Not thinking it could get any worse, her answer betrays even me, sorrow oozing from her voice. Her face. Her every being. “Bought them from a used bin at the Salvation Army.”
I drive downtown and walk for hours. Getting nowhere, aimlessly thinking in circles. Finding myself in front of Nico’s gym, I decide I’m more afraid of the consequences of my inaction than the reaction I might receive. Trembling inside, I will myself steady and open the door. The guy at the front door has a face full of cuts, bruises, and bandages, and turns away quicker than I can get my voice out to speak.
But I don’t need for him to tell me if Vinny’s here, because I know. I feel it in my bones, in my blood…the crackle in the air, the unmistakable tension that tells me he’s near. Scanning the room, I turn…it doesn’t take me very long to find him. He’s found me across the room, before my eyes find his. Staring daggers, he takes long strides to make his way to me. Seeing the look in his eyes, my brain tells me to flee, yet my heart has me frozen in place.
“What do you want?” he asks, his words scathing through gritted teeth.
“I wanted to see if you were okay.”
“I’m fine. Is that it?” He folds his arms across his chest, feigning indifference, although I know better. He’s hurt and in protective mode.
“I’m sorry, Vinny.”
“You’ve said that. Anything else?”
“I never meant to hurt you.”
“You didn’t.”
I lower my head. I feel ashamed for what I’ve done, but I have no shame in telling him how I feel. I need him to know. “I love you.” A tear runs down my face.
“If you’re done, you can get the hell out, Liv.” He turns his back and storms away angrily.
Chapter 49
Liv
Whoever said that time heals all wounds obviously never met Vince Stone. I didn’t expect him to call me, certainly not come running to tell me he forgives me. Yet I also didn’t expect it to end this way either. My heart keeps beating, but with each beat it withers just a little more, forlornly unhappy.
“When are you telling Sleezeball?” Ally leans over the back of the couch, her arms dangling as she talks to me while I pack things up from the kitchen.
“The article is due Friday. So I figured I’d see him then. Don’t want to give them any time to do any of their own digging. The story was supposed to run in the paper the day after the fight.”
“What about your trip to D.C.?”
“Flying down Friday night. If all goes well, I’ll be back to Chicago by Saturday afternoon.” I sigh. “I really do want to see his fight. I know he doesn’t want me there, but I want to be there anyway.”
Picking up the vase of dried wild flowers I’d set on the counter the afternoon Vinny brought them to me, I pick one out and dump the rest in the garbage. I’m just not ready to let go of everything yet.
I’ve been packing for a week. My job in New York starts in seven days. I couldn’t save Vinny from being hurt, the least I could do is leave him and his mother to struggle through everything privately. Give them the dignity and respect they deserve to work it out without being in the public eye. Not surprisingly, the results of the DNA test proved positive. Senator Knight is Vinny’s father, but no one will ever know it. Ally and I burned the results and Senator Knight will be happy I’ve decided to keep quiet. He’s so arrogant, he’ll probably even think I did it for him. That his threats scared me into submission.
“What am I going to do without you?” Ally sprawls onto the couch in an overzealous display of drama, one arm thrown across her face theatrically.
“You mean who’s going to drive you places?” I tease.
Sitting upright, her response reminds me just how much I’m going to miss her. “Well, with you in New York, at least now I’ll be bicoastal!”
“You do know Chicago isn’t on a coast, right?”
“Whatever.” She waves her hand at me like the details are just not important.
Friday morning, Summer smiles at me as I come out from Sleezeball’s office. Actually, it’s less of a smile and more of a gloat. Oddly, I feel a sense of relief telling the paper that I wasn’t able to connect Senator Knight with Vinny. It’s like closing a door behind heartbreak and pain. I only hope that Vinny and his mother find a way to heal, to get through the agony that years of lies and deceit have caused.
While I pack up the few personal belongings I kept at my desk, Summer sits back in her chair, smiling like a Cheshire cat. She’s won, yet I can’t help feel pity on her for what she had to resort to in order to get to the finish line.
“You know Olivia, you shouldn’t feel too badly. If it wasn’t the story, it would have been something else.” She pauses and I pretend I don’t hear her as I clear out the rest of my drawers. Getting a last rise out of me is just what she wants. “That man is just way too much man for you to handle.”
The need to defend him wins out, even though he’s not mine to defend anymore. “You don’t know a thing about Vinny.”
“Maybe that was true, but I know he came to my apartment a few nights ago. And not yours.”
I take a deep breath, digging deep to quell my rising anger. Closing my eyes, I try desperately to rise above it. But I’m a writer, and closing my eyes just brings the visual of the words to life in my head. And it’s more than I can bear to witness. Unable to stop myself, I take the two steps to walk around my desk to where she’s standing and pull back and smack her square across the face. Her head flails to the side with the power behind my angry slap.
Hand stinging, box in hand, head held high, I don’t look back as I walk out of the Daily Sun Times.
Chapter 50
Vince
Underneath the arena, less than an hour to go until the biggest fight of my life, and I’m fucking miserable. Finding it difficult to pretend to be psyched up for a fight that I know I can’t win, I’m glad for the chaos in the locker room that surrounds a championship fight. Otherwise I’d have to deal with Nico one on one. The fucked up part is I feel worse for doing this to Nico than I do for myself.
Over on the other side of the room, I see him talking to a reporter. He talks about the years that we’ve worked together with pride. He’s a pain in the ass, always has his nose in my business, yet I don’t know where I’d be without him. In more ways than one.
Half an hour before we have to go up for announcements, Nico kicks everyone out of the room. Wrapping my hands, he starts with the pep talk I knew was bound to come.
“You’re better than this guy.”
“I know.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Watch for when he drops his left…”
“I know.”
“And don’t let him take you to the ground.”
“I know.”
“Well if you know everything, what the hell do you need me here for?” Nico jokes, giving me a playful smack across the face.
“Listen, Nico,” I pause, not sure of my words, not wanting to come out all sappy, sounding like a pussy…so I go for simple. “Thank you.”
“I’m your trainer, you don’t have to thank me. I get a cut, remember?” He smiles.
“I meant for everything.”
Finishing the tape, Nico stills and looks up at me. A nod that says more than words ever could. He slaps one arm around my shoulder. “Come on, let’s go kick some ass.”
Standing at the back of the arena behind closed doors, I wait as the crowd cheers after the announcer calls my opponent into the ring. Head bowed, I close my eyes, taking in the electricity of the moment. A moment that should be mine. Ten years in the making, and I’m finally here. The doubters never thought I’d make it. Thinking back, neither did I most days. I spent my life swimming upstream, but sometimes…sometimes, it just got to be too much. So I’d stop swimming and just let the current take me for a ride, never knowing where I was going to land.