Free Dirty Fighter: A Bad Boy MMA Romance by Roxy Sinclaire, Natasha Tanner

and a couple of them were as short as three minutes. I could feel my turn slowly coming up, turning my stomach in anticipation.
    The fights weren’t as reigned in as they were in official matches. If I had to say why, I’d bet that the referee had money on one or the other and was hoping drawing it out longer would be to his advantage. No match was actually ended on a technicality, but if you got enough warnings you weren’t ushered over to Ross to talk after the fight even if you won. I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of money was changing hands that night.
    The fights went quickly and soon Ricky was motioning me down to the ring. I chugged half of a beer for a little bit more courage. When it was my turn I couldn’t quite get all of the noise around me out of my head.
    The fighter they had me up against was older than me, and bald. He was taller than me by a few inches, but I wasn’t worried. I’d taken worse than him before.
    The fight started and he came right at me.
    I didn’t think he’d move so fast? Fuck. He got a couple hits on me, my left shoulder, even my ribs. They hurt like hell, I hadn’t been hit properly since that night I killed my dad. I hadn’t been hurt truly since then, and it caught me off guard and left me blocking more than anything. I had to get his ass off me, so I kicked him back hard in the stomach—and it felt right. My foot against his soft ribs felt right.
    He started back at me, all fury and speed, and something changed. I looked up at his face as he turned around and I wanted to puke. His features had muddled into some deformed mess, not the man I had squared up against. I hadn’t punched him in the face, but it was just so damn different than it was just a few minutes ago. There, in front of me on the mat, running towards me, was my dad’s face. Not the bloated corpse, but my flesh and blood living father.
    He came at me again and I was done.
    I was fucking done being hit.
    I kicked his stomach, and when he doubled over I just went at that face. I gave him my fists again and again, rearranging, changing. I honestly wasn’t sure this time if the blood smell was my nose or his face. The referee didn’t stop me, so I kept wailing on him.
    I had so much pent up anger over the last year. I wasn’t allowed to feel angry because I was bogged down in so much fucking guilt. Fuck my dad! The asshole didn’t do shit for me except make sure that I hated every damn day I was alive. He had forced me to defend my own life since I was a kid. Told me I wasn’t worth shit when he literally did nothing to earn anything he had.
    Let me believe that my mother’s death was my fault.
    I was punching my dad in that moment, not using Jiu Jitsu, straight up swinging like boxing until the referee had to stop me. I had a tooth partially buried in my finger when I finally looked at my banged up hands later.
    His face was busted completely, he had to be carried off and his face was just pouring out blood. Somewhere in the back of my mind I couldn’t figure out how he could survive blows like that, but my dad couldn’t even take on a side table.
    I had to catch my breath; I stepped to the side and opened a water bottle.
    “Ross wants to see you,” Ricky said, his goofy smile was almost ear to ear. I can’t imagine what kind of commission he got from finding prize fighters. No wonder he’d been so friendly.
    “I’ll be there in a sec,” I said, pouring my water over my hands before I wiped them off with a towel. I’d have to get something to stop them from getting infected later.
    Ross was sitting off to the side, a beer in hand and a smile on his face.
    “Holy shit, now that wasn’t a fight—that was a freaking crime scene!” he exclaimed. Laughing, he stood up and shook my hand with his thick sausage fingers, turning back to look at the current fight that was being set up.
    “Thank you,” I said, still coming down from the high of it. The high I only ever got from fighting, from