Untamed (A Bad Boy Secret Baby Romance) (12 page)

“Why do you have so many bruises?”

Duncan’s eyes don’t leave me. “We spar,” he tells me, matter-of-factly.

Dad’s angry voice floats over to us, and we both turn around. Duncan puts his hands on his hips, and I find my eyes going to his naked back. Beads of sweat dot it, and they shine in the sunlight.

“What are they arguing about?”

“Payment, probably. For my training.”

“But what are you training for?”

“Glass says when I get back to the States, I’ll work for him. I’ll fight for him in underground MMA. Until then, I need to train in different techniques. For now, it’s
Muay Thai
. Later, I’ll learn
Judo
, which is a defensive art, and
Taekwondo
, which focuses on speed kicking. When I get back to the States, Glass’ll teach me to box and strike with my fists.”

“You’re doing all of this just so you can be a fighter?”

He turns back to me, squints against the sunlight. “Yes.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Why?”

“Why risk yourself? You could get hurt.”

With that, he surprises me with a long exhale,
almost
a sigh. “I had nothing before. Your father is giving me something.”

“What do you mean you had nothing before?”

“I…” he begins, but his voice trails off. “Don’t have any family. I… don’t have a home, really.”

“You’re an orphan?”

“Yeah.”

“So where did you live before? A foster home?”

“No. Group home.”

“Oh. Like with other kids?”

“About thirty other boys, yeah. Some nights more, some nights less.”

I regard Duncan, and think about what he’s saying. Dad took him all the way to Thailand to train? There must be good trainers back home.

No, something else is going on. Dad is up to something. I know him well enough.

“I think my dad is using you for something. You should watch out.”

To that, he says with a cocky smile, “How do you know I’m not the one using him?”

We fall into silence for a moment before Duncan turns to me. He puts out a hand. “It was nice meeting you.”

I hesitate, thinking how ridiculous he is to be offering me a
handshake
, but then shake his hand, feel the strength in his grip, the heat in his palm. It gives me a shiver.

“You’re going already?”

“Believe me, I don’t want to,” he says, and he nods his head toward the monk who’s beckoning him. “But my break’s over.”

He walks away from me, hands on his hips. But he turns around, walks backward for a bit, his eyes on mine.

I give him a nervous, quick wave, and when he returns it, I can’t stop the smile that erupts onto my face, can’t stop my heart from racing even quicker.

But Dad’s aggressive voice pulls my attention to him, and I watch as he pulls out his wallet, and he hands a folded piece of paper to the monk.

Then he walks toward Duncan, exchanges a few harsh words with him. Duncan just gazes back stonily into Dad’s eyes. I notice he never once looks away from Dad, even though Dad’s trying to physically intimidate him.

“Got it?” I hear Dad say as I approach them slowly.

Duncan nods. “Don’t worry, Glass.”

“Of course I fucking worry, boy,” Dad growls, clapping Duncan over the head with an open palm.

Immediately, there’s a tension between them, and they glare at each other. At just seventeen, Duncan’s already taller than Dad, but there’s no way he’s stronger.

Duncan’s eyes flick toward me.

I shake my head at him, tell him silently,
No!

His eyes shine, and his tongue darts out, wets his lips. He lets his eyes linger on my own, and then seems to have to drag them off me to look back at Dad and nod.

“Good boy,” I hear Dad say before approaching me, leaving Duncan standing there. Dad makes a vicious gesture with his hand, orders me back into the jeep.

I fall into step with him and ask, “Did you really adopt that guy?”

“Yes,” he says.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It was business.”

“
Business
?” I ask. I
knew
he was up to something. He didn’t adopt an orphan boy from the goodness of his heart.

Dad never does anything from the goodness of his heart.

“Since when was family stuff business?”

“Are you really going to ask me such a stupid question?” he snarls.

I don’t reply. Dad’s looking like an overhead storm that’s about to strike me with lightning.

“He’s an investment, Deidre.”

“But why
adopt
him?”

“Easier to get him a passport, get him out of the country.”

“I thought they did background checks and stuff before they let you adopt someone.”

“Is that supposed to mean something?” Dad’s voice is a tripwire.

“Just… you know.”

“If I couldn’t lean on someone to get just a fucking street urchin out of the system, then nobody would know the name Johnny Marino. Jesus Christ, Deidre.”

I frown. “But why him?”

“He’s going to be the best, Deidre. Look at him, look at that body. Perfect fighting body. Long arms, great reach, low base, lightning fast. All his muscles are fast-twitch. Naturally low body-fat. His metabolism blazes like a jet engine. He’s going to make me a lot of money.”

“So you’re using him,” I say.

Dad stops in his tracks. “Don’t judge me, young woman. He likes to fight. This is a better life than he had back in Rockford. There he was just some rat, destined to become nothing but a gutter punk. Nothing but some two-bit pissant knocking off liquor stores to feed a bad meth habit while his teeth rot out. Look at what I’ve saved him from. Without me, he’d live a short lifetime of despair and drudgery. But because of me… look at my work. He’s disciplined, sculpted, a mind of metal. He’s going to be the best fighter in America. Maybe the world.”

I frown. Duncan doesn’t seem sculpted
by
Dad… the impression I got, in the brief time I spoke with him, was that he was always tough. He just seems that way.

Tougher than any of the boys at my school, anyway.

“But why did you have to take him out of the country?” I ask. “Why couldn’t he train back home, live at home with us?”

“I don’t want anybody else catching onto his scent,” Dad says. “They’ll try to poach him, or they won’t bet against him. I want to keep him a secret.”

“This is all for betting? All so you can make money?”

“He’ll be an unknown,” Dad says, baring his teeth at me with a nasty smile. “Everyone’s going to bet against him. The underdog.”

I shake my head, can’t even understand why he’s doing this. I just don’t
get
it. How can he just adopt someone, ship them off somewhere, train them, and then make them work for him? How can he expect to control another human being?

“He figures he owes me, getting him off the streets, giving him resources,” Dad mentions off-handedly. He jerks his head at me, urges me to climb up into the jeep.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Dad says, “That he’ll be easy to tame.” He looks at me with that same nasty smile on his face, flashes his eyebrows. “Heel.”

He starts the jeep, and we don’t talk for a while.

Heel
… the word echoes in my mind.

“Can you tell me how you met him, Dad?”

Chapter Four