Present day
“Winner by a knockout…Blade Saw!”
Grinning wide, Jimmy “Blade Saw” Sanchez holds up his arms in a victory salute after I announce his arrival at Redemption, Oakland’s premier mixed martial arts gym. Everyone cheers, although they were all at the fight on Saturday night for his big win—and my humiliating defeat. I lost big-time to lightweight newcomer, Camilla Rizzo, putting me one step further from my dream of winning the amateur title belt and eventually going pro.
I didn’t join Redemption to become a professional MMA fighter. I came here four years ago to learn how to fight, with no aspirations beyond being able to walk alone at night without suffering panic attacks. Who knew a graceful ballerina had a hidden talent for martial arts and a violent side that came out in the ring?
“The recruiters are going to be swarming this place any minute now,” Jack “Sadist” Caldwell says as I turn and drumroll my gloved hands on the speed bag. “I can smell them coming.”
“You didn’t smell them coming when they recruited you.”
Six feet four inches tall, 250 pounds of rock-solid muscle, eyes as blue as the Redemption mats, thick, blond hair buzzed down to a number two, Sadist is by far the largest fighter in Redemption. Until two years ago, he’d dominated the amateur super heavyweight rankings, but a health scare changed everything. He went on the Paleo diet and dropped so much weight, he had to start fighting as a heavyweight, where he dominated the field. It wasn’t long before he was snapped up by one of the world’s biggest promotions, changed his fight name from Rampage to Sadist, and now he’s Redemption’s second biggest star—Max “Torment” Huntington, the owner of Redemption is, of course, number one.
“It’s hard to see yourself as others see you.” He stills my speed bag, and his expression turns serious. “You fought a good fight last night.”
“I got punched in the face twice by a rank amateur with only one fight under her belt, and now I look like a raccoon with this black-and-blue mask.” I knock his hand away. “And then she caught me in a submission that I’d learned how to escape my second week at Redemption. It wasn’t a good fight. It was pathetic.” I smash my fist into the speed bag half a dozen times before pausing for breath. “And it’s not the first time. I’ve been sliding down the ranks all year. I don’t know what’s wrong.”
“Have you talked to Torment?”
I lift an eyebrow. No one voluntarily seeks out Torment unless they have a death wish. Although he has been helping me train, he is a formidable man, a virtual MMA god who runs Redemption with an iron fist. Torment used to be a champion underground fighter and turned down many offers to go pro. Even today, the recruiters are still after him, but with a multimillion-dollar business to run as his alter ego Max Huntington, and a new baby girl at home, he has neither the time nor the interest in being a star.
Sadist laughs. “Wrong question.”
“Definitely the wrong question. And if you see him, try to keep him distracted and away from me. I’ll be in the practice ring with Sandy. We’re running through the striking techniques I’ll be teaching my junior girls’ MMA class tomorrow night.”
“The kids are gonna love your new look,” he says as he turns away. “Maybe I’ll talk to the guys about giving you a new ring name. Instead of Shayla Tanner, a.k.a. Shilla the Killa, you can be a.k.a. Ricky the Raccoon.”
“Ha ha. Very funny.” I started teaching at Redemption after Torment roped me into helping out with the kids’ MMA classes when one of the instructors got sick. The girls in the class were more interested in the fact that they had a female teacher than learning the moves, and they peppered me with questions. I’d never thought of myself as a model or mentor for anyone, but they made me realize I could give something back to the sport that had helped me reinvent myself after my ex-husband, Damian Peters, destroyed the only life I had ever known. I wanted to empower them so they could become fighters, too.
I cross the mats toward the practice ring, taking in the enormity of what is now one of the top MMA training gyms in California. The vast 25,000-square-foot warehouse in Oakland’s Foster Hoover Historic District is more of a home to me than my apartment in Rockridge. Spotlights shine bright on the electric-blue mats and glint off the equipment. Fighters of all shapes and sizes grunt and groan over in the free weights area. Cardio machines whirr and spin to the steady thud of running shoes on the track that circumnavigates the gym. Tag “Fuzzy” O’Donnell, a cop by day and my co-coach with Torment, barks abuse at a group of newbies in his Fight or Flee class. Over on the grapple mats, the first aid attendant, Makayla, sometimes known as Doc, otherwise known as Torment’s better half, tends to a woman who has managed to get her head stuck between the legs of a full-size submission dummy.
“Oh my God!” Sandy’s hand flies to her mouth as I climb through the ropes, an almost comical move, given she’s wearing fight gloves twice as thick as mine. “Sadist told me what happened last night. Are you okay?” She runs her glove through her long, platinum-blond ponytail and heaves a deep breath, her generous breasts straining against her too-small, too-tight pink sports top. Sandy loves her breasts, as do most of the male fighters at Redemption. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her show less than three inches of cleavage, but then if I had breasts like hers, I would show them off, too. Unfortunately, years of intense ballet training meant I developed late, and when I did, I didn’t have much to show for the effort.
“Does it really look that bad?”
She grimaces and shrugs. “You look kind of Zorro-esque. Maybe if you use a little concealer—a lot of concealer—you won’t scare the kids. And actually, it kind of goes with the grunge thing you’ve got going on outside the gym. If you wear those patterned, ripped leggings, clunky shoes, and that black leather dress you had on the other week under your flannel shirt, people will just think it’s part of your style. Does it hurt?”
“Only when I blink.”
Sandy gives me a sympathetic smile. A lot of people at Redemption don’t like Sandy, a wealthy socialite who was once engaged to Torment, chased after him when he was with Makayla, and twice broke poor Blade Saw’s heart. But we’ve always gotten along. She has her flaws—when there are unattached men around, she forgets she has friends—but when it’s just us or we’re out with the Redemption gals, she’s all sorts of fun. She also has a big heart, and although she doesn’t talk about it, she does a lot of charity work for underprivileged kids.
“Why didn’t you stay home and put some ice on it? Hide out for a few days?” She stretches on the mat, checking out the guys in the gym as she warms up. She just went through a bad breakup and has decided to follow my lead and give up relationships in favor of casual hookups.
“The last time I tried to hide after losing a fight, Torment found me.” I don’t have to mock a shudder; the fear is real. “He came to my apartment and almost broke down my door. He’s a big fan of getting right back in the ring after you lose a fight. He threatened to cut off my membership and break my legs if I didn’t get down to the gym.”
Sandy laughs as she jumps to her feet. We practice together a few times a week. She’s a recreational fighter, whereas I have been trying to work my way to the top of the amateur circuit for years.
“You could have stayed home,” she says. “A recruiter from MEFC showed up first thing this morning, and he’s been in Torment’s office ever since. We’ve been taking bets on who’s caught their interest. Imagine. Another Redemption fighter in the pros!” Without any warning, Sandy lunges from the side, clearly hoping to take advantage of my distraction. But we’ve played this game before, and I’ve been ready for her since she dropped into her ready stance.
“I think it will be Blade Saw. He just won that big fight.” Mega Extreme Fight Championship, or MEFC for short, is one of the world’s top MMA promotions and features the top-ranked fighters of the sport. They are always looking for new talent, and Blade Saw’s recent wins have been turning heads. Spinning, I feint right, but my kick goes wide. Sandy dives in with a straight left that glances off my shoulder. I move in fast with a right hook, dropping Sandy to her knees.
“My money is on Renegade.” She gestures to the cage where Renegade is tossing a newbie around for fun. “He’s only a few fights away from a title belt.”
My stomach tightens as it always does when I see Renegade. He’s a great guy with a good sense of humor and one of the most laid-back fighters at Redemption. But he looks so much like Damian, I always have to take a moment to assure myself that the man with the blond hair and blue eyes, the lean, toned body, and the chiseled jaw is not the man I loved and married and shared a bed with for four long years. I wanted so desperately for Damian to fill the black hole in my life that had consumed me since Zack left, I didn’t see what lay beneath his caring and compassion—a deep-rooted insecurity that eventually drove him to the edge.
Sandy’s gaze flicks to someone behind me, and she jumps to her feet. “Torment just came in.” And then her eyes widen. “He’s got the MEFC recruiter with him. Oh my Lord. Look who it is.”
Taking advantage of her lack of focus, I lunge forward and wrap my arm around her neck in a choke hold. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Torment walking toward us with the recruiter by his side. Sandy manages to spit out his name before my brain registers what I am seeing.
“Zack Grayson.”
My breath catches, and the world freezes around me. Zack? My gaze locks on the man talking to Torment, and memories of the past breach the walls that have kept me safe for the last seven years. The day he found me at the bottom of Devil’s Hill. The touch that woke our souls. The strange friendship between a thirteen-year-old boy and an eight-year-old girl that no one understood. The easy conversations. Our first kiss when I turned sixteen. Cuddles under the stars. Sexual exploration. And then the night we came together and broke apart.
He’d wanted to make something of himself, and he had. Three-time winner of the MEFC middleweight title belt, Zack is an MMA legend. He is a master of five different martial arts and once won a title fight despite having a broken arm. He is his ring name personified, a “Slayer” in every sense of the word. Fiercely aggressive in the cage, he was feared and admired when he was fighting, revered and respected since he retired. But I know what kind of man he really is. A slayer of the heart.
My grip loosens. Sandy spins out of the hold and clips me a good one in the chin.
I stumble back and lose my balance. My head thunks against a metal pole, and I go down hard. Taste blood. See stars. Or are they hearts? For a long moment, I don’t move. Lights twinkle above me. Fade to black. I am lost in a sea of pain.
“Wake up.”
I open my eyes and blink away the blur. People are murmuring around me. Sandy is talking to someone named God and apologizing over and over. A male voice calls for Makayla, and I hear the pounding of feet. Drawing in a deep breath, I inhale the scents of stale sweat and disinfectant. The smell of home.
“Shayla?” Sadist’s usually gruff rumble of a voice is surprisingly soft and gentle. “Talk to me.”
Of course Sadist is the first one in the ring. And he must be worried. No one calls me Shayla at Redemption. Torment has decreed that we must use ring names only in the gym, and the team gave me the worst ring name ever. Shilla the Killa I was named, and Shilla the Killa I will be unless I can break out of the middle of the amateur pack and earn the right to a better name.
“I thought I’d take a little rest,” I mumble. “I’m still tired from Saturday’s fight.”
“Good idea.” Makayla says, joining Sadist on the mat beside me, her hazel eyes dark with concern. “I’ll just check you over. Doctor Death is in the first aid room dealing with a sprain.”
“Thank goodness.” Doctor Death, a heart surgeon, amateur fighter, and Redemption’s official ring doctor is too gorgeous for his own good, and the last thing I want is to succumb to the touch of his beautiful surgeon’s hands.
Sadist unlaces my gloves while Makayla does her thing, poking and prodding and patting me all over. Sandy kneels beside me. “I am so, so sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you like that. Well, I did, but I thought you’d move your face out of the way.”
“I was…distracted.” Although I’ve tried to avoid local and live stream events where Zack has fought, it has been impossible over the years to avoid seeing pictures of him online and in magazines where he has endorsed everything from gloves to protein shakes. But nothing could have prepared me for the in-person, breathtaking visual feast he has become in the seven years since we were together.
With that long, dark, rock-star hair; the lean, powerful body; hard planes of muscles concealed beneath a tight MEFC T-shirt; and three days’ worth of groomed stubble on a firm, cleft chin, he has the kind of tear-off-the-clothes, jump-into-bed, fuck-me-till-I-die good looks that make women do stupid things. Like celebrating their eighteenth birthday by having sex for the first time with him at the Lucky Dollar Motel.
Why did age have to make him even more breathtaking than I remember? Why, why, why did he have to come to Redemption of all the gyms in all the states in the country?
Why did he walk away and leave me?
“He is yummy, isn’t he?” Sandy whispers, glancing up. “I’m going to invite him out with the team tonight, maybe take him back to my place. I know he’s got a reputation as the sport’s biggest man whore, but how often do you get a chance to sleep with an MMA legend?”
Just once. And then he’ll walk away. His well-earned reputation started with me.
Desperate to get away in case Zack recognizes me, I push myself to sit.
“Don’t get up yet,” Makayla says, frowning. “Just give it a minute. You hit your head pretty hard.”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine,” she says when I stand, my gloves hanging loose on my hands. “You’re very pale.”
“It’s the black eyes. They make my skin look paler.”
“I’d really like to take you to the first aid office for a proper check.” Makayla helps me climb out of the ring. “Sandy said you blacked out for a few seconds. I want to make sure you don’t have a concussion.”
“Really. I’m good.” I take a step forward, and the mat swirls below me.
“Whoa. Easy there.” Strong hands steady me, pull me into a broad, hard chest.
Disoriented, I fall into brown eyes flecked with gold. Warm, like the hands around my waist. Steady, like the touch on my skin bared between my shorts and sports top. Unyielding. Betraying. Painfully familiar.
Pain.
I fight my body’s response, the tug deep in my soul, reminding myself why I’m here. Zack left. Damian picked up the pieces. And then I was destroyed all over again.
“Let me go, Zack.”