Page 27 of Craving the Edge

She shoved the phone into my chest. I didn’t need to look. I knew what it showed.

“That’s not me,” she hissed. “I’m not your ‘mystery brunette’. I told you I want to be left the fuck alone.”

“I…” The word died on my tongue. I had no idea what to say. All the cocky bullshit I peddled to the media, the confident fighter persona, was just gone.

Tomas stepped between us. “He will. We’ll get it fixed. Don’t worry.”

Char’s glare didn’t waver. “How?”

“Rhys,” Tomas said simply. “He’ll deal with it. This sort of crap will be forgotten by next week, I promise. This is what he does.” He attempted a small smile, trying to inject some warmth into the frozen air. “Making things disappear is one of his only two superpowers. The other one is being a dick.”

He waited, a hopeful look on his face. The joke hung in the air, useless.

Char’s glare shot to me one last time, a look that said she saw straight through all of our bullshit. “It better.”

She turned and stalked away toward the front of the gym, disappearing into the office.

Tomas watched her go, his smile melting from his face. He turned back to me. “She’s a good person, mate. This is fucked.”

“I know she is.” The words were razor blades in my throat.

“No, I mean she’s a good person. She just wants to come to work and go home.” He gestured vaguely toward the roller door, towards the unseen parasites waiting outside. “This is where you make a choice. You either let her go, right now. Walk away, let Rhys come in and clean it up. He’ll pay them off or shut her up, and this all goes away. You go to Sydney, you fight, go to fucking Tokyo and you never see her again.”

“Or?” I asked.

“Or you decide she’s worth it. And if you do that, you better be ready to protect her. From them,” he pointed at the door again, “and from Rhys. There’s no half-arsed way to do this, Declan. You’re either in or you’re out.”

He clapped a hand on my shoulder, a weight that felt more like a burden than a reassurance. Then he turned and walked towards our bags, leaving me alone in the centre of the gym floor.

CHAPTER 10

CHAR

I paced back and forth in the tiny office, the gym’s phone pressed to my ear, my anger rising.

“But this is good for business, Char! Free press!” Gary said. He sounded like he’d just won the lotto.

I squeezed my eyes shut. “Gary, no. They’re stopping customers from coming in. All they want is to make some quick money off made up rubbish. Don’t you dare come down here.”

“What’re you on about? We should be giving them a quote! Get the Fighter’s Edge logo in the shot. This is a goldmine, I’m telling ya.”

My voice dropped to a hiss. “They know my name! They’re already making up shit about me. If you come down here with your big mouth, you’ll only make it worse.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Just…please. Let me handle it.”

“Handle it? By hiding in the office? We need to strike while the iron’s hot, love.”

This was going nowhere. The last thing anyone needed was the bogun owner becoming the laughing stock of the entire MMA world. I had to get him to stay the hell away.

Gary only responded to one thing. Money. “I’ll handle it. I’m developing a strategy, okay? We can capitalise on this, but not if you come blundering in and spook them. You have to trust me.”

They were the same words I’d been using for four years to keep his business above water. The same words I’d used to make excuses for his bounced cheques, negotiate with angry suppliers, and run this whole bloody place while he sat at the pub.

A pause. I could hear the slow cogs in his brain turning. “A strategy, eh?”

“Yes, a strategy,” I said, my voice tight. “And payroll, Gary. What happened to that?”

“Oh, I’ll fix that today.”

I already knew his ‘bank error’ excuse was a blatant lie. I had access to the accounts, but not to the actual money. My bet was he’d forgotten.