Kissing the Canvas (Fighting For Love Book 3) (2 page)

GRAYSON

It’s late, and the gym is closed…but not to him, not tonight. He heads straight for the mats where he expects to find West but stops short in surprise. It isn’t just West who appears out of the darkness; he’s not alone.

“I told you not to tell anyone about this.” Grayson looks at West accusatorily.

“So I’m ‘anyone’ now?” Tommy crosses his arms, leveling Grayson with an amused stare.

“Not now, Tommy. This doesn’t concern you.” Grayson doesn’t even look at his friend. Instead, he directs all his attention on West who doesn’t show any signs of shrinking away.

“The hell it doesn’t!” Tommy’s voice echoes loudly around the empty gymnasium. “You’re my best friend, man, and if something’s happened to your girl, then I’m going to help—whether you want me to or not. Besides, Adriana’s a helluva cool girl. Whatever you need, I’m in.”

Grayson swallows the retort that was playing on his lips. Tommy’s words have disarmed him, making him grateful once again for his friendship. He clears his throat, too many emotions to count circling around his soul. “We have to get her back.” It’s not a question. For Grayson, there is no plan B.

West nods grimly, reading the determination in Grayson’s expression. “Tell us everything, from the top.” He nods towards a bench by the side of the mats, and Grayson collapses onto it, letting his legs give way beneath him.

He hadn’t realized how much the events of the past hour had taken out of him until he’d sat down. It kills Grayson to think that not so long ago Adriana had been sitting on that bench, watching him and Tommy spar, that he’d taught her some moves on the mat, and that he’d had her so close he could touch her and smell her. It was hard to believe that it had only been this morning that he had made love to her. Now, she seems so far away from him.

Grayson looks at West uncertainly. “There are some things that Tommy doesn’t need to hear.” He grits his teeth at the thought of having to tell him all about his past; there are things that even Tommy didn’t know, dark things.

But Tommy has other ideas; he crosses his arms over his broad chest and gives Grayson an unimpressed glare. “This isn’t the time to go all shy on me, G. I’m in. Whatever it is, I’m in. So just get on with it already; we’re wasting time.”

There’s no hint of amusement in Tommy’s voice. He’s deadly serious, and it strikes a chord with Grayson. His friend the joker, the player, the good-time guy is prepared to do whatever it takes to help him get Adriana back. That realization is enough to push through the walls he’s built up around himself. The whole story comes tumbling out: the years he spent with Morrison fixing his own fights, throwing them when he was told to, and how West had to bargain to get Grayson away from the bookie and into the legit fighting ring.

Finally, he gets to the part that’s hardest to tell, the story that Grayson wishes was just that, a story. He can’t meet Tommy’s eyes as it all comes out, but he feels West’s steadying hand on his shoulder, giving him the strength to tell it. “It was an accident. But that doesn’t make it any easier to deal with.” Grayson shakes his head to get the memory of that night out of his brain. “It changed everything.”

When Grayson finally looks up at his friend, the expression of shock on Tommy’s face is a picture. He rocks up and down on the balls of his feet, as he thinks about what it is that Grayson has just told him. “Alright, so I get that this Morrison guy is a Class A scumbag who knows how to get what he wants. So, what happens now?” Tommy looks between Grayson and West, waiting for orders.

“Did you hear what I just told you?” Grayson’s expression of shock says it all. He’s known Tommy for years and thinks of him as his little brother, but even so he couldn’t muster the courage to tell him about the awful things in his past. Now that he finally has, his reaction was like nothing he could have anticipated.

“I heard you, G.” Tommy’s expression hardens, as he looks at his friend, the conflict in his eyes clear. “I’m not gonna lie; it’s not ever going to be my favorite bedtime story, but, like I’ve said a couple times already now, I’m in. So, what happens now?”

Grayson reacts purely instinctually; he stands and envelops Tommy in what could only be described as a bear hug, virtually squeezing the life out of him before he releases him. Grayson is not a man given to spontaneous displays of affection, which makes the embrace even more meaningful. Tommy looks down at his feet as if he’s dropped something, not wanting anyone to see the emotions playing on his face.

“What happens now is that we get Adriana back. Poor girl, she doesn’t have anything to do with this.” West rubs a hand over his bald head, his standard gesture of frustration.

“And that’s why the only thing that’s important is getting her back; everything else takes a back seat.” Grayson looks from West to Tommy and back again. “I’m going to do whatever Morrison wants.”

West frowns at him, looking wary. “What do you mean?”

“We’re not going after her?” Tommy seems equally confused at Grayson’s words.

“Where Tommy? Where are we supposed to even start looking for her?” Grayson starts pacing around the men, moving on the balls of his feet like he’s primed for action. “We have no idea where she is, where Morrison might have taken her. He has all the cards, and we’ve got nothing.” He punches the sandbag with his injured fist, leaving a bloody print of his knuckle, as he expels some of the anger and frustration that he’s trying to keep just below the surface.

West and Tommy exchange a silent look. “I hear what you’re saying G, but you can’t just let Morrison win. We can call in some favors, do some digging, and find out where he might be keeping her.”

Grayson rounds on him, his anger threatening to boil over the lid he’s so desperately trying to keep fixed on his feelings. “And how long will that take, Tommy? A few days? A week? We don’t have that sort of time! Morrison has Adriana and, from his little note, he doesn’t seem to be planning on keeping her safe and sound while we run around Miami trying to track him down!” He throws the note that he found in Adriana’s apartment down, like he doesn’t even want to touch it.

It floats to the ground, landing in front of West. As he picks it up and reads the words, his face darkens. “He wants you to throw the fight.”

Tommy’s eyes flash, the anger in them clear. “No fucking way! You can’t do that, G, not after everything you’ve worked for! You deserve that title, more than that snake Dexter, more than anyone!”

“Is what I’ve worked for more important than Adriana’s safety, more important than her life?” Grayson swallows hard at the thought of the danger that she’s in. He can’t stand to think about where Morrison might be holding her or what he might be saying or doing to her.

Tommy clams up, unable to contradict Grayson, but too angry to speak.

“Throwing a fight like this is anything but simple, Grayson.” West keeps his voice even, not wanting to rile Grayson up any more than he already is. He knows that when Grayson’s angry he can’t think straight and that’s not the way to get Adriana back. “The UFC has strict rules about this sort of thing; they can spot a fixed fight a mile away.”

“Then, I guess I need to make it look good. Because there’s no way I’m putting Adriana’s life in danger just to win some goddam title.” Grayson virtually spits the words out. A few weeks ago he would never have considered that he would have to make a choice between the woman he loves and everything he’s worked for, everything that he’s good at. But now that the moment has come, the choice couldn’t be clearer. “There will be more fights, guys. There’s only one her.”

ADRIANA

She’s fallen asleep; she has no idea how long for, and there’s no way to tell. There’s no natural light in the room where they’re holding her. Once she’d read the article they’d presented her with a couple of times, the light they’d turned on, as if by magic, was extinguished, and she was plunged into deep darkness again.

Her wrists ache from the restraints around them, and she flexes her fingers to work some feeling back into them. She concentrates on the things that she can change about her situation, the things that she can control. She stands up gingerly, the effect of the darkness giving her a sensation akin to vertigo. She paces the room, her hands dragging along the walls, trying to measure how big the place is where she’s being held.

She concentrates on the number of steps that she’s taking, counting the feet. She hits a corner at the count of thirty and follows the next wall; but, as she gets to the count of twenty, her foot catches on something and she tumbles down. Out of habit, she puts her hands out to break her fall, but the restraints cause her to land awkwardly, and she feels her left wrist give. She cries out, as she pushes herself back up, twisting her wrist.

Breathe, Adriana, breathe
, she tells herself. She moves her left wrist gingerly, trying to rotate it and grits her teeth against the pain. Then, she moves it up and down, testing the range of movement. She tries to pretend that the joint is someone else’s that she’s testing in the hospital. She feels as much as she can with her right hand and notices that the wrist is already swelling. At least it doesn’t seem to be broken, only sprained.

She almost laughs at that thought. She’s been assaulted, drugged, and kidnapped; so, the fact that she has only sprained her wrist seems like cause for celebration. It’s very nearly funny, until she remembers exactly where she is and who has brought her here. She has to get out; there’s no two ways about it.

Slowly, she edges her way along the wall, retracing her steps until she comes up against what had sent her tumbling to the floor. She kicks out at it, using her foot as a probe, trying to concentrate on what it is that she can feel. It’s like she’s pretending she’s blind and only has use of her other senses.
It’s a step!
The simple discovery is equivalent to all Adriana’s birthdays and Christmases rolled into one. If there are steps, then there’s a staircase towards something, towards the door, towards freedom.

She maneuvers herself to try to reach out for the next step and clumsily fumbles for it. As she’d predicted, there is one step and then another and then another. She has to virtually crawl up the stairs like a child on all fours, and she ignores the pain in her wrist at the jarring sensation, as she shuffles herself up. She scrapes her elbows against the hard floor, but she barely even notices. Her one focus is to get to the top, to get out of this place.

She’s lost count of how many steps she’s climbed, but the effort that it’s taken her feels more like she’s scaled a mountain than just gone up a staircase. She’s breathing hard, as she reaches her hands out only to find that there isn’t another step. Instead, she comes up against something hard and cold. Her fingers feel their way up, and she comes to grips with what this is. It’s a metal door, her way out.

She feels around, looking for some kind of a handle or lever, something that will open the door. Her fingers stretch frantically over the cold surface, but there’s nothing. She pushes hard against the door, putting the whole weight of her body behind her, trying to force it open, but it doesn’t even budge.

“Come on.” She whispers the words to herself, as she does another pass over the door, checking that she hasn’t missed anything, any small detail that could be the key to her getting out of this place.

She feels herself panicking, losing the thin thread of control she had over her emotions, as the realization of just how trapped she is sets in.

“Hey! Hey!” She hammers hard on the door with her fist. “Let me out! Let me out of here!” she screams, as she kicks the door and throws her weight against it, making as much noise as she can. “Somebody help me! I’m down here!” Her voice cracks, as all the anger she’s used to get her to the top of the stairs dissipates into despair.

There’s no answer from the other side of the door, not even a sound, nothing. There’s no light coming from underneath it. Whatever is on the other side, there’s no one there who wants to help her. She turns around, her back sliding against the door, as she slips to the floor. She leans her head back, feeling the unforgiving inflexibility of the door behind her.

“Grayson, where are you?” The words come out in a whisper, as she hugs her knees to her chest, curling up in the fetal position. “Please come find me.” She jumps, as she feels something brush against her bare arm. “What the hell?”

She strains her eyes, searching through the dark at what had just passed by her. When she hears the squeaking from below her, she wishes that she hadn’t asked. Adriana had never thought of herself as squeamish, but rats were a whole different story to her. They were something that she really was afraid of, something that made her skin crawl and her stomach roll.

Suddenly, Adriana became filled with the overwhelming need for her mother, as if she could come to protect her, to make everything right again. Adriana’s mother had left so many years ago, she has trouble even picturing her face. However, as she cries, she feels a longing in her chest that she has kept buried for so many years.

“Mama, where are you?” She buries her head in her hands, giving herself over to the emotions.

She thinks back to the conversation she’d had with Grayson about her mother, something that feels like it happened months, even years, ago but it had only been a few days. Time was beginning to lose all kind of meaning ever since she was stuck in this dark dungeon.

“Don’t you ever wonder where she is?” Grayson had asked her, as they walked along the beach that first day they’d spent together after finding each other again.

Adriana had shrugged, looking out onto the ocean, not wanting to let all those old feelings of abandonment and pain play out across her face for him to see. She knew he wouldn’t judge her, but there was something so intensely private about her relationship—or lack of one—with her mother that she hadn’t ever been able to share it with anyone. It was a pain that never quite healed and always remained fresh. It was as if no time had passed since that afternoon her father had told her that her mother was gone and she wasn’t coming back.

“Sometimes I think about it,” Adriana had admitted truthfully. “Sometimes I wonder if she found whatever it was that she was searching for. I wonder if she met another guy, if she had another family, if she had another daughter.” She’d let one solitary tear slip down her cheek then and that was all that she’d allowed herself to cry for her lost mother.

“It must be hard, not knowing.” Grayson’s voice had been low and full of concern, full of feeling. He’d reached out to take hold of her hand, like he was giving her strength, and she’d been grateful for the support.

She’d smiled up at him, wryly. “Only when I really think about it.” She shrugged. “It’s weird; I don’t even really think of myself as having a mother anymore. There’s some woman out there who left me and my dad when I was just a kid. That’s not a mother; that’s just someone who gave birth to me.”

“Have you ever tried to find her? To find out where she is? I mean, she could be in Miami; she could be living two blocks away from you and you wouldn’t know.” The idea seemed to be something that Grayson couldn’t quite wrap his head around.

“Have you ever tried to find your dad since you told him to leave?” Adriana had leveled a look at him and hadn’t missed the way he’d flinched at the mention of his father.

“That was different.” Grayson’s jaw had been set like stone, the emotions of his youth spent afraid and beaten and hurt rushing back to him. “Your mother didn’t beat you with a belt so bad you couldn’t sit down in class the next day.”

Adriana had felt her heart squeeze tightly in her chest at the thought of Grayson as a little boy, hurt, bloody, and afraid.

“No, she didn’t do that. But she left, without an explanation, without a word, without a goodbye. She left knowing that I would need her, knowing that she was leaving me behind.” Adriana remembers laying her hand on Grayson’s shoulder and how she’d felt his body relax underneath her touch. “She made me feel worthless, like I didn’t matter, like I wasn’t important.” Adriana had watched as understanding dawned in Grayson’s eyes, as if it was in that moment he’d realized that there were all different kinds of abuse, all different kinds of pain.

“She’d never made any effort to find me, even after all these years; so, I returned the favor. I figured that she was the one who left, so she should be the one who made the first move. Otherwise, I just have to assume that she wants to stay out of my life.” She’d taken a deep breath and smiled through the threatening tears. “Now, shall we go get some ice cream? All that depressing talk has made me desperate for something sweet.”

Grayson had looked at her then, as if he was going to say something, but he’d just smiled and led her towards his favorite gelato place on the strip. Now, she can’t help but wonder if what Grayson had wanted to tell her was an explanation of what she had read in that article her captors had so thoughtfully provided her.

She had pushed the thought of what she’d read as far from the forefront of her mind as she could, but now it’s back, and she can’t not think about it. Not only is she stuck in a basement in the middle of God knows where with no way of getting out and with rats providing the background music, but she is having to face the very real possibility that Grayson, the man whom she loves is, in fact, a murderer.
‘Bad day’ doesn’t even begin to cover it
, Adriana thinks to herself ruefully.

She starts banging the back of her head rhythmically against the door, as if she could knock the negative thoughts about Grayson out of her head. If only. If only Grayson would come for her. If only he would explain everything and tell her what really happened to that dead fighter. If only she could get out of this place. If only someone would open the damn door. She bangs her head against the metal one last time—hard, and that’s when she hears it.

Adriana scrambles to her feet, her ears straining to make out what’s happening on the other side of the door. It sounds like footsteps, a couple of different sets. She doesn’t hear any voices, but she does hear something that makes her breath catch in her throat, something that makes her wonder if someone up there really was listening to what she was wishing for. It’s the sound of locks clicking and something heavy, like a bolt, sliding out of place.

She prepares herself to rush at the door as soon as it opens, to use the force of her body to knock whoever is on the other side down and then… Well, that was the problem. Once she was past them, she had no idea what else lay in store for her, and she wasn’t exactly a force to be reckoned with bearing in mind her bound hands and swollen, sprained wrist.

Adriana is still debating what she should do, when the door is thrown open and she’s blinded with the force of the light that streams in to her dark little corner of the world. She throws up her hands to shade her eyes, feeling like the rats that scamper away from the light, scurrying into whatever shade they can find.

“Hello, my dear. I think it’s about time we had a little chat, don’t you?” The voice that reaches her ears is ice cold. She feels her insides clench, as she recognizes the short man who had instructed his goon to incapacitate her in her apartment.

“I don’t have anything to say to you.” Her words come out like venom, an anger that she didn’t even know she was capable of escaping her.

“Now, now, my dear. I’m sure that’s not true. After what you’ve read, I’m sure you have a great many questions that only I can answer for you about your beloved Grayson.” His eyes glitter with something close to glee, as he bears witness to the conflict playing out within her.