words without tears.
“It really took you this long to figure that out?” she questions, half joking. I guess deep down I knew it all along, only I was afraid to admit it. Afraid I would get hurt again if I gave him my heart. Irony is a funny thing.
“I’m not even sure where I went wrong. It started off innocently enough. I admit, at first the thought of trading his story for my dream job was tempting. May have even thought I could do it, I wanted the job so damn badly. But the more time I spent with him, the harder I fell. Then I talked myself into things to avoid dealing with it. For a while there, I actually had myself believing it wasn’t true. That I could be the superhero, prove the truth to the paper, kill the story, and get the guy in the end.”
I laugh at how ridiculous it sounds to even say the words aloud. “By the time I finally admitted to myself that the story was true, I couldn’t bring myself to crush him by telling him what I was assigned to do. Every day it just got harder to come clean, yet I fell deeper at the same time.”
“You need to tell him, Liv.”
I smile at my best friend. She’s always there for me, I appreciate she’s trying to help. But she didn’t see him. That ship has sailed. “I wish it was that easy, Ally.”
“So what are you going to do, sit here and let him walk out of your life? Again.”
“I don’t know, Al, I’m not sure there is anything I can do at this point to change things. You didn’t see him.”
* * *
After another restless night of sleep, I wake feeling like a freight train ran me over. Then backed up. And ran me over again. Physical ailing aside, at least morning brings me some semblance of clarity.
“Morning, sunshine.” Ally smiles at me as she retrieves her toast from the toaster, burning her finger in the process. Bringing her finger to her mouth, her usual first aid treatment, she asks, “How are you feeling?”
“Like crap.”
She smiles. “You look like crap too.”
Leave it to Ally to make me laugh. “Thanks, friend.”
“No problem.” She grabs out a plate and tosses her half burnt toast in the general vicinity. “Want me to make you toast?”
“Ummm…no thanks. I’ll get something on my way.”
She arches her eyebrows in surprise. “You’re going out?”
“I’m going to see Delilah.”
“Vince’s mother?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
Pouring my morning coffee into a to go cup, I head toward the door. “I have no idea. I just need to talk to her.”
* * *
I manage to find my way back to Delilah’s, which is a feat, considering I’ve only been there once and my propensity for getting lost. She looks exhausted and stressed, although after hearing Vinny talk about her, I’m grateful that she seems to be sober.
“Can I come in?”
“Of course, is everything okay?” Stepping aside, Delilah looks past me, expecting someone to be with me.
“Everything’s fine. Well, no. That’s not true. Everything isn’t fine. Vinny is fine. Well, I mean he isn’t hurt or anything,” I stammer. Nice job playing it cool, Olivia, real cool. I mentally roll my eyes at myself.
“I know what you mean.” Her shoulders slump in defeat. “He was here earlier.”
Jesus, I hadn’t even thought of that. What if I’d come by and he was here, or walked in while I was sitting talking to his mother? I’m not even sure why I’ve come…there’s no way I could have explained myself to him. Surely he’d think I was working, trying to glam more for my story.
“Is he upset?”
“Angry. He’s very angry.” Tears well up in her eyes. “All I’ve ever done to that boy was let him down. I just know I’m going to lose him for what I’ve gotten him into this time.”
“I’m afraid I’ve lost him already.” I look at his frail mother. Time has not been kind. She looks older than her years, not healthy, way too thin. We come from different places, yet the two of us have a bond in the moment. Two women, loving and hurting the same man. A lone tear falls, I don’t have the energy to even try to stop it. I’m just so emotionally drained.
“Oh no. I’m sorry honey, I didn’t realize you two were having trouble.” Reaching over, she gently takes my hand into hers, “I saw the way he looked at you. Whatever happened, I’m sure you can fix it.”
“I’m not sure he can forgive me.”
“Forgive you? What could you possibly have done?”
I guess he didn’t tell her that I was the reason he found out in such an awful way the truth about his father. “It’s a long story.” I exhale loudly. “But I was the writer assigned to write the story about his real father.”
“His what?” Her already pasty face goes stark white, every bit of color disappearing almost instantly.
I spend the next hour telling her everything. Spilling my heart out. The Senator, Jax, the fight, the newspaper. All of it. I leave no stone unturned in my confession. I’d thought she just didn’t know about my role in the story, but it turned out, she didn’t know any part of the story. After the shock of her dark past comes to light, she looks sad, yet something in her also screams relief. Carrying around such a big secret for twenty-five years had to have been difficult.
“But I’m confused, if you didn’t know about the secret coming out, why were you so concerned about losing Vinny?”
“I dragged him into something horrible. There was this guy I trusted. I introduced him to some bad people…” She trails off.
“Jason?”
She nods and does her best attempt at a smile. “Well, they found him.”
“That’s great.” Might be the first piece of good news I’ve heard in days.
“Not exactly.”
For the next hour, it’s her turn. She fills me in on what they’ve been through the last two days. I feel sick thinking of the choice before Vinny. As if what I’ve done to him isn’t bad enough. He’s now forced to give up the one thing that he probably feels like he can control. The thing he has worked so hard for all these years. My heart that I thought was already broken beyond repair shatters into a million little pieces.
Leaving even more drained and tired than I felt when I arrived hours earlier, I stop as I get to the door, remembering one more unanswered question. “Whose dog tags does he wear every day? He thinks they’re his father’s.”
Not thinking it could get any worse, her answer betrays even me, sorrow oozing from her voice. Her face. Her every being. “Bought them from a used bin at the Salvation Army.”
* * *
I drive downtown and walk for hours. Getting nowhere, aimlessly thinking in circles. Finding myself in front of Nico’s gym, I decide I’m more afraid of the consequences of my inaction than the reaction I might receive. Trembling inside, I will myself steady and open the door. The guy at the front door has a face full of cuts, bruises, and bandages, and turns away quicker than I can get my voice out to speak.
But I don’t need for him to tell me if Vinny’s here, because I know. I feel it in my bones, in my blood…the crackle in the air, the unmistakable tension that tells me he’s near. Scanning the room, I turn…it doesn’t take me very long to find him. He’s found me across the room, before my eyes find his. Staring daggers, he takes long strides to make his way to me. Seeing the look in his eyes, my brain tells me to flee, yet my heart has me frozen in place.
“What do you want?” he asks, his words scathing through gritted teeth.
“I wanted to see if you were okay.”
“I’m fine. Is that it?” He folds his arms across his chest, feigning indifference, although I know better. He’s hurt and in protective mode.
“I’m sorry, Vinny.”
“You’ve said that. Anything else?”
“I never meant to hurt you.”
“You didn’t.”
I lower my head. I feel ashamed for what I’ve done, but I have no shame in telling him how I feel. I need him to know. “I love you.” A tear runs down my face.
“If you’re done, you can get the hell out, Liv.” He turns his back and storms away angrily.
Chapter 49
Liv
Whoever said that time heals all wounds obviously never met Vince Stone. I didn’t expect him to call me, certainly not come running to tell me he forgives me. Yet I also didn’t expect it to end this way either. My heart keeps beating, but with each beat it withers just a little more, forlornly unhappy.
“When are you telling Sleezeball?” Ally leans over the back of the couch, her arms dangling as she talks to me while I pack things up from the kitchen.
“The article is due Friday. So I figured I’d see him then. Don’t want to give them any time to do any of their own digging. The story was supposed to run in the paper the day after the fight.”
“What about your trip to D.C.?”
“Flying down Friday night. If all goes well, I’ll be back to Chicago by Saturday afternoon.” I sigh. “I really do want to see his fight. I know he doesn’t want me there, but I want to be there anyway.”
Picking up the vase of dried wild flowers I’d set on the counter the afternoon Vinny brought them to me, I pick one out and dump the rest in the garbage. I’m just not ready to let go of everything yet.
I’ve been packing for a week. My job in New York starts in seven days. I couldn’t save Vinny from being hurt, the least I could do is leave him and his mother to struggle through everything privately. Give them the dignity and respect they deserve to work it out without being in the public eye. Not surprisingly, the results of the DNA test proved positive. Senator Knight is Vinny’s father, but no one will ever know it. Ally and I burned the results and Senator Knight will be happy I’ve decided to keep quiet. He’s so arrogant, he’ll probably even think I did it for him. That his threats scared me into submission.
“What am I going to do without you?” Ally sprawls onto the couch in an overzealous display of drama, one arm thrown across her face theatrically.
“You mean who’s going to drive you places?” I tease.
Sitting upright, her response reminds me just how much I’m going to miss her. “Well, with you in New York, at least now I’ll be bicoastal!”
“You do know Chicago isn’t on a coast, right?”
“Whatever.” She waves her hand at me like the details are just not important.
* * *
Friday morning, Summer smiles at me as I come out from Sleezeball’s office. Actually, it’s less of a smile and more of a gloat. Oddly, I feel a sense of relief telling the paper that I wasn’t able to connect Senator Knight with Vinny. It’s like closing a door behind heartbreak and pain. I only hope that Vinny and his mother find a way to heal, to get through the agony that years of lies and deceit have caused.
While I pack up the few personal belongings I kept at my desk, Summer sits back in her chair, smiling like a Cheshire cat. She’s won, yet I can’t help feel pity on her for what she had to resort to in order to get to the finish line.
“You know Olivia, you shouldn’t feel too badly. If it wasn’t the story, it would have been something else.” She pauses and I pretend I don’t hear her as I clear out the rest of my drawers. Getting a last rise out of me is just what she wants. “That man is just way too much man for you to handle.”
The need to defend him wins out, even though he’s not mine to defend anymore. “You don’t know a thing about Vinny.”
“Maybe that was true, but I know he came to my apartment a few nights ago. And not yours.”
I take a deep breath, digging deep to quell my rising anger. Closing my eyes, I try desperately to rise above it. But I’m a writer, and closing my eyes just brings the visual of the words to life in my head. And it’s more than I can bear to witness. Unable to stop myself, I take the two steps to walk around my desk to where she’s standing and pull back and smack her square across the face. Her head flails to the side with the power behind my angry slap.
Hand stinging, box in hand, head held high, I don’t look back as I walk out of the Daily Sun Times.
Chapter 50
Vince
Underneath the arena, less than an hour to go until the biggest fight of my life, and I’m fucking miserable. Finding it difficult to pretend to be psyched up for a fight that I know I can’t win, I’m glad for the chaos in the locker room that surrounds a championship fight. Otherwise I’d have to deal with Nico one on one. The fucked up part is I feel worse for doing this to Nico than I do for myself.
Over on the other side of the room, I see him talking to a reporter. He talks about the years that we’ve worked together with pride. He’s a pain in the ass, always has his nose in my business, yet I don’t know where I’d be without him. In more ways than one.
Half an hour before we have to go up for announcements, Nico kicks everyone out of the room. Wrapping my hands, he starts with the pep talk I knew was bound to come.
“You’re better than this guy.”
“I know.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Watch for when he drops his left…”
“I know.”
“And don’t let him take you to the ground.”
“I know.”
“Well if you know everything, what the hell do you need me here for?” Nico jokes, giving me a playful smack across the face.
“Listen, Nico,” I pause, not sure of my words, not wanting to come out all sappy, sounding like a pussy…so I go for simple. “Thank you.”
“I’m your trainer, you don’t have to thank me. I get a cut, remember?” He smiles.
“I meant for everything.”
Finishing the tape, Nico stills and looks up at me. A nod that says more than words ever could. He slaps one arm around my shoulder. “Come on, let’s go kick some ass.”
* * *
Standing at the back of the arena behind closed doors, I wait as the crowd cheers after the announcer calls my opponent into the ring. Head bowed, I close my eyes, taking in the electricity of the moment. A moment that should be mine. Ten years in the making, and I’m finally here. The doubters never thought I’d make it. Thinking back, neither did I most days. I spent my life swimming upstream, but sometimes…sometimes, it just got to be too much. So I’d stop swimming and just let the current take me for a ride, never knowing where I was going to land.
Nico clasps his hand to my shoulder as the door opens and I look down the familiar dark aisle toward the center where all the lights shine. “You ready to do this?” he yells to me over the sound of the crowd leaking out through the open door.
“As I’ll ever be.”
Chapter 51
Liv
The plane circles in the air for what seems like the hundredth time and I sit fidgeting in my seat. I’m not going to make it. They need to land this damn plane. A voice breaks into my thoughts, coming from a speaker above me. “Ladies and gentlemen we’re just going to be a little while longer here. We’re backed up and they’ve got us in a holding pattern. It seems our delay out of D.C. has made us miss our ground time here in Chicago and now we need to wait our turn in line.”
A hand covers mine, stilling it, ending my mindless tapping with worry on the armrest. “Relax, we have time. We’ll make it.” Elle’s smile comforts me. A little anyway. There are no words to describe how much Elle making the trip means to me. She did so much more than prepare the legal documents, I’m not sure I could’ve gone through with it without her. Standing by my side the whole time gave me the confidence I needed to know I was doing the right thing. Well, technically, what we were doing wasn’t the right thing, I’m not even sure it was really legal, but sometimes it takes a series of wrongs to come out in the right place in the end.
“Thank you so much for doing this with me,” I say, turning to the beautiful woman sitting beside me. “I know how hard it must have been for you to leave the baby all day. And I’m sure Nico is going to have a whole lot to say when he finds out the real reason you went out of town.” Half teasing with my last comment, I attempt a playful smile, although it comes out what it really is…a sorry excuse at covering my frayed nerves.
“You’ve thanked me a hundred times, Liv.” She smiles. “I’m glad I could help, but really, Vinny’s family. I’d do anything for that boy.” Turning in her chair to face me more directly, her eyes filled with sincerity, she says, “I know you don’t think so now, but everything is going to work itself out. I just feel it. He loves you, Liv. He wouldn’t be so angry and miserable if he didn’t.”
I know she’s trying to help, yet hearing that I’ve made Vinny angry and miserable just tugs at my heart. Seeing my face falter, she continues, “It hurts. I know. But you’re sacrificing a lot to make it right for him and someday, when his hot temper cools down, he’ll see it.”
* * *
Finally we pull up to the front of the arena. The cab barely stopped, I throw money in the front seat and rip open the car door. It’s quiet outside as we make our way to the entrance. Everyone is already inside. Not a good sign. Elle needs to get to him before it’s too late.
We pass through security quickly and shove our tickets in the hands of the man collecting them and take off running down the hall before he even has a chance to rip them in half and give us our stubs.
“This way.” Elle yells over the sound of cheers coming from the inside of the arena. Grabbing the door to the first entrance we find, the announcer’s voice comes over the loud speaker, filling the air over the sound of the cheering from the crowd.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, in the red corner, standing six-feet tall, weighing in at one hundred eighty-three pounds, the contender for the middleweight champion of the world, with a record of 12-0, looking to make it lucky number thirteen tonight, the ladies love him, the men fear him…I give you Vince ‘The Invinnnnnnciiiiible’ Stone!”
My heart thuds in my chest, beating rapidly in sync with the sound of the crowd cheering wildly and I watch frozen in place as he steps into the center of the ring. As my foot passes over the doorway threshold, barely on the carpet that covers the inner venue, I see Vinny turn, his eyes scanning the crowd, almost looking for someone. Snapping me out of my stupor, Elle grabs my arm and the security guard points us in the direction of our assigned seats. We make it to the front, finding our two empty seats, just three rows back from the cage.
“Sit, let me try to get to him.” Elle yells over the crowd and I do as instructed, my eyes still fixated on the back of the man now standing in his corner. Horrified, I sit frozen in my seat as I catch Elle arguing with yet another oversized security guard. He repeatedly shakes his head no, denying Elle passage as the two men meet in the middle of the ring and bump fists while the referee goes through the rules.
We’re running out of time. Running out of time. I silently plead with God, trying to make a deal to get him to help me. Please, please, just let her through. Let her get to him in time and I’ll do anything. Anything. And then the bell dings…
Eyes glued to the cage, I watch in horror as the two men begin to jump around. Vinny’s opponent striking first, he lands an early shot to Vinny’s right shoulder, but Vinny keeps moving right through it. Landing a few quick snap jabs to the face, Vinny turns slightly to the left, following up with an elbow that crashes into his opponent’s cheekbone, his skin tears at the point of impact.
The two back off a few seconds, both jumping around, looking for an opening of some kind. Finding one, Lamaro lowers his shoulder and charges, plowing Vinny into the cage, in what looks like a failed attempt to bring him down to the ground. But now Vinny’s backed into the corner, and his opponent throws punches at him at a feverish pace. Somehow he’s able to avoid many of them, although not all, as some connect while he tries to break free.
Vinny finally manages to push his opponent back and regroup. But before he can get his left arm back up, Lamaro lands a powerful roundhouse kick that connects directly with Vinny’s face and I watch in horror as his head sails to the side from the sheer momentum of the strike. He’s still standing, but the hit leaves Vinny wobbly on his feet, and his opponent sees an opportunity and lunges in, taking Vinny to the ground, his back connecting with the mat in a loud thud that makes me cringe. It takes my breath away from the impact of the fall and I’m not even the one in the cage.
The two men go at it on the ground, rolling and alternating powerful knees crashing on each other’s torso for what seems like forever, yet in reality is probably less than a minute. And then Lamaro maneuvers swiftly and winds up on top, Vinny’s face to the mat, arm stretched in what looks like a painstaking hold behind him. And I think it’s all about to end, my prayer’s unanswered, Vinny’s going to lose…when the bell dings ending the round.
The crowd goes crazy and two young fans run toward the cage, momentarily distracting the monster sized security guard from Elle’s never-ending pleading. She ducks under his left arm at the moment he tries to catch the two charging fans with his right, and darts to the cage. Nico enters the cage and meets Vinny in the corner, just as Elle reaches them, yelling frantically from the other side of the metal patchwork cage.
The security guard grabs Elle’s arm from behind, just as Nico looks up, catching sight of the grip the hulking guard has on his wife. Looking at Nico’s face, for a second I think there might be an even more brutal fight about to occur as he barks something at the guard who quickly complies, throwing his hands up in surrender.
Anger still rooted in his face, Nico listens as his wife unloads the information she needs him to pass on to Vinny. Shaking his head, I can almost see the steam coming from Nico’s ears. He looks between Elle and Vinny and quickly turns his attention to Vinny, an angry tirade unloading all over his prized fighter.
Seconds tick by and I watch on the edge of my seat, unsure what I’m waiting for to happen. Vinny’s jaw clenches as he listens, then he lifts his gaze and catches sight of me. Neither of us moves, not a blink, not a swallow, not a flinch…and I try to tell him everything without words, will him to trust me, know it’s okay to listen to what he’s hearing. But why should he? He trusted me once, and look what I did when he gave me the gift he offers so few.
The bell dings, forcing us to disconnect. Eyes and body refocused on the task at hand, I watch as the two men quickly go at it again.
“Alright, well he knows now. All we can do is hope he believes us.” Elle collapses into her seat next to me.
“Oh my god, Elle. Nico looks so pissed.”
“Yeah, me and Vinny are going to have to go into hiding somewhere for at least three or four decades to give him time to cool down over this one.” She grins, trying her best to make light of the situation. But seriously, she’s going home to one angry man, regardless of how the fight ends.
The first kick catches both of our attention, our focus back inside the cage. We can worry about the fallout later. Vinny pursues his opponent, throwing a rapid series of punches, closing the distance between them as he backs Lamaro into the corner of the cage. Not about to back down, Lamaro lifts his leg, using the cage behind him as leverage and slams his foot into Vinny’s ribs, sending him backward three steps, hindering his approach.
Vinny recovers fast, stepping in with one foot as his opponent comes at him and landing a powerful round house kick to the side of Lamaro’s chest. Recovering swiftly, the two men spend the next minute going blow for blow, literally beating each other to a pulp. Each successive strike coming faster and harder than the last, it’s amazing that either of them is even still standing.
Finally, both unable to keep up the pace of the excruciating battle in the center of the ring, they both appear to back off, putting distance between them. Catching sight of the time clock at the corner of my eye, I watch the seconds tick down, twenty, nineteen, eighteen…
The two men circle slowly, their chests heaving wildly up and down, both struggling to catch their breath before the other. Fourteen, thirteen…
Unable to sit anymore, I jump from my seat, anxiety getting the best of me. “Come on Vinny…you can do it!” I hear myself scream, but it’s like an outer body experience. Everything is in slow motion as I watch it all play out in front of me. Ten, nine…
Hearing anyone over the roaring crowd would be impossible, but yet, as I jump at my seat, one hand on each side of my mouth to direct the sound coming from within me, I could swear I catch Vinny’s eye…just for a split second.
Eight, seven…
Vinny fakes to the right, Lamaro falls for it, dropping his hands just slightly on the left and then Vinny goes for it, hitting him with a powerful right that’s too much for his opponent’s battered body to absorb.
Five, four…
His opponent staggers, a last ditch effort to remain on his feet, but his body can take no more. Collapsing to the mat in slow motion that ends with a thud as the arena goes quiet, Lamaro’s body sprawls across the mat on his back.
The crowd cheers as medical personnel rush into the cage. They run something under Lamaro’s nose and he comes through, his eyes darting open. For a second, it looks like he might attempt to get up, but then his head falls back and he realizes he can’t continue. It’s over.
Two, one…
The referee raises Vinny’s arm in the air and the crowd goes crazy. The decibel’s rising to painful levels, people jump out of their seats, screaming and shouting. Everyone loves to see the underdog win, especially one from their home town.
The cage starts to fill, and I watch with tears of joy in my eyes as Nico rushes to Vinny, lifting him in the air in celebration. Elle nudges me, “Come on.” She wants me to go with her to the cage to see them, help them celebrate the win. More than anything, I wish I could. Wish I could rewrite the story of my life to bring us both a happy ending. But I can’t and I want more than anything for Vinny to have his moment. “You go. Help them celebrate. I want him to be happy.”
Sadness in her eyes, she smiles at me, pulling me close for a hug. I watch as she tries to make her way to the ever filling, chaotic cage, but I can’t bear to let him pass me when he exits. So I leave, never turning back as I make my way out of the arena.
