“And you’re dating Jules. That’s a whole other issue. She’s intense ’bout everything, and you ain’t exactly mellow. Mel thinks you’re perfect together. I think y’all might end up strangling each other first.”
Romeo looked to Clay dully. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Powers.”
“I will tell ya that if she’s like her brother, which more often than not, she is,” Clay started, a smile quirking at the corner of his mouth, “if she really loves ya, she’ll come back. You would honestly not fucking believe how devoted a Conner in love can be.”
“Yeah?” Romeo asked hopefully.
“Oh yeah. It makes it real sad when they fall for someone who abuses their loyalty,” Clay said menacingly, narrowing dark eyes at Romeo. “And you better not be that someone for Jules, ’cause I will end it all and hide the evidence.”
“I believe you.”
Clay was still scowling, as if thinking of something else besides Romeo and Jules’s issues, when someone called out, “Wellings.”
Romeo turned his head to the side on the mat and stared through the cage at Wyatt Conner, who was dressed ready to fight, complete with fingerless UFC gloves.
He walked up the steps to the cage and opened the door. His light eyes were narrowed
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furiously, his broad shoulders tense in anger as he pointed at Romeo still sprawled out on the mat. “I get the next three rounds.”
Romeo turned to look at Clay. “Are you kidding me?”
“Ya might wanna perk up now,” Clay offered unhelpfully as he frowned at Wyatt.
“You’re in the cage. That gives him every excuse to call it training and legally hurt you.
He’ll definitely break something.”
Romeo wasn’t real certain, but going three rounds with her brother probably wasn’t the best way to endear Jules to him after their fight. Not to mention, hitting a cop hadn’t worked out so well for him the first time he’d done it.
“I’m not fighting you, Conner,” Romeo said simply.
Wyatt obviously wasn’t listening because he didn’t even wait for Romeo to get up, just dropped to the mat and nailed him with a hard right hook that had him seeing stars.
“I wasn’t asking.” Wyatt’s big body hovered over Romeo’s, his voice quivering in fury as he hit Romeo again, catching him in the corner of his eye, making his vision fog.
Romeo tried to shake off the shock of pain as Wyatt growled, “If she dies, I won’t just take three rounds, I’ll fucking end you, Wellings.” Two things became rapidly apparent.
One—Wyatt was in this cage to try and kill Romeo.
Two—Clay wasn’t going to do a damn thing to get the insane sheriff off his back.
Against his better judgment Romeo punched Wyatt, using every bit of his strength. He needed to get the big blond off him long enough to get to his feet, and it worked. Wyatt was temporarily stunned, as if forgetting until that moment that Romeo was one of the most successful heavyweight fighters in the world.
Romeo jumped to his feet but didn’t have a chance to back up before Wyatt turned to him. Still on his knees he managed to catch Romeo in the side, a deliberate kidney blow. He was fighting dirty on purpose, but Romeo had grown up on the streets. No-250
holds-barred fighting was what drew him to this sport to begin with. He’d started in the underground circuit once he’d gotten out of prison. He knew how to protect himself from low hits, which was predictably what Wyatt was going for.
Now on his feet, with Romeo backed against the cage because he was still trying to avoid fighting him, Wyatt raised his knee, trying to get him in the groin. On instinct Romeo kicked him, hitting his kneecap, making his leg buckle before he got Wyatt with another hard right hook.
“I don’t wanna fight—”
Wyatt recovered and punched Romeo back before he could finish. For just a moment, his brain throbbing as if it’d just hit his skull a little too hard, Romeo couldn’t help but mourn the fact that Wyatt had dropped out of MMA. It seemed like a tremendous waste. This asshole could really fight.
Wyatt obviously wasn’t pondering his lost career. He was completely focused on one goal, making Romeo hurt. Wyatt started railing on him, catching him in the jaw and the side of the face. His fists flew at him over and over again, and Romeo did have a fight in five days. He might want to keep Jules happy, but he couldn’t afford the type of injuries Wyatt was hell-bent on.
He hooked his foot behind Wyatt’s, throwing him off balance, and then caught him in the side, a kidney punch, following the rules Wyatt had set. When he gasped, Romeo punched him once more, his fist connecting with Wyatt’s jaw. Romeo used the opportunity to slip from between Wyatt and the cage, bouncing closer to the center of the mat.
Wyatt spun, his fists flying wild. Romeo dodged him. They’d been boxing, using hard-core street fighting, but Romeo switched gears, using karate to block his punches, and Wyatt handled the change effortlessly. His foot connected with Romeo’s solar plexus, knocking the air out of him. Then he jumped forward, his fist aimed at Romeo’s face, and he barely blocked it.
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Romeo’s head hurt, his ribs throbbed, and it was clear Wyatt was tapping into some sort of anger fuel Romeo couldn’t compete with after forty-eight hours of no sleep. Needing two seconds to breathe, Romeo took a punch in the side just to bring Wyatt close enough to knock his feet out from under him.
When Wyatt fell flat on his back on the mat, Romeo bounced away from him, fighting to clear his thinking and see past the blood and swelling from his left eye. His chest was heaving, his body drenched in sweat, but he knew he could do this. He could give Wyatt three rounds, and once he let the sheriff get it all out of him, he could fix things with Jules.
It felt like he was earning the right to apologize by taking the beating from her furious twin brother.
When Wyatt came back wild and furious, catching him with another right hook, Romeo just took it rather than fight against it, and it was one of the hardest things he’d done in his life. He realized right then it required a lot more strength to take a beating passively rather than defend himself. It went against every instinct he had, but he stayed where he was.
Romeo completely stopped fighting on the defense and focused instead on just staying on his feet, because he wasn’t going to cower from the pain. When Wyatt forced him back against the cage, his fist flying against Romeo’s face repeatedly, Romeo realized he was going to experience his first full-fledged knockout, and he wasn’t going to do a damn thing to stop it.
It was good for a fighter to see both sides. He’d delivered plenty. He supposed it was his time to see what it felt like, and this was off the record. The fight with Clay was a technical knockout, but Romeo had still got to his feet afterward—this time he wasn’t so lucky.
He slid down the cage to his knees, and suddenly the onslaught stopped. Clay was pulling Wyatt back, struggling with him, yelling something Romeo couldn’t hear because the whooshing sound of his heartbeat vibrating in his head drowned it out.
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He never got to see how the two best friends’ fight ended, because the world faded from fuzzy gray to black.
Romeo never felt himself hit the mat.
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Chapter Seventeen
“Can they take my house if I do this?”
“No,” Jules assured Jack Harrington, who was tense and stressed as he sat facing her across her desk. “We’ll make sure they won’t take your house, but we’ll have to go over a list of other assets you have.”
“That damn business partner of mine.” He sighed. “Took off with everything.
That’s what I get for trusting a city boy.”
“I’m sorry.” Jules gave him a sad smile. “But a lot of people look at bankruptcy as starting over. You’ve learned from your mistakes. Second time’s the charm. Did you take the class required yet?”
“Not yet.”
Jules fought back the urge to groan out loud. “You have to take the class, Jack. It’s required. We can’t proceed till you do.”
“Maybe this is a mistake?”
Jules did groan then. She’d had this same meeting with Jack four times. She searched for inner strength before she finally asked, “Do you want to go over everything again? See if there’s some other solution?”
“If it ain’t too much trouble?” Jack leaned down, reaching into the box of papers he’d brought with him. “I was thinking if I could get a second job doing repair work for the railroad.”
“In Mercy? That’s a long commute for a second job.”
“Bobby said he could get me on the night shift,” Jack went on. “You know they pay fifteen percent more for graveyard workers.”
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“And they got a union. Good benefits. A pension. Maybe you ought to consider making it your first job and cutting back hours at the scrap yard.”
“Y’think?”
“Absolutely,” Jules said as she started looking over his papers. “Can you get on full-time?”
“They’re looking for people, and I’m more than qualified.”
“Well, Jack, your biggest loan’s with Garnet Mutual. Maybe if we talk to Phil—”
“I just don’t wanna stiff on that bill.” Jack shook his head. “Ain’t right. I don’t care if I got to work three jobs. I’m gonna do right by Phil ’cause he gave me that money—”
“It’s the bank’s money. Phil’s just the manager, and he knows what happened with your business partner.”
“But he trusted me and—”
Alaine peeked her head in, wincing at the interruption. “Jules, you got a phone call on line two.”
“Take a message.”
“It’s Clay,” she said, looking hesitant. “He says it’s urgent.”
“I’m sorry, Jack.” Jules picked up the phone and pushed the button for line two.
“I’m with a client, Clay.”
“Yeah,” Clay started, sounding like he was choosing his words with care. “Wyatt told me not to call, but I thought ya might wanna know Tommy just took Romeo down to Mercy General.”
“What?” Jules heart jolted. “What happened?”
“It was a fighting injury. I mean, he ain’t gonna die, but you’re always going on
’bout liability. I figured better safe than sorry and—”
“What kinda injury?” Jules asked, the icy wave of fear making her nauseated.
“Well.” Clay sighed, still giving the impression that he was looking for the right words before he finally settled on, “He sorta fell into Wyatt’s fist—repeatedly.”
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“Excuse me?”
“I thought Romeo’d fight back, but the asshole just sorta stood there after a few minutes. That’s the craziest shit I ever seen. If I’d known he was gonna play punching bag, I’d have stepped in sooner.” Clay sounded mystified. “And Wyatt’s lost his sporting nature, ’cause damned if he didn’t beat him until he blacked out. Whole darn Cellar’s talking ’bout it.”
“Hell.” Jules grabbed her purse out of the drawer. She looked to Alaine, who was standing at the doorway. “I have to go. Romeo’s in the hospital.”
“Go,” Alaine said quickly. “I got things here.”
“Clay, I’m heading over to Mercy,” Jules said and then leaned down, whispering into the receiver, “And you tell my brother we’re gonna have it out when I get hold of him.”
“Yeah, I’m gonna pass on that,” Clay said dismissively. “He really ain’t okay today. It’s like he’s lost all his good sense.”
Jules couldn’t deal with Wyatt’s mental breakdown. She felt breathless with fear.
If Clay called an ambulance, it had to be pretty damn bad. Clay’s judgment on a serious injury was completely skewed. She’d seen guys mosey out of the Cellar with broken arms and noses like it was no big deal and just drive themselves to the hospital. For an ambulance to show up at the Cellar, someone had to be almost dying.
“Call me if anything changes,” Jules said and then hung up the phone. She gave Jack a look of apology. “I’m sorry.”
“’S okay.” Jack grinned. “You dating the Gladiator?” Jules rolled her eyes as she stood. “Jack—”
“Sam told Bobby he was driving by the office yesterday and saw you two having words.” Jack’s smile grew broader. “He said Wellings was darn near naked.” Jules put her purse on her shoulder. “I have to go.” 256
“Watch out for them city boys,” Jack said warningly. “They’ll take all ya got and leave ya high and dry.”
“Alaine can go over your finances,” Jules went on, deciding to ignore the rest.
“Nah, I’ll just come back.”
“She’s two semesters away from her law degree. She’s a registered paralegal. I assure you—”
“Shoot, this office is the talk of Garnet,” Jack said with a laugh. “I sure ain’t gonna complain ’bout coming back and seeing what happens tomorrow.” Jules didn’t have time to play the gossip game. She turned to leave, squeezing Alaine’s hand as she walked past. “Thanks, darlin’.”
“No problem,” Alaine said with a sympathetic smile. “Call me and lemme know how he is.”
Jules nodded and walked calmly out of the office. It wasn’t until she got to her car that she let the panic show. She peeled out of the office parking lot, intent on making sure Romeo was okay. Argument or not, it suddenly didn’t seem to matter when she realized he could be seriously hurt—and it was her brother’s fault.