Part 54 (1/2)

Chapter Twenty Five.

The days blend together, one smudged aching blur.

I've never felt this way before.

Penelope isn't talking to me, and it's eating me up. I'm not some clingy d.i.c.k with low self-esteem, but she and I really had something. I've never felt more comfortable around a girl before, more attracted to one.

I've never wanted to please a girl more than I do Pen.

I've never felt the sting of disappointing a girl more than I do Pen.

And I've disappointed a metric f.u.c.kton of girls.

Usually I just get mine, and I'm fine with that. I f.u.c.k them, and leave them. I don't need any attachments. For f.u.c.k's sake, I fight underground. Attachments get you burned one way or another. Distractions take your mind off the prize, the win.

But now I'm doubting that philosophy. Now Pen has got me going back on my own beliefs, on the way I've lived my life.

Because now she's the prize, she's what I want to win... need to win. But I need to protect her, too, and that makes my mind go somewhere it doesn't want to.

Do I need to protect her from me?

She is p.i.s.sed at me, and rightfully so. I didn't f.u.c.king know that I'd get involved with the mob. They basically gave me no choice but to fight in this pathetic little d.i.c.k-measuring match. Some local mobster c.u.n.t and some Russian mafia c.u.n.t want to settle a bet, and they're using me to do it, and some foreign beefcake fighter.

They're not just using me, either. They're using Pen, too. I wonder idly what this Anton f.u.c.khead was threatened with. I wonder how they could make him fly half way around the world just to do one single fight. Maybe they got to him, too.

Nothing is worse than being a p.a.w.n. I'm going to find a f.u.c.king way out of this one way or another, and then I'm going to make sure Lev Fallon, the c.o.c.ksucker, goes down.

But five million is retirement money. Five million on top of what I already got saved and invested? s.h.i.+t, I don't consider myself motivated by money, but d.a.m.n, that's a good life for me and my kids. And, it keeps Pen safe. If I don't do the fight, they'll get to her. That much is clear as day.

Wait a minute... My kids? I blink, surprised at myself for the thought.

I've never, ever considered having kids before. I've never considered settling down before. To me, that was always phony bulls.h.i.+t. n.o.body wants to settle down. n.o.body wants some boring f.u.c.king suburban life with picket fences and flower beds and s.h.i.+tty fake dinner parties filled by pa.s.sive-aggressive small talk.

Well, imagine it with Penelope, and it doesn't sound too bad. Waking up next to her every single morning? Making love to her every single morning? Every single night?

Tasting her, smelling her... having her every single day? Seeing her smile, making her laugh... p.i.s.sing her off? That's f.u.c.king heaven.

That's what I want. I want her. I want her to be mine. She is mine... she just doesn't know it yet.

f.u.c.k.

Of course, we wouldn't just be some a.s.shole couple with rich-guilt and fake smiles. We'd be cool, do things our way. She'd run her tattoo shop, pick her clients, succeed in her life. She'd do whatever she wanted, because she can.

I recognize the fire in people. The burning will to win, to succeed.

My stomach crunches as I realize that I might just be derailing that.

But Fallon's threat was clear. I'll do this fight, win, and walk away with Penelope in my arms. If I listen to her, if I don't fight, then he's going after her. s.h.i.+t, Fallon goes after both of us.

I can beat a man half to death in seven seconds, but I can't take on the mob, no matter how much I want to. At least, not without a plan.

I need a plan.

All my winning, all my s...o...b..ating, all my fame, and it just made me a target. Not just me, but Penelope, too.

f.u.c.k them. f.u.c.k them all.

I down a bottle of Gatorade, shake off the brain-freeze, and then start skipping again. I need to get my conditioning to peak level, and I've got less than a week to do so.

I've got to get Penny out of my mind... for now. Because if I don't, I might just lose this fight.

Chapter Twenty Six.

Tina Azume is beaming at me, and I feel the welcome flutter of pride in my chest and belly.

Before me, she holds up the imitation skin, a bespoke fabric designed to emulate real skin for tattoo artists to practice on.

Of course, nothing is the same as real skin. Nothing is the same as inking a living, breathing human who bleeds, whose temperature changes, who sweats, who feels pain.

But d.a.m.n it if I haven't done a good job. Tina had me draw that optical illusion where everybody is walking up and down steps, but there's no way to tell which way is the right way up. It's a visual trick; the lines are dishonest, but that we can't make total sense of that reveals the brain's willingness to try and interpret anything, and to mold information into something understandable.

Like with spelling errors, the brain can usually skip over them, automatically fill in the blanks. The same is true for perspective.

The point of the exercise was to evaluate my feel for perspective, to see if I easily confuse, or if I can orient myself quickly. The optical illusion is, of course, a cheat. But at first glance, it looks like a window into some weird dimension.

”It's perfect,” Tina says, grinning. ”Even on my first go I couldn't emulate it right.”

”The needle sometimes stuck a little,” I tell her. ”There was some, I don't know, drag?”

”Well, if people clam up you'll definitely experience some of that. Different people have different skin, too. You wouldn't know it on the outside, but I've tattooed two people who looked basically the same in terms of their skin, but one was far more difficult than the other.”

Tina gestures for me to sit down, and she comes over to the small sofa we've got. When she sits next to me, she doesn't fall into it like I do. Even the way she sits is precise, practiced, and, fittingly, severe. She crosses a leg, her back is straight as can be, and her shoulders are pulled back.

Tina looks like the kind of woman who never, ever is unprepared. She's confident, not because she's c.o.c.ky, but because she understands... well, everything.

I want to be like that. I want to be in charge of my own domain, successful, judgers be d.a.m.ned. The tattoo industry, like most others, is still dominated by men. Women are only just finding their foothold, only just reclaiming back territory that should have been theirs for the taking.

Tina is the top female artist, and one of the top overall artists in the world, and she knows it. More than that, she has the respect of all the male artists. They fawn over her, defer to her. She's a f.u.c.king superstar.

I want that. My ambition won't let me settle for anything less.

”Look,” she says, showing me one of her tattoo books. It's so clients can see tattoos she's done on others, or otherwise reference designs. Tina flicks through to a girl with a shaved head. There's a tattoo of a tribal-ish dragon on the back of her neck.