Free Fight for Her#3 by JJ Knight Page A

restaurant. I clutch my purse and the new phone, unwilling to leave it behind for even a few minutes. My messages should patch through anytime now. I know there’s notes from Lily that Delores typed. Parker has talked to them several times, and Lily keeps asking if I’m going to write her back.
    The bathroom is as sumptuous as any fancy house I could have ever imagined. Cushioned benches with gold trim. Giant mirrors. Fresh flowers in vases on every surface.
    “See,” Jo whispers. “There she is.”
    An elderly woman is sitting at the end of the row of individual sinks, all gleaming white with gold faucets.
    “Take a seat,” Jo says and drops down on one of the benches in a sitting room adjacent to the one with the stalls. “Colt’s worried about what happened to you last night. Did anyone hurt you?”
    I want to laugh. Hurt me? In how many ways?
    My expression must make Jo anxious, because she asks, “Nothing really bad happened? Nobody…touched you? Or worse?”
    “No. No. Not like that.”
    She exhales in a big rush. “Okay. I figured you would tell Parker if that happened. Jax would want to know.”
    “They just tied me up with duct tape. They…threatened to do…that…a couple times. But some of the people weren’t on board with it. They wouldn’t help.”
    “Shit,” Jo says. “That had to be terrifying as hell.”
    “Wasn’t my best night,” I say.
    “Why don’t we get you home?” Jo says. “When is your flight?”
    “Not until midnight.”
    “I bet we can get you something sooner. Do you want that?” Her face looks so young, so worried. I know we’re about the same age, but she is so petite, I always forget that she used to be known for going ballistic on other women in the fighting cage.
    I wonder for a second why she doesn’t fight anymore.
    “It’s okay,” I say. “It’s really just a few more hours.”
    “All right.” She looks around. “I don’t know how you grew up, but this is a long, long way from the projects for me.”
    I glance up at the gilded trim on the ceiling. “My father is homeless,” I say simply.
    “Really?”
    “Yeah. I never could figure out a way to help him.”
    She sits back against the wall. “I only met my mother a few months ago. She ran away from the hospital the night I was born.”
    “Sounds like we’ve both had lives of wealth and ease,” I say, a laugh starting to bubble up.
    “And they just keep getting easier,” she says. “I get shot. You get kidnapped. Maybe we should run from these guys!”
    Now we’re both laughing. It seems so ridiculous. “They should make a movie about our lives,” I say.
    “Ooooh, I think you should be played by Zooey Deschanel,” Jo says.
    “And you should be Jennifer Lawrence!” I tell her.
    “Who would be Zero?” Jo asks, and the question makes us laugh so hard that I almost miss it when my phone starts going crazy with alerts.
    “It’s working!” I say.
    There are messages from Delores and Lily. One from work.
    Then two I don’t recognize.
    I scroll through, and freeze. “Oh my God,” I say.

    The first one.

    Found ya.

    And the next.

    Still flashing those green panties like a whore?

    I start sobbing and hiccuping and retching at the same time. I can’t control anything about my body and slide off the bench.
    “What is it, Maddie?” Jo asks. She kneels next to me. “Talk to me.”
    I shake my head and clutch my phone.
    “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.”
    I stumble until I’m standing up. I keep shaking my head.
    The hand-washing lady doesn’t look our way. I turn to the door. I have to get out of Vegas. I have to go now. If they know where I am, they’ll know Lily. I have to get home. I have to get to my baby girl.
    “Maddie, let me help you,” Jo says.
    But I can’t do that. She’ll involve Parker. I have to get away. But she’ll follow. Then he will. My only hope is to escape all this. Far away. Gone again. Where no one can find us. Not Parker. Not these crazy