**********
Right as Rich tells Jon that he’s been divorced from his second wife for ten years, that he’s done with commitment, done with marriage, and perfectly happy banging his young secretary... Lucy comes back from the bathroom and reclaims her seat.
“Ugh, I told you not to talk about her around me,” she says in disgust, referring to Rich’s second wife – her stepmom. “And I think it’s totally gross that you sleep with your secretary, dad. She’s, like... my age.”
“Oh, she’s a year or two older than you, my dear.” He winks at her. Then he looks at Jon. “So, let’s get this meeting started, shall we? I’m curious where you learned to fight the way you did last night, Jon. Ever fought professionally?”
“Nope, never. Last night... I just did what felt right. I felt threatened, so I reacted. Everything I know about protecting myself, though, I picked up between my police training and my time in the Marine Corps.”
“I knew you were in the military!” Rich exclaims, shooting a quick ‘I told you so’ glance in Lucy’s direction. “I could tell by the pants you had on last night. I don’t know if you know this, Jon, but the guy you thumped on last night – Victor – he was professionally trained. He was my fighter. I had him working with the best Mixed Martial Arts trainer in the business. I’m not a guy who likes to lose money.” He winks.
“Danny told me he was good, that he’d never lost, but he didn’t say Victor was a pro. Losing money sucks, and I’m sorry about that, but like I said, I reacted. I did what I had to do.”
“You put him in a coma.”
TWELVE
Jon must’ve misheard.
“I did what?” Shock spreads across his face. “Wow, I didn’t think I’d... I mean...”
Rich raises his hand to cut him off. “It’s fine, Jon; really, it is. You told me on the phone earlier that you walked away with five hundred last night, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Here’s the deal. If you fight for me, that five hundred becomes two thousand.”
“Now that’s more like it,” Jon says. “Sounds good to...”
“But there’s a catch,” Rich interrupts again. “You’ll train with the same guy who’d been training Victor.” Rich was very excited to see what kind of fighter Jon could turn into with some real training. “And I want to keep you a secret.”
“Keep me a secret? Why?”
“To keep the other gamblers from finding out that you’re working for me. Your pal Danny was right – Victor hadn’t lost – until last night, of course. And I’m glad it happened, actually, because my deep-pocketed gambling buddies with fighters of their own were starting to get upset.”
Rich pauses, takes a quick swig of water and gets right back to talking.
“So what I’m going to do is bet against you every now and then, to avoid raising anymore red flags with the other gamblers. And when I do bet against you, you have to take a dive. You have to lose on purpose. You have to go in there and willingly get your ass kicked. No exceptions. What’s good about it for you is, dives pay double – four thousand instead of two.”
“Interesting... very interesting,” Jon replies. “It’ll be hard for me to lose on purpose. The extra money, though, does sweeten the deal...”
But does it sweeten the deal enough?
Jon had no problem putting himself into a situation where physical pain was virtually guaranteed, but letting himself surrender like that? Summoning the willpower to override his ingrained survival instincts, what he’d been born with combined with what had been drilled into him through training...
...turning off his will to win and letting somebody walk all over him, own him, believe he’s better than him, tougher than him, stronger than him?
As hard as it would be and as much as he didn’t want to do it, Jon would. For the money, and for a better life with Tara. He’d do anything for her.
“One question, though,” Jon says to Rich. “Why me?”
Rich considers that for a moment. “Because I know a wise investment when I see one. We can make a lot of money together, you and me. Because you look like a guy who could use a break... a guy who has been waiting for a break for way too long. And lastly, because you’re a Marine. You’re used to being told what to do and doing what you’re told without question. You’re a guy who can take orders.”
That last part didn’t sit too well with Jon. Rage stirred deep within, but the lure of earning a lot of money – doing something he was obviously pretty good at – was strong enough to keep his emotions in check.
“I’m not in the Marines anymore,” Jon replies. “Therefore I don’t take orders anymore. But if you ask me nicely, if you treat me with respect, then we may have a deal.”
Jon doesn’t give Rich enough time to respond.
“You know, Rich... just out of curiosity, how much are you worth? Just how deep are your pockets?”
“Oh I’ve got about three hundred in the bank right now,” Rich replies.
“Thousand?”
Rich smiles a devilish smile. “Try million.”
Jon’s eyes explode. “If you’ve got that kind of dough, why are you trying to make more? Why gamble on ungoverned, no-rules fights underneath the biggest and most profitable real estate company in the city?”
Rich’s smile looks even more wicked than before. “Because I happen to own the company sitting above the cage. This restaurant we’re sitting in right now? Yup, this is mine, too.”
His smile takes a hike as he stops to take a breath. Rich was suddenly serious and Jon couldn’t get a word in, even if he’d wanted to.
“Listen here, you little shit. I run this city. If you knew how much I own, how much power I have, how much I control... well, it would probably be too much for your Marine brain to comprehend. And now I own you. I control you.”
Jon wants to tear his head off, but Rich isn’t done trying to establish dominance.
“The fact of the matter, Jon, is I now have no fighter because of you. If you’re smart, if you’re a good boy, you’ll do as I say and I’ll make you a very rich man. Well, rich in your terms. You wouldn’t get my kind of rich if you lived to be four hundred years old.”
Lucy smiles at her father’s show of force. She looks at Jon like she thinks she owns him just as much as her daddy thinks he does.
Jon had plenty that he wanted to say; an armory full of verbal ammunition, eager to do some damage... but in an exercise of self control he looked Rich right in the eye and said the words he knew would make his financial worries disappear:
“You’ve got yourself a fighter.”
THIRTEEN
Jon belonged to Rich now.
Fighting only happened once per week, but every day in between, he was expected to train. Hours after Jon had verbally agreed to be Rich’s fighter, Rich introduced him to Oscar. Oscar Brown, the best Mixed Martial Arts trainer money could buy.
“So you’re my new ball of clay,” Oscar says, extending his hand toward Jon.
“I suppose I am,” Jon replies, returning the handshake. “I’m excited to see what you can mold me into.”
Jon humored Oscar – made him think that he believed training with him would do him some good – but it was all an act. He knew that professional training, no matter how expensive, or how good... meant squat for the type of fighting he’d signed up for.
He knew that Oscar couldn’t turn him into a better fighter. It didn’t matter how much he made him sweat, how many ‘moves’ he taught him, or how many padded ‘practice’ fights he lined up for him between the real ones.
Had winning or losing when he got in that cage depended on points, scoring, technical things – had he been pursuing the sport of fighting – Oscar’s knowledge would’ve proven useful. But it hadn’t done a thing for Victor, had it?
Jon didn’t want to end up like Victor, so he viewed his days with Oscar more as exercise sessions than an education in how to win fights. He thought
his natural instinct to protect himself would be enough to win. And he was right.
Before he could blink he was eight weeks into his new fighting lifestyle. Eight Thursdays with Rich and Lucy standing outside his corner of the cage, eight flawless victories, and eight two-thousand-dollar paydays to show for it.
Jon couldn’t believe he was getting paid to do this.
His work week was simple:
He’d workout four to six hours per day – climb into the cage once per week and spend sixty seconds, at the most, knocking somebody out – and do it all over again the following week. It was the easiest money he’d ever earned.
And he didn’t have a problem with Rich making even easier money. Rich never got in the cage himself, and he paid Jon just a small fraction of the profit Jon generated for him, but Jon didn’t care. Two thousand per week was plenty. He was happy with it.
Rich was happy, too. He started treating Jon like the son he never had. “Jon, if you keep this up,” Rich says, “I just might have to bring you into the family. I’d certainly sleep better at night knowing my Lucy was safe with a man of your... skills.”
Jon hadn’t told Rich about Tara. And he didn’t plan on it. It was none of his business. But listening to Rich hint at a potential romance between him and Lucy, it made Jon think of Tara... as if he hadn’t been thinking about her enough already.
He’d found himself thinking about her all day, every day – much more often than he would’ve considered to be healthy. He would’ve acted on those thoughts, he would’ve tried to end their break and get back together with her, but he didn’t want to push things. He didn’t want to force it.
He didn’t want to be that ‘needy’ guy and snuff out the attraction she’d so clearly shown him when she showed up on his doorstep and just had to have him. He cherished the memory, held onto it tight, and relived it over and over again in his mind. It motivated him, it made him train harder, and it made him fight harder.
Jon hadn’t seen Tara at all since that one, passion-filled morning. They’d spoken on the phone about once a week over Jon’s first two months of fighting, but they hardly ever went deeper than small talk. She was busy. He was busy. She was so busy with her own life that she hadn’t even asked what was going on in his.
It was hard for Jon to keep the good news to himself. He’d wanted to give Tara an update ever since his first two-thousand-dollar night fighting for Rich. Now, with more than ten-thousand-dollars sitting in his bank account and finally feeling good about having a reliable way to keep the money flowing in, Jon wanted to tell Tara what he was up to more than he ever had before.
But it wasn’t time yet. Just a little bit longer, he told himself. He’d surprise her tomorrow, after winning his fight tonight.
It’s Thursday again.
Rich, wearing yet another attention-grabbing suit, tangerine orange this time, pulls Jon aside before he can climb into the cage. “The other gamblers are starting to get suspicious again,” he says. “I’m on the verge of losing their business. You’re unbeatable, Jon. It’s starting to become unfair.”
“I thought ‘fair’ went out the window with the rules,” Jon replies.
“Look, we’ve got a good thing going here. I love ya, kid, I really do. But I love money more. Business is business.”
Rich treating him like a son made Jon feel weird at first, but the weirdness went away. Having gone so long without a father figure in his life, Rich began to fill that void, began to close it. But turning on him like this, it re-opened the void and made it feel bigger than it was before. Jon didn’t know what to say, but he knew what was coming next.
“I’ve held off on doing this to you as long as I could,” Rich says. “It’s time for you to take a dive. But you’re a tough guy. You’ll be just fine,” he assures him. “And don’t forget,” he adds, “you get paid double tonight for losing on purpose!” – as if that was somehow supposed to make everything all better. Rich flashes Jon a thumbs-up. It isn’t returned.
Jon enters the cage, walks to his corner, and turns around to face Seth, his opponent for tonight. The guy he’s supposed to let kick his ass. He didn’t know a thing about Seth, but by the looks of him he was as far from being a ‘professional’ fighter as Jon was.
While Jon had shown up in his desert camouflage pants, same as every week, he was surprised to see Seth wearing farmer’s clothing – a red flannel shirt and blue jeans.
That’s about all Jon had time to notice before the bell rang and the fight was underway. He wasn’t sure he could go through with this; he’d never willingly lost a fight before.
Seth storms at him right away, fire in his eyes. Jon dodges his first couple swings, but the third connects and throws him into attack mode. Instinctively, Jon returns a blow of his own, sending Seth to the mat.
He isn’t moving.
One second... two seconds.
Jon looks through the cage and finds Rich sitting in the front row of spectators off to his right, staring back at him in a strange combination of disappointment and rage, shaking his head slowly, back and forth. He’s not in his corner tonight, but Jon doesn’t have time to think about it or wonder why.
Three seconds... four seconds.
Rich reaches into his tangerine jacket, going for the inner pocket, like he’s fishing out a checkbook... but instead he exposes his revolver just enough so Jon can see it.
He’s sending him a message:
End this fight the way I want you to end it, or I’ll end you.
He probably bet against me tonight, Jon thinks to himself. It’s all about the money with him... but as soon as he has the thought he realizes he’s not much different. Take the money away and Jon wouldn’t have himself in this mess.
Five seconds... six seconds.
Seth twitches back to life. He starts to get back to his feet.
Jon looks back over at Rich and gives him an understanding, reassuring nod... a wordless gesture saying ‘Yes, I will do what you want me to do.’
After regaining his footing, Seth closes the gap quickly. Jon fakes a jab with his left hand and intentionally misses with his right, stepping right into a stiff uppercut to the chin and a follow-up of five fast, sharp, devastating blows to the head.
Still conscious, Jon does his best to act like he’s been knocked out – to ‘sell’ the dive. He falls to the mat as limply and lifelessly as possible, and he closes his eyes, but Seth isn’t finished.
He straddles Jon and continues delivering hard blows to his head, one after the other, faster and faster. Fight back, Jon’s body tells him. But he doesn’t.
He forces himself to lay there and take the beating...
...wondering if he’d wake up after his world went black.
FOURTEEN
People.
Two people. Men.
Voices Jon doesn’t recognize. Talking, laughing.
He’s conscious enough to be aware of something cool, something damp raining down on him from above, but he’s not completely awake. He can’t move.
But he doesn’t know that yet.
He tries to move his head – nothing. His arms – nothing. His legs – nothing. No part of his body wants to cooperate with his mind.
He feels awake, he feels alive. Why can’t he move?
A familiar chopping sound mixes in with the strange voices talking and laughing, followed closely by another damp, heavy rain. Jon panics when he finally puts the pieces together: they’re burying him alive; suffocating him under a blanket of dirt.
After everything he’d been through, this was going to do him in? He couldn’t help but think so. No matter how much he screamed inside for his body to come back to life, it was no use.
Jon’s whole life didn’t flash before his eyes, the way people say it does when facing the reality of the end. No, as he began to accept his fate, only one image came into focus. He saw Tara, running by the river. He remembered their first meeting.
They’d been so happy together,
in the beginning... but a lot had happened since then. Adjusting to civilian life, ‘moving forward’ the way Tara had defined it, it had been so hard for Jon. He could’ve – should’ve tried harder. It wasn’t fair for him to expect Tara to be so patient with him. He’d taken her for granted.
He cursed himself and blamed himself for ruining the best thing that had ever happened to him, for being blind to how Tara was really feeling long enough for her to want to be away from him, to initiate the break.
He could’ve avoided this.
But no... he just had to wait to see Tara until he’d fought one more time. Eight fights weren’t enough. Had he gone to see her and told her what he’d been up to before that ninth fight, before Rich told him to lose, watched him get throttled, presumed him dead and told these two thugs to bury him...
...she would’ve begged him to quit, for fear that something bad might happen to him – like being buried alive, being aware of it, and not being able to do a damn thing about it.
Jon’s most painful regret was realizing that he was going to die without patching things up with Tara, without restoring what they had together to what it once was... or if he couldn’t, if it was out of his hands – at the very least, getting to see her just one more time so he could say goodbye.
He wasn’t a religious man, but he asked for a second chance. He hadn’t been in a church since his father’s funeral so many years ago, but he prayed. He promised to change his ways if some higher power could somehow reach down to him and wake him up, to spare his soul from this permanent dirt nap.
Nobody answered his prayers. Nobody believed his promise.
But somebody was listening, because right then, as Jon had given up his last ounce of hope and broken down in total acceptance, the rain stopped.
Fate changed its mind.
He hears his two gravediggers walking away, their voices becoming distant. They’d only thrown a thin layer of dirt over him, six inches at the most. He could still breathe.
OK, now’s your chance, Jon says to himself. Wake up. Wake UP. WAKE UP.
His eyes thrust open. His body roars to life.
He climbs out of the hole and starts tiptoeing his way toward the two voices, the two thugs with shovels, still laughing and joking with each other. Jon didn’t know burying a body could be so humorous.
Head pounding, struggling with dizziness, fighting the urge to throw up, he stumbles to catch up, doing his best to keep quiet and maintain the element of surprise. Had they not been laughing so hard, they would’ve surely heard him.
Closer... just a little bit closer. A few more steps.
He’s on them. Springing up from behind, Jon subdues thug number one with a quick snap of his neck. Thug number two, in the half-second he’d wasted by watching what Jon did to thug number one, unknowingly signed his own death warrant. There’s nothing he could’ve done to stop what was coming his way.
Jon lunges at him.
He socks him in the throat as hard as he can, collapsing his esophagus.
As number two goes to his back, assuming the universal body language that says ‘I’m choking,’ Jon picks up the shovel he’d dropped on his way down – the shovel number two had used to fling dirt on him not three minutes before.
“Move your hands!” Jon commands. “MOVE... YOUR... HANDS!!!”
Number two complies. Without remorse, without so much as a second thought, Jon stomps the sharpened spade through number two’s throat like a landscaper carving out a healthy chuck of sod.
Head still pounding, still dizzy and still nauseous, Jon stumbles his way to the silver Mercedes the two deceased thugs no longer had a use for.
He slides into the driver’s seat and assesses the damage done to his face in the rearview mirror. It was a bloody mess, already starting to bruise. Both eyes were puffed right up, almost swollen shut. It was a miracle he could see at all.
Jon hurries to the hospital. The receptionist takes one look at him and shows him to a room right away, no paperwork necessary. When the nurse walks in and looks at his face, it’s hard to say which of the two were more surprised.
“What... the hell... happened to you?!?!”
“Heather. Damn. I had no idea you were a nurse.” Jon pauses and it dawns on him that he hadn’t answered her question. “Oh, this? Just a bad night in the cage, that’s all.”
“Looks like a little more than that,” Heather says, concerned. “What’s with the dirt?”
Jon decides to tell the truth. He can trust Heather. “I was told to take a dive tonight. Lose on purpose. So I did. I let the guy knock me out. Apparently whoever dragged me outta the cage thought I was dead, because when I woke up I’d been nestled under a thin layer of God’s green earth. That’s what’s with the dirt.”
“Jesus...”
“Yeah. Hey, is Danny still fighting? Haven’t seen him around ‘the basement’ in weeks. Please, if he’s still involved, urge him to stay the hell away from Rich Payne.”
“No, he’s been done with that for about a month now. I got so worried about him I finally found the courage to beg him to stop. And he listened to me, for once.” Heather smiled.
Jon forced a smile of his own, but again he wished he’d gone to see Tara before his last fight. She would’ve pleaded that he stop, just like Heather had done with Danny, and he would’ve listened, just like Danny. “That’s good. Real good.”
“I know, I’m so happy he’s put that behind him.”
“Heather, I’d like to follow his lead. Danny got me into this. I followed him in. And now I’d like to follow him out.” Jon pauses to find the right words. “If I told you I had a plan to get back at the guy responsible for this,” Jon points to his beaten, swollen face, “would you and Danny be willing to help me?”
Before she can respond Jon realizes what he forgot to explain: what’s in it for them.
“Aside from the obvious victory of helping a guy you came onto in a bar serve up some very well-deserved revenge to a pompous jackass... the four of us will be set for life.”
She smiled at that, but she was confused. “Four of us?”
“Yes, four – you, Danny, me... and my girlfriend, Tara. If we work together and pull this off, we’ll never worry about money again. No more jobs, no more struggling to survive, no more letting life pass us by because we don’t have the time and money to do what we want to do. We’ll have what everybody chases, but very few can ever catch.”
“What’s that?” Heather asks.
“The American Dream.”
“We’re in!” Heather blurts.
Her quickness and enthusiasm almost startle Jon. “You don’t wanna ask Danny first?”
“Oh no,” Heather tells him, smiling. “This is, like, the only thing we’re ever on the same page about. Danny and I are struggling right now. I hate having to work and he hasn’t found anything he wants to do since he quit fighting... for me, the sweetheart... so yes, we’re in. We’re all over this; just tell us how we can help!”
“Excellent,” Jon says. “I’ll be in touch.”
FIFTEEN
He’d kept it from her long enough.
And considering the look the bank teller had given him during his quick withdrawal errand before hitting the road, the sunglasses he’d put on to hide the evidence of his beating the night before weren’t doing a damn bit of good. She would learn the truth today. Even if he said nothing, she’d worry. She’d have questions.
Questions he’d have no problem answering.
He’d made up his mind. He was done, out, finished.
Jon drives to the house of the woman who judged him, where Tara had been staying since the argument that made her walk out. He sees Tara’s car in the driveway. She’s out of work, just as he’d thought she’d be at this time on a Friday... but her mom’s car is nowhere to be found.
He picked a good time to come over and do this. He wanted to like Tara’s mother, but she was so closed-minded. She compared him to Tara’s d
irt-bag father without even knowing him. He didn’t need her negativity making an awkward conversation even more uncomfortable. To say he was thrilled that she wasn’t around for his visit would be the understatement of the year.
Tara was in the kitchen when he pulled in. She saw Jon’s black Tundra and went outside to greet him before he’d walked halfway to the front door. She ran to him and wrapped him up in a tight embrace reflective of how long they’d gone without seeing each other... so caught up in the moment that she didn’t notice his face.
“I missed you so much,” Tara says, burying her face in Jon’s shoulder and squeezing like she meant it.
“I missed you more,” Jon replies, kissing the top of her head and inhaling the tropical shampoo scent radiating from her hair. Mango never smelled so good.
“So,” Tara begins to say as their bodies disengage, “how have you...”
She stops mid-question, the last word caught in her throat, and stares at Jon with the same combination of surprise and concern as the bank teller he’d seen on his way here.
“It’s really not as bad as it looks, babe,” Jon says, carefully removing the sunglasses from his face. “It’s actually a lot better than it was.”
Tara’s jaw drops. Her hands instinctively rise to hide her O-shaped mouth. How had she not seen this before the hug? The bruises creeping out from under the sunglasses? “What... what happened?” she finally asks. What else could she say?
Seeing the look he’d put on her face, the pain in her eyes that only he was responsible for, was not worth that one extra fight. But what’s done was done. There was nothing Jon could change about what had already happened. “Before I get into that,” he says, “I want you to know upfront that I’m done, I’m out, and I’m never going back.”
Dodging the question gave her three more to ask. “Done with what? Out of what? Never going back to what?”
“Fighting.”
“Fighting?”
“Yeah, fighting... cage fighting, more specifically.” Jon takes her back in time. “Remember how, when we last saw each other, I mentioned that I had a good lead on a job? That ‘job’ was fighting in a cage, once a week. For money.”
“That was the job you wanted to surprise me with... if it worked out? That’s what you’ve been doing these past couple months? Getting your face beat-in once a week? And here I thought you’d gone out and gotten a real job...”
Jon wasn’t crazy about the way she’d said ‘real’ – as if, yet again, what he’d decided to do wasn’t good enough, but he’d come into this knowing she’d be upset.
So he didn’t let himself get angry with her. Instead he reached into his pocket and pulled out the four thousand dollars in cash he’d withdrawn from his bank account that day, just to prove a point. He fanned the hundred dollar bills like a deck of cards.
“See this?” Jon asks her. “This is four grand – my pay for the last couple weeks – MUCH more than I saw as a Marine, a cop, an ice cream stacker, or anything I tried to do online.”
Tara was astounded. “That’s for two weeks?”
“Yup. Two grand per fight. And for the record,” he says, smiling, “I didn’t ‘get my face beat-in’ every time. Last night was the first time I got touched at all, honestly, but I didn’t really have a choice.”
“Because the guy you were fighting was better than you?”
Jon laughs. “No... because the guy paying me told me to take a dive, to lose on purpose. I took the beating because the guy paying me said dives pay double. So he still owes me four thousand, for last night, but I doubt I’ll see it.”
“Why?” Tara asks.
“Because he thinks I’m dead. These fights, they have no rules. There are no refs to stop the fighting when there’s a clear knockout – it’s very dangerous, and the loser, quite often, doesn’t walk away. When I let myself get knocked down last night, the guy I was fighting didn’t stop. He kept pounding on me until I blacked out...
“...and when I woke up, I was out of the cage, outside, in the middle of nowhere, and two guys I’d never seen before were throwing shovelfuls of dirt on me; they were burying me alive, Tara.”
Seeing the cash with her own eyes, so many crisp one hundred dollar bills, fanned out so nicely... Tara almost got herself to the point of agreeing with Jon fighting. But that all went out the window with the ‘buried alive’ story.
He saw her expression darkening and jumped in to cheer her up.
“But it’s all behind me now. I promise. I’m done fighting for that jackass who, clearly, couldn’t care less about my wellbeing. I’m done fighting, period. And I’ve got more good news for you, babe.”
Before Jon could continue, Tara cut in. “I’ve got some news for you, too,” she says, “and I’d like to tell you before you say anything else. It’s... life changing.”
“Of course,” Jon replies. “What’s up?”
She looks him in the eyes. She takes his hands in hers. “I’m pregnant.”
“What?” He smiles ear to ear. “You are?”
Was he surprised? Of course he was.
But he wasn’t mad about it; he was ecstatic.
“Two questions,” Jon says. “Number one, when did you find out? Number two, and much more importantly... am I the father?” He loved being a smartass.
Tara slaps him, giggling. “I found out yesterday. And of course you’re the father, you’re the only person I’ve had sex with since we met. You’re not upset? You’re not scared? Because I am...”
“I’m not upset at all, babe.” He was, however, a little confused as to how it happened, but his mind travels back to their last passionate encounter with each other. And then he remembers. He remembers how quickly it had escalated; that he hadn’t worn a condom, that he hadn’t even had time to think about putting one on – it had happened so fast. Considering how effortlessly he put two and two together and cracked the case, Jon could’ve been a detective. “We’ve got nothing to be scared of,” he assures her.
“How can you be so sure?” Tara challenges him. “Yeah, you made some good money doing your fighting thing, but it almost killed you, and like you said, you’re done with it. Which I’m very happy about, that you’re done with it, because I need you around, Jon.” Music to his ears. “But the reality is, we’re going to be parents. I’m still working two jobs, jobs that I won’t be able to keep as my pregnancy moves along, and as of now you’re back to not working. So I ask you again, how are you so certain that we’ve got nothing to be scared of?”
“My other piece of good news. That is why I’m so sure,” Jon says. “Quit your jobs.”
“Huh?”
“You heard me. Quit your jobs. Both of them. In less than a week, neither one of us are ever going to have to work again. That’s a promise.”
“Why? Jon, what are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about revenge.”
“Revenge? Revenge on who?”
Jon points to his still-bruised, still-swollen face. “The guy responsible for this.”
“I don’t get it.”
“We’re gonna get all the money we’ll ever need from a guy who doesn’t deserve it, a guy who isn’t doing any good with it, a guy who keeps getting richer off the blood, sweat, and deaths of men he doesn’t respect or care about.”
“But how?” Tara asks.
Jon smiles. “You’ll see.”
SIXTEEN
They couldn’t have been more punctual.
Jon opens his front door before they can knock or ring the bell.
“Dude!” Danny is first in line to come in. He locks hands with Jon like he wants to arm wrestle standing up and pulls him in for a man-hug. “Heather told me what happened to you... so glad you’re alright, bro.”
“Thanks, Danny, come on in.”
Heather follows her man through the doorway and lifts herself up on her toes to give Jon a hug of her own, opting to skip the macho arm wrestling gesture before the embrace. She pee
ks over Jon’s shoulder and sees Tara sitting across the room on the couch. “Oh, is this the lucky lady?” Heather asks, excited to finally meet her.
“She’s my lady, but I’m the lucky one,” Jon replies, releasing himself from Heather and turning around to look at his angel. “Danny, Heather, this is Tara. Tara, I’d like you to meet Danny and Heather, the couple I told you about who will be helping us with our little... plan.”
“The plan you somehow managed to keep secret the whole ride over here,” Tara says as she gets up to greet Danny and Heather with hugs of her own. She gestures for their guests to have a seat in the living room and returns to her place on the couch. “But if you’d told me, you would’ve had to repeat everything right now, so... I suppose I can forgive you.” She winks at Jon and pats the couch, inviting him to sit next to her.
“Precisely, peaches.” Jon plops down really fast hoping to pinch Tara’s hand against the cushion, but she’s too quick for him. “Damn, almost got ya.” He gives her a quick peck on the cheek. Tara giggles. Danny and Heather laugh along with her. “I also wanted you all here together,” Jon says, “because Danny and Heather are – hopefully – going to help finalize the plan. I’ve got the basics worked out. Some of the details, though...”
Danny jumps in. “Hell yeah, man, we’re here for you. All Heather told me was that you’d thought of a way to get revenge on Payne, and if we helped out, she could walk away from nursing and I could quit looking for something I’m good at besides fighting. Frankly I’m sick of looking, so I’m very curious as to what you’ve got in mind. Lay it on us, bro.”
“OK, this is the plan.” Jon leans forward, elbows on his knees. He looks from Danny to Heather and over to Tara like he’s a Marine again, like he’s taking the reins of a squad in Iraq and briefing them on their next mission. “There’s only one thing in this world that Rich Payne cares about more than his money: his daughter, Lucy. When I first met Rich, he told me she was his pride and joy – the most important person in the world to him. So we’re gonna take that away from him. We’re gonna kidnap her.”
“Ransom,” Danny concludes on his own. “I like it. How much you thinking?”
“If Rich wants to see Lucy alive again, he’ll have to cough up twelve million,” Jon replies. “An even split: six million for you and Heather, six million for Tara and me.”
Danny didn’t think that was enough. “Twelve? That’s it? But he’s worth so much more than that, bro! If his daughter’s so important to him, let’s bankrupt his ass!” He wasn’t angry; he was excited about getting filthy stinking rich.
Jon kept his cool. “Here’s the way I see it, Danny. Yes, Rich has more. He has a lot more, actually. When I asked him how much he had, he told me a few hundred million. He said it very casually, too. But here’s the thing: neither one of us need that much money to spend the rest of our lives in comfort – to eliminate the need to have jobs so we can spend our time doing things we want to do.
“Six million is more than enough for you to spend the rest of your life in total relaxation, without a care in the world. Do the math, man. If you and Heather allow yourselves to spend a combined one hundred thousand per year, that’s sixty years of paid vacation. You’re telling me you’re turning your nose up at that? That it isn’t enough?”
Heather nods. It makes sense to her. Danny, however, still doesn’t look convinced.
“This is how it’s gonna be, Danny,” Jon continues. “You can go back to cage fighting, which will upset Heather... you can keep looking for something else to do for money, which you said you’re sick of doing... or you can settle for your six million dollar cut of this deal. And six million doesn’t have to stay six million. You can do a lot of investing with a chunk of change like that... you can turn it into more. So what’s it gonna be, big guy? Are you in... or are you out?”
Danny looked at Jon. He looked at Tara. He turned to look at Heather, sitting beside him. It was pretty clear; he was looking at a three versus one situation. He was by himself with his insatiable urges for mega-millions. “I’m in,” Danny replies with more than a hint of reluctance in his tone. “Sorry for getting greedy, guys... I still want more, Jon. Heck I’ll probably always want more, but everything you just said makes sense.”
“Trust me,” Jon assures him, “as long as you don’t blow it all on worthless crap right off the bat, six million will be more than enough.”
“I can’t promise how I’ll behave when I actually see that much money in my account, begging to be spent, but I’ll try not to go overboard.”
“If he does he’ll have to answer to me,” Heather chimes in, nudging Danny’s shoulder.
“That’s right, Heather, you keep him in line!” Jon says, jokingly... but serious.
“You got it, boss.” Heather salutes Jon. “Sir, yes sir.”
“I wasn’t an officer, Heather, so that won’t be necessary. But thank you.” Jon smiles. “Anyway, let’s continue with how we’re going to get this done. The one thing I haven’t thought of yet is where we’re going to grab Lucy. Every time I’ve seen her she’s been with her dad, and it’d be pretty stupid to try and kidnap her right in front of him, right? Danny, you wouldn’t happen to know what she does when she’s away from him, would you? Like, where she spends her time?”
Danny didn’t have to answer right away for Jon to know.
The look he gave Heather, the look she gave back... they knew.
They knew just where Lucy liked to hang out.
SEVENTEEN
They were enjoying this.
Danny and Heather were getting a kick out of dangling it right in his face, the one piece of information Jon wasn’t able to scrape together in his own mind. They felt powerful, like they were all of a sudden vital to the whole plan coming together.
And they were.
“You gonna spill the beans or what?” Jon asks.
“Sorry for the delay,” Danny finally says. “We’re just psyched to be needed for this to work, you know? Teamwork, bro, that’s what it’s all about. We know where to find her.”
Jon looks at Tara and wraps her up in a hug without notice, excited that the last piece of the puzzle was about to fall into place. “Where?” He asks Danny.
“At a club... a nightclub Heather and I go to a few times a week. Every time we’re there, she’s there too, dancing and letting every guy that approaches her buy her a drink.”
“Excellent.” Jon has more questions. “What kind of car does she drive? Have you guys ever seen her go home with anybody?”
“That’s the interesting thing,” Danny says, scratching his head. “She always shows up and leaves by herself. Maybe she gets off on teasing guys and never putting out, I don’t know...”
Or there’s a certain guy out there she’s been holding out for, Jon thinks to himself.
“...but what I do know,” Danny continues, “is that she drives a neon pink Porsche. It’s impossible to miss – it’s the only pink Porsche I’ve seen around the place.”
Jon shakes his head in disbelief. “Nothing flaunts your family’s wealth more than a neon pink luxury sports car. Fantastic, she’ll stick out like a sore thumb. One more question, Danny. What nights of the week do you and Heather normally go to this club?”
“Thursday night, Friday night, and Saturday night; we normally get there around nine.”
“Awesome... well I’d say that puts a lid on things. Danny, my friend, you’ve just made this plan bulletproof. Pat yourself on the back.”
“Happy to help, bro,” Danny says. Heather gives him the pat on the back. Danny couldn’t reach.
“OK,” Jon says. “Heather... we’re gonna need something to knock Lucy out when we... invite her to come with us. It’s gotta be strong, I don’t want her screaming and drawing attention to us. I was thinking chloroform. Can you get your hands on some?”
“Chloroform! Goin’ old school, nice!” Heather chuckles. “Yeah, I can get some.”
“Outstanding.
Danny?” Jon says.
“Yeah?”
“We’re also gonna need four black ski masks, and four of those voice-altering... things – hell I don’t know what they’re called – the things that make you sound like a robot so nobody can recognize your voice; those things. Can you make that happen, bud?”
“I sure can. Any idiot can run to the store and pick up ski masks, that’s a given, but I know a guy who could hook us up and turn us into robots. Consider it done.”
“Good man. Well, that’s about all that needs to be done... let’s get everything together and be ready to move on this tomorrow night – Friday. Clear?”
“Clear,” Danny and Heather reply as one.
Jon turns to Tara when she doesn’t say anything. “Something wrong?” He asks.
“You mean aside from the fact that everybody has something to do, some way to help, except for me? Besides that, no... nothing’s wrong,” Tara says, sounding more left out than angry or upset. “By the way,” she adds, “how are we all going to cram into your truck to even get to the club, much less have room to move Lucy somewhere else?”
Danny and Heather look at each other like they hadn’t even considered transportation. Jon, however, had it all worked out.
“Well I certainly didn’t mean to exclude you,” Jon says, putting his arm around Tara to comfort her. “So if you feel that way, I’m sorry. I was actually planning on doing our part of the preparation phase together.” Tara’s eyes light up. “You, my darling, get to pick out the sexy, sleek kidnapping van we’re going to blow some of my fighting money on.”
Tara liked that. Danny and Heather did, too. Heather liked it so much she expressed just a twinge of jealousy about it. “Shoot, girl,” she says, already laughing at her own joke, “You know how lucky you are? It was like pulling teeth, getting this one over here to let me decide how to spend his fightin’ money.”
“Oh please... are you ever gonna let that go?” Danny hangs his head playfully as he responds, revealing the truth in Heather’s words. He’s guilty and he isn’t proud of it.
“Not in a million years, babe!” Heather draws Danny’s mouth to hers for a kiss. “You know I love you.”
“Actually,” Jon chimes back in, “I can’t believe I said that – how I phrased it as my money. I may have earned it, but it’s our money.” He looks softly into Tara’s eyes. “Everything I’ve done since meeting you, I’ve done it with you in mind. Whatever’s mine is yours. Forgive me for getting possessive. It’s our money. Not mine.”
Their mouths connect, zooming right by the ‘quick peck on the lips’ and cruising straight into deep and passionate territory... a kiss that could’ve easily escalated into something more, if they’d allowed themselves to get carried away. But they remember that they have guests and snuff out the flame before they burn the house down.
“Aww!” Heather gushes. “You two are so cute! How long have you guys been together? And how did you first meet, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“That, I’m afraid, is another story for another time,” Jon replies with a sly grin. “I think we’re about ready to call it a night, if you know what I mean...”
“But it was just about to get good!” Danny complains, pretending he’s bummed. He knew exactly what Jon meant. “I was two seconds from rummaging through your kitchen in search of some popcorn, bro... can’t have a show without popcorn!”
Four laughs erupt at once. Everybody gets up, hugs and shakes hands goodbye.
Danny and Heather start making their way to the door, but Danny turns around halfway. He’s got something he’d like clarified.
“Hey, Jon, one more thing bro. Can I talk to you alone for a second? Just a second.”
“Sure, no problem.” Jon meets him on the front porch. He closes the door behind him. “What’s up, Danny?”
When Danny asks him the question he’d forgotten to bring up during their meeting, Jon is glad they’re outside a closed door; he’s glad Tara can’t hear it.
He’s very glad.
AMERICAN DREAM: BOOK THREE
AVAILABLE NOW HERE
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“They thought they'd taken every precaution. They thought they'd executed their plan perfectly. They thought wrong.
A mistake was made. A very amateur mistake.
Jon won't know about it until it's too late - until the danger's on his doorstep threatening to destroy what matters most to him - but a familiar face from Fallujah shows up with it.
And when the dust settles, he and Jon perform a miracle in one deserving man's life and set out to change the world, one audience at a time.
American Dream (Book 3) proves that money isn't everything... especially when it isn't earned.”
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CLICK TO CLAIM YOUR COPY OF BOOK THREE
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