Bounty (38 page)

A
s soon as
the bell sounded, Amber leapt to her feet along with the roaring crowd. The finish had been an exciting mix of grappling and wrestling which gave the round an exciting contrast to the pounding of the previous one, but that wasn't why she had stood up. Joel was bleeding, and she wanted to get over to see if he was okay.

The match had been a close one, but from the murmuring of the crowd around her, Joel sounded like he'd actually pulled it off. In the ring, he was surrounded by fighters from Rock House, some of them lifting his arm victoriously, all of them with smiles on their faces and patting each other on the back. Shawn Rock was right in the middle of it, his smile biggest of all. She couldn't even see Joel's face as everyone crowded him.

On the other side of the ring, Carlos looked in even worse shape than Joel, but his friends were also holding his arm up. To Amber's eye, they didn't look quite as confident. She pushed her way past the cheering audience, making her way to the ring. It would be a couple of minutes before the official decision was read, and she just wanted to see Joel's face and tell him how proud she was of him.

Grabbing the bottom rope, she hoisted herself up so that she was on the outside of the mat, looking over the top. Through the crowd, she saw Joel. His face had been wiped clean of fresh blood and someone had taped up the cut over his eye so that it was no longer dripping down into him. He saw her and immediately started to make his way over, his face a mask compared to the joy around him.

The other fighters saw where he was headed so stepped back to give him privacy with his girlfriend as they continued to congratulate each other and await the final result.

"What the fuck is she doing here," Joel said as soon as he was within earshot. He was glaring down behind Amber.

She turned to see Linda Slater standing below. 
Damn. It's bad enough that she came at all, why the hell didn't she stay in her seat until I could explain things?

"Joel, I can explain-"

"Joel, honey, my beautiful strong boy!" Linda was calling out from the floor, and there were tears coming down her face.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Joel hissed at Amber, his eyes bright blue flames.

Amber shook her head, "I think you need to-".

She was cut off by the announcer. "Ladies and gentlemen, the judges have come to a decision!" The other fighters crowded around Joel again, lifting his arm and guiding him to the center of the ring where Carlos already stood with his teammates. The referee took the arms of both fighters.

"After three rounds, the judges have scored as follows. Judge David Page sees the fight as 48 to 47 for Alvarez." The crowd became louder with a number of boos coming through the noise.

"Your second Judge, Amin Zofu, sees the fight 48 to 47, Slater." This time, the crowd went wild, clearly agreeing with Zofu.

"Your third and final judge, Fiona Gelles, scores the fight 48 to 47 for the winner by split decision, Carlos Alvarez!" The crowd went crazy, with people yelling and booing. Inside the ring, chaos erupted as well. Rock House fighters looked angry and began to shout at the announcer, the ref and down at the judges tables. A couple of them began arguing with members of the Tiger Strike camp. Both Shawn Rock and Marcus Flores had to step in and stop what looked to be imminent fights.

Joel looked stunned as well, not seeming to listen to a couple of men that were standing next to him. A fighter with blond hair, streaked with red dye put his arm around Joel's shoulder and was shaking his head.

"What happened?" Amber heard Linda call out from below. "Joel lost?"

Amber looked down at her and nodded.

"
T
his is bullshit
, what a crock of shit!" said Chris, his arm around Joel as he spoke into his ear to be heard over the booing of the crowd.

"What a corrupt bunch of assholes. Figures this would happen here. Shawn should have pushed for an independent venue!" he continued.

Joel was stunned at the decision, but his mind was focused on other things. He cast a sidelong glance at Amber. She was looking down at the floor below the ring, talking to his mother. His mother. He wondered again what the hell she was doing here. Did she think this match was going to win Joel some big money and she could somehow cash in now that her husband was dead? Joke was on her if that was the case, even if he had won the cash prize was only a few hundred bucks as a token gesture from the two training camps. Not that he would have given her a penny anyway.

"I'm sorry, Joel. That's completely an ass backwards decision. You deserved that win." Joel looked up to see Blake standing in front of him.

"Thanks," Joel mumbled. It must have really been unfair if Blake was even on his side.

The sounds of the crowd were starting to die down as the angry mob took their feelings out into the street now that the event was over.

Off to the side, he could see Shawn and Marcus arguing.

"They must have fixed it somehow," Chris was saying. "Bought off the judges."

At the mention of the judges, Joel glanced over at the table. Zofu had already left, but Fiona and David were still there talking. From his angle, he could see David staring at Fiona's chest through her top. Shaking off Chris' arm, Joel walked over to the side of the ring and looked down at them. Aware of being watched, they both returned his gaze. When David saw it was him, he turned quickly away. Fiona just smiled and winked.

It hit him like a fresh punch to the nose, he knew exactly where he'd seen her before, and it wasn't from TV. Fiona had been one of the girls who had been sitting topless with Carlos the night they agreed to this fight. She gave him one last half smile, as if she knew he recognized her, and then she took David's hand, leading him away toward the front door.

Joel closed his eyes as he took a deep breath. It was odd, but the loss didn't even bother him now that he knew it was fixed. The match meant nothing, really. He glanced over at the crooked and battered face of Carlos who was talking to another fighter. 
I got what I wanted out of it.

"Joel!" he turned to see Shawn Rock approaching. "Joel, I'm sorry about all of this. I don't know what happened with the judging, but something was clearly not on the up and up. I spoke to Marcus, I don't think he had anything to do with it but I can't be sure. But in my books, you won that fight hands down."

"Thanks Shawn," he said.

Shawn cocked his head toward one side of the ring. "There are a couple of people who want to talk to you when you have a minute."

Joel sighed. All he wanted to do right then was talk to Amber and find out what the hell his mother was doing here and then go home. He was still angry that she brought her at all, and he would definitely be having another talk with her about privacy and boundaries, but at the moment he was so overwhelmed with everything else that was going on that he didn't even want to think about that conversation.

He looked over at two men standing at the edge of the ring, talking to some of the fighters. They were middle aged, and wearing jeans and loose fitting shirts. Likely fans that wanted to tell him what a great fight he'd had, and that they thought he should have won. He really didn't want to hear that again, but since Shawn was asking he couldn't say no. Maybe they were friends of his.

"Just give me a few minutes, okay? Let me go and get cleaned up and then I'll come back out."

Shawn nodded and patted him on the shoulder. Joel walked back to Amber and slipped between the ropes. He jumped down and then helped her follow. His mother stood by, staring at him with a big smile on her face, as if the past had never happened and they were finally being reunited after years of being kept apart by something other than her own betrayal.

He glared at her, satisfied only when he saw her smile falter against his withering gaze.

"Joel," she said, reaching forward to try and take his hand, but he pulled it away.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" he said.

"Joel," she said again, this time keeping her hands to herself but wringing them nervously in front of her. "I can't believe you're here. I'd almost given up hope of ever seeing you again. I was afraid you were..."

"Dead? You were afraid I was, or hoping?"

She shook her head violently. "No, never!"

"Really? So casting me out with just the clothes on my back - to you that was what, good parenting? You thought that was the best way to get me to survive and thrive?"

She shook her head again. "No, no, Joel - your father, he wanted you out-".

"And so did you, Linda," he said, refusing to call her anything other than her given name and actually holding his tongue back from calling her bitch in front of Amber. "I clearly remember you screaming for me to get out. It's your voice I hear when I sleep at night! Not Darryl's!" He bit his tongue. He hadn't meant to admit that. He didn't want her to know what an affect she still had on his life. He didn't want to give her that satisfaction.

"Oh, Joel," she said, taking another step forward with her hands raised as if to cradle his head. He stepped back again, glaring at her.

"Why are you here? I have nothing to give you. And even if I had, I wouldn't."

"I don't want anything, baby. I just wanted to see you... Joel, please listen to me."

He felt Amber's hand snake out and grab his, giving it a little squeeze as if pleading with him to do as his mother asked. He held his tongue, giving his grudging acceptance through silence.

"Joel, that night... your father and I had a terrible fight. He told me that he wanted you to leave, and I told him no. But..." she was quiet for a moment, her eyes were filled with tears but Joel refused to feel anything. He just stared at her, waiting for her to go on.

"He had a gun, Joel. He was pissed off that you had learned to fight. To stand up to him. To protect me. He was fed up with it, and he said you were going to stop. One way or another. I don't know if he was going to do it, but he was drunk, and I was scared."

He looked over at Amber and her eyes, too, were filled with tears. She looked back at him but said nothing. She simply stared into his eyes.

"I didn't want you to leave," his mother continued. "But I was afraid that if you stayed he would do something. Maybe not that night, but at some point. You couldn't stay. So I did and said those things because that was the only way I could think of to keep you safe. I thought that if you just left that night and then came back, he might use that as justification to kill you and claim he thought you were an intruder. Or that you were coming back to kill him first. I don't know." There was another pause, and then she whispered one more time. "He had a gun."

And all of a sudden, Joel's world view shifted so violently he felt himself sway.

A
mber tightened
her grip on Joel's hand as she felt him lean toward her, but he caught himself and straightened up. She was watching his eyes as his mother spoke, catching the precise moment that the words hit home.

"Joel, I'm so sorry," his mother said. This time, when she stepped forward, he didn't back away. She put her arms around him and squeezed, Amber stepping away to give them room. Joel stood there like a statue at first, and then he drew a deep shuddering breath as he slowly raised his arms and hugged her back. His eyes closed quickly, but not quick enough for Amber to miss the tears starting to form. She wiped her own eyes with the back of her hands.

"I thought I would never see you again. When your father died, I tried to find you but I didn't know how. I even put an obituary in the paper for that son of a bitch, thinking maybe you'd see it and come to the funeral... even if it was just to spit on him..." she trailed off with a huge wracking sob. "Oh my Joel baby, I'm so sorry!"

Joel's eyes were still closed, but Amber could see his grip around his mother tighten. He was never a man of very many words, but this time she didn't think any were needed. Joel's mother was still talking, but her words had fallen to whispers in his ear as he just nodded silently. She felt like she should give them a few minutes of privacy, so she turned back to the ring.

Shawn Rock was walking over, and he tilted his head to indicate she should come up, waiting until she had joined him inside before he spoke.

"There are some people who need to talk to Joel," he said. "Is he... okay?" He glanced down to where the fighter was still holding his mother with a perplexed look on his face. He clearly knew Joel as well as anyone, so watching him hold someone so tenderly was obviously confusing to him.

Amber nodded. "He just needs a few minutes."

"Well, I think he's going to want to talk to these guys. Tell him they're from Titan." Shawn looked around. The ring was mostly empty now, except for the two men he'd referred to, and even the floor was starting to clear as most of the audience and fighters had already exited.

"Okay, let me get him."

She walked to the edge of the ring and looked over. Joel and his mother were no longer hugging, but were still talking quietly. She hated to interrupt, but she knew that Joel had all the time in the world now to get to know his mother again.

"Joel?"

He looked up at her, his eyes no longer misty.

"Can you come up for a minute?"

Joel told his mother he'd be right back and swung himself up into the ring again.

"These men over here want to talk to you."

Shawn Rock was over talking to the two of them when they approached.

"Hi Joel," said Shawn. "I want you to meet Nathan Zimmer and Umberto Bari. They work for Titan."

Both men were tall and slightly overweight, but all smiles as they reached forward and shook Joel's hand. "Great fight," said Nathan.

"Terrible decision," Umberto added. He had a slight Italian accent.

"You may or may not be aware that we've signed Carlos to fight with us," Nathan said.

Joel nodded. "I'd heard." His voice was flat as he said that, causing Nathan to laugh.

"You're not impressed? Well, we stand by that decision. Carlos is a good fighter."

"But maybe you're a bit better, yes?" Umberto added.

Joel shrugged, but allowed himself a little smile.

"Listen," said Nathan, "we want to sign you as well. Same deal that we gave to Carlos. Standard three fight contract, guaranteed to be at least on the televised undercard."

Amber's eyes rolled over to Joel and she saw his mouth open in shock. He didn't say anything, but luckily Shawn took over.

"Gentlemen, that is a very generous offer. I'll tell you what, why don't you leave us your card and we'll let Joel have a couple of days to think it over. We can call you from my office in a couple of days. Does that sound good?"

Both men nodded. "If you decide to sign with us, Umberto here will discuss the terms with you. He's also our sponsorship contact, and he can help set you up with the right sponsors for you who can help pay for the things you need while you train."

Shawn nodded and clapped Joel on the back, bringing some life back into the stunned fighter. "Um, thank you," he said, reaching forward to shake their hands again. They handed him a business card and then stepped out of the ring, leaving the three of them alone.

Amber's heart was fluttering in her chest, and she could only imagine how Joel must feel.

"You'll need a manager," Shawn said. "I can recommend someone if you'd like."

Joel nodded.

Shawn laughed. "You look like you're in shock. I think you need to take the night and let this all settle in. This is great news, Joel. You're going places. I knew it the first time I saw you. I hope you'll continue to train with us. Same deal as before. I know a big up and comer when I see one, and I know before long it'll be great for the club to have your name associated with us."

He clapped Joel on the shoulder one more time and said good night to the two of them.

Amber turned to Joel and leaned forward, giving him a soft kiss on the lips. His eyes seemed to focus again, oceans of blue that she would be happy to drown in.

"Come on," she said, grabbing his hand. "Let's go tell your mom the news."