Free SWOLLEN: A Secret Baby Sports Romance by Stephanie Brother Page B

convince me, so, as much as I want to call her too, I hold off.
    I gather as much information as possible about babies and I buy Maggie a teething toy just in case she doesn’t have one. I’d buy that kid and her mother the world if I could and I knew it would make them happy.
    I go to one of the fights, but I don’t compete. I do it to get out of the house, soak up the atmosphere and distract myself from having to wait to see her. My wrist is still fucked up from the last encounter, but the guys I see are so bad I could probably beat them all with one hand tied behind my back.
    The atmosphere chokes me after a while and even though it’s been part of my life for so long, I can’t bare to spend more that fifteen minutes in the throng. I can’t wait for this to be over, but when it is, I’ll have to find something else to be able to support my new family.
    Maggie can’t have a daddy wound up in this world, no matter how much it pays and no matter how good he is at it. I would take flipping burgers at six bucks an hour with Maggie and Jasmine rather than ten thousand dollars for ten minutes work and never see them again.
    On the last day before I get to call Jasmine again, I have an appointment with my financial manager to settle this month’s transaction. We have a cordial, almost friendly relationship, despite the fact that behind his business suit, sits a man capable of committing the most heinous crimes imaginable, and I hate coming here, but I know that every time I do is one time less I have to again.
    In the ring, one on one, I’d destroy him. Here, out in the real world, this man terrifies me so much I feel like even if I thought about him in a bad way he’d be able to pick up on it and then punish me severely.
    Despite all of that, I get the impression he likes me. I’ve always paid my debts on time, I’ve never complained about the high rate of interest and I’ve never proved anything but reliability.
    “ Almost paid off”, Frank says, marking the amount in his journal, which he gets me to sign alongside his name.
    “ Almost”, I say.
    “ Something bothering you, Liam?” he asks. “You look concerned today.”
    I shrug. “Wrist hurts, which meant I couldn’t fight this week, maybe that’s it.”
    Frank, the perceptive fucker that he is, knows I’m lying. He closes his journal, leans back into his chair and says, “huh”, before tilting his head to the side and giving me the long stare.
    I know all about this man. I’ve never seen him kill anyone, but I know if he wanted to, he could make me disappear. I’m not in debt to his organization for anything more than money, so I feel like I’m on relatively safe ground, but that’s a bit like saying I’m standing on a wedge of ice while it floats down a lava river.
    “ I like you, Liam”, he says. “You’re a good fighter. A crowd pleaser, but talented too.”
    “ Thank you”, I say.
    “ You ever hear of Francisco O’Connor?”
    I shake my head.
    “ They used to call him Irish. Italian mother, Irish father, best fighter I ever saw. Maybe a bit before your time. He was unstoppable, used to dance around his opponents and toy with them. Never got beaten, not once.”
    “ What happened to him?” I ask, already not liking where this story is going.
    Frank pauses for a while to take a bottle of whiskey out of the desk drawer to his right, which he places on the desk between us with two tumblers.
    “ He found a girl”, Frank says. “Same thing that happens to all men eventually, he fell in love.”
    Frank pours the whiskey and passes one of the tumblers over to me.
    “ Who is she?” he asks.
    “ That obvious, huh?” I say.
    “ I know that look, Liam. I’ve seen it a number of times in a number of different people.”
    The last thing I want to do is tell him about my family, but then if I lie to him, he’s going to know it too. I sip strategically at the whiskey, stalling for time, while I think how I’m going to proceed.
    “ The