Free Bullet Proof: A MacKenzie Family Novella (The MacKenzie Family) by Avery Flynn Page B

antsy. Every time I turned around I saw something that made me think of the fight. My brain was on overload. I had to get out of my hotel room. Figuring a few rounds of Blackjack would calm me down, I went to the casino floor."
    How many times had he wished he could take that decision back? A million? Probably that much each and every fucking day.
    "A few hands in, this asshole and his girlfriend sat down. The girl had no idea what she was doing and kept making mistakes that messed up the cards for the rest of the table. Well, the asshole got snarky, then he got belligerent, and then he got threatening." The dealer had motioned security over, but it was too late. "When he nearly backhanded her at the table, I lost it. All I could think of was hearing my mom's body hit the wall after my dad had tossed her like a rag doll. I'd been too small to help my mom, but I wasn't too small that night at the casino."
    He could still hear the crunch of the other man's nose and the hard thud of his unconscious body hitting the ground, still feel the rush of raw power and righteousness that had surged through him as he loomed over the man. He'd wanted the asshole to get up, to try to take a swing if only so he could batter him to the ground again. All the impotent fury from his childhood that he tapped into when he was in the ring had finally found a home outside of it and it felt good. In that moment, he was a protector. Finally.
    "Next thing I knew, I was in cuffs with the cop reminding me that as a licensed boxer, my hands were considered lethal weapons. If the guy didn't pull through, I'd be facing a murder charge." Needing something to loosen the remembered panic twisting his spleen, he threaded his hands in Bianca's long hair, letting the silky feel of the strands smooth away the rough edges of fear. "He regained consciousness a little while later. No permanent damage, but he was black and blue and taped up all over. I don't know what the boxing commission did to cover it up, but they did. They probably paid the guy off. All I know was that before the sun was up, I was back in my room with Freddie tearing off strips of my hide. He was so mad his eyes were bulging."
    The feel of her smooth hair looping in waves over his fingers wasn't enough to distance him from what had happened next, so he surrendered to it and let the guilt and shame press down on his lungs until breathing started to seem optional. As if sensing his misery, she snuggled in closer and wound one leg around his hip until he was wrapped up in her and his lungs remembered how to operate.
    "Like the young punk that I was, I zoned out and started thinking about the fight. I worked my ass off to ignore him right up until the moment Freddie dropped dead in front of me." His throat closed up tight and he ground his teeth together as he tried to block out the image of Freddie's lifeless body so still in the middle of the hotel room floor while chaos erupted around them. His fault. All his fault. "The commission wouldn't let me cancel the fight. Not after everything they'd done to make sure the fight would happen after I'd knocked the asshole out. So I walked into the ring that night and never took a swing."
    The fight had still gone six rounds before he went down. However, unlike Freddie, he got up again. He walked away from it all, which led to a quick divorce from a wife who'd loved his lifestyle, not him, and then he had come home to Ft. Worth, where he'd vowed never to make the same mistake again.
    Bianca squeezed, giving him a full body hug. "Taz, I'm so sorry, but it wasn't your fault."
    "Yes, it was." The need to move, to dodge, to jab surged through him. He tossed off her hold and bounded out of the bed. Balancing his weight on the balls of his feet, he swung his arms in a wide arc as sweat slickened his overheated skin. He needed the heavy bag. He needed twelve rounds inside the ropes. He needed to get the hell away from Bianca and all the ways she made him remember