Fighting Solitude (On The Ropes #3)(68)

The room erupted into a combination of gasps and curses. Five sets of eyes all landed on me, but mine stayed leveled on Liv.

“He was waiting for you?” I asked in a malevolent whisper, my muscles going taut.

“I’m fine,” she reiterated.

Which was fantastic. I needed her to be fine because I was as far from fine as a person could get.

I sucked in a deep breath and then held it. Cracking my neck, I motioned for her to continue, hopefully to the part where he had been hit by a truck when he’d left.

“I guess he saw the picture of us together. And…uhhh, well… He came to say congrats. Sorta. But it was fine. He left. All’s good. Don kinda saved the day.” She was rambling—and lying some kind of serious.

Davenport was a big enough * to show up just to piss me off, but with our fight less than two months away, he wouldn’t have left without delivering a message.

“What. Happened?” I pushed.

Her eyes jumped to Till’s then to Flint’s. Then she moved toward me. “Turn around.”

I shook my head.

No way I was going to let her to bury her face in my back, hiding the truth in her eyes so she could feed me more glossed-over shit. I wanted the entire motherf*cking story, especially the little details she was going to try to leave out.

“It wasn’t as bad as it’s going to sound,” she whined.

Which only meant it was far worse and she was trying to soften the blow for me.

I ground my teeth and prepared myself. “I’m not asking again, Rocky. Tell me all of it.”

Her shoulders fell, and she rolled her eyes. “He called me a whore. Pinned me against the car and then kissed me.” She rested her hands on my chest and rushed out, “But I swear to you, I’m fine. Please don’t kill him.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“He kissed you?”

“Oh my God!”

“What the f*ck.”

Those all echoed behind me, but I couldn’t make out who’d said what around the blood roaring in my ears.

Liv could beg every day for the rest of her life, but I was still going to kill him for so much as breathing her air.

Blinding rage consumed me.

The last thing I remembered was Liv standing in front of me, pleading for his life, before I found myself being physically restrained across the hood of my car.

“Stop!” Till said, wrestling me down.

“Let me the f*ck go!” I seethed, rearing back to head-butt him.

He quickly dodged it and forced me back down. “Chill out and get your shit together. Davenport will still be an * in ten minutes. Liv is freaking the f*ck out right now though.”

My senses started to return to me, one by one, and I heard Liv screaming my name from inside the house. Flint was blocking the front door, but his gaze was aimed over his shoulder at me.

“Shit,” I breathed, the fight ebbing from my system.

My knuckles ached, and my lungs felt as if I’d just gone ten rounds.

“There you go,” Till encouraged. “Now, take a damn breath and calm down.”

“Let me go,” I replied, my voice jagged.

I was slowly coming down when Liv shrieked my name again.

“Let me go!” I repeated, becoming agitated all over again.

He didn’t. He leaned into my ear. “I know how you feel, Q, but I swear to God there is nothing you can do to Davenport right now. And all you are going to do is ruin your own career by trying. Let’s call the cops. Let’s call the boxing administration. Let’s call Slate and get him to throw some weight at this. But you, right now, need to get your ass inside and take care of your girl.”

He was right. I needed to take care of Liv. But he was so f*cking wrong about the rest. The cops wouldn’t do shit. The boxing administration would do even less. Slate could throw all the weight in the world behind this kind of attack, but it wouldn’t change the fact that it had still happened.

And I hadn’t been there to protect her.

Two weeks into our relationship and I was already treading dangerously close to failing yet another woman.

And, this time, it was Liv.

Not a consequence in the world could sway me from making Davenport pay.

And I knew that that was exactly why Liv was freaking out. She knew me all too well.

It was my turn to lie.

“Okay,” I told Till. “Call the cops and f*cking let me up so I can get to her.”





I had expected Quarry to lose his shit, and it was precisely why I’d made sure his brothers were there when I’d dropped the bomb. They could at least physically prevent him from going off the deep end until I had a chance to calm him down and talk some sense into him.

However, I never could have expected the scene that played out.

His face turned red, pure madness brewing in his thunderous eyes. I was still clinging to the front of shirt when he spun on a heel. His powerful stomps carried him to the door, Till barely managing to get in front of him before Quarry threw a punch. And it was thrown with such a force I knew that it had been intended for Davenport and not his brother. Quarry had one hell of a temper, but this was something else altogether. Intense anger rolled off him as Till fought to pry the keys from his hand.

I was able to hold it together until Till dodged a punch and Quarry’s hand went through the sheet rock. That’s when I lost my shit too.