Emma Marie Cormier
Fighting for Revenge
Please note the following excerpt is subject to change during the editing process! :)
Prologue
Scotty
Nothing in this world was as inevitable as death, taxes, and the Paramount Fighting Championship trying to screw me over.
I clenched my fists, white-knuckling my steering wheel as my car veered sharply to the left. I’d spent four and a half hours on the phone with the PFC today, all the while being flicked back and forth between offices like a used condom.
Four and a half hours, and I’d ascertained absolute diddly-squat.
Four and a half fucking hours of my life—wasted—and I still couldn’t make heads or tails of why I was being dropped like a damned hot potato. All I knew for certain was that every single contact I had in the biggest fight organization in the world had fucking stonewalled me.
A horn blared behind me—a sharp warning that I was straying too far over the center line. I grumbled, rolling my eyes as I veered my car back toward its rightful place on the road.
I eased my foot off the accelerator.
It wouldn’t do to rid the world of Scotty Dawson too soon. Whatever would the PFC do with themselves without their favorite problem child to contend with?
As my car slowed closer in vicinity to the speed limit, the knot in my gut tightened. If I didn’t find a surefire way out of this mess soon, I was screwed.
An entire day on the phone… and all without one single, measly bout lined up for any of my pro fighters. I’d pulled out every trick in the book, too—all to try and line something up. But I couldn’t even get a look-in for Caleb—my prized, PFC-signed top light heavyweight contender. Under any kind of normal circumstances, Caleb would’ve been fielding calls left and right from the PFC brass.
Instead…
Radio effing silence.
I clenched my jaw as I pulled into the discount mall’s parking lot. The forty-five-minute drive here was a real stinker. And yet, as of late I’d been performing it on the regular, all to pick up low-cost gear here for my gym.
Tony’s Discount Sporting Warehouse was a dump in every sense of the word, but there was no doubt that it proffered the best deals on MMA equipment in the city.
… And sure, the Tai pads I purchased here usually fell apart within five minutes, but it wasn’t like I could stretch my dimes far enough to shell out for the good quality branded ones, anyway.
The truth was, my fighters would likely turn in the graves of their dead-in-the-water careers if they knew exactly how much damage my wallet had taken over the past few months to support them. With zero in the way of management fees coming in, I’d dipped so far into my retirement savings I’d started to pray that I would never see the other side of sixty.
But the rent had to be paid now, and the power had to stay on. Saving for retirement? Well… at this stage, I’d be lucky to see retirement anyway, given that the PFC very obviously wanted to see me lying dead in a ditch somewhere.
I parked my car and ran my hands over my face, flipping my sun visor down and smoothing my hair. ‘Desperate’ certainly didn’t look good when it was plastered all over an ex-PFC lightweight—especially not one staring down the wrong side of forty.
But right now, ‘desperate’ defined precisely what I was.
I slid my seat back and fished my wallet out of my back pocket. Forty-seven fifty in cash. Wait, no—forty-nine, when I included the buck fifty stashed in the cup holder in my front console.
…Enough to get me through the next few days, at least.
After that… well. I’d have to let Future Scotty deal with that one.
Poor bastard.
Because—for the first time I could remember—I was entirely out of ideas.
I’d tried every possible thing I could think of. I’d even attempted to contact the boss of the PFC herself. But Diana Murphy had missed all seventeen of my calls today, every one going directly to voicemail. I grimaced to myself. There was a time where she wouldn’t let my calls go past a second ring. It seemed I’d need to track down a damned time machine to see those days again, because obviously, Diana was hell-bent on giving me the silent treatment.
The automatic double-doors of Tony’s Discount Sporting Warehouse crawled open at a snail’s pace, releasing its distinct internal musk of dust, decaying rubber, and damp cardboard.
My eyes immediately started to itch. I crumpled my nose, trying not to breathe in the fine particles suspended in the air. Despite coming here numerous times before, the experience was still just as unwelcome.
Thankfully, I now knew the layout well enough to get in and out in as little as two or three breaths.
I careened toward the back of the store, picking up mat sanitizer and a couple of small towels on the way to the pads.
I didn’t linger long, finding the biggest discount on the crappiest Thai pads as quickly as possible. Even so, I was forced into taking a breath as the elderly cashier rang me up, all as he muttered something under his breath about imminent rain.
I smiled—more a grimace, really—as my eyes began to water in earnest, and handed over my cash, readying my feet to bound out of the store as quickly as possible as I waited for my receipt.
Finally back outside, I inhaled deeply, blinking back against the burning itch in my eyes. Only literal decades of built-up dust could cause such an intense allergic reaction from me—but I was here. I had what I needed, and now I could go the fuck home.
Bundling all my goods under a singular arm, I felt around in my back pocket for my keys. As I hooked my finger around the ring, they caught—tumbling to the ground.
I closed my eyes for a moment, holding a single breath at the top and releasing it slowly, counting down from eight.
If this day got much worse, I was going to pack up shop, fuck off to somewhere sunny, and never think about fighting again.
Then, as I fumbled around on the ground for my dropped keys—Thai pads falling and scuffing on the asphalt—the heavens cracked open.
Sheets of rain fell from the sky, so thick and steadfast that I was drenched to the skin instantly.
Finally, I found my keys—clicked the button, opened the door, and threw my now-soaked goods onto the back seat.
I sighed as I collapsed on the driver’s side, pulling the door closed behind me urgently as the rain continued to pound, the violence of the splashback from the drops creating a thick, water-comprised aura over my car’s bonnet.
I clenched my teeth. By the time I’d driven that gear back to the gym, it’d already be moldy.
Feeling thoroughly defeated, I started up my car, and just as I was about to vault myself out of this shithole—I slammed my foot quickly down on the break again. A large, looming form appeared, hovering over my car for a second before wedging something between the rear wiper and the windshield.
Great. Just fucking great.
I cursed, wrenching on my windscreen wipers. But the damned flyer stayed put, the rain plastering it firmly to the glass.
Jaw, teeth, and fists clenched; I wrenched my car into reverse regardless—and straight into the front of a black four-wheel drive.
Of course.
I rolled my eyes as I threw my door open, tramping soddenly through the rain to assess the damage. I tugged a hand through my hair, flicking the tendrils out of my eyes. The black four-wheeler looked more or less okay, but the back of my dingy little beat-up had all but crumpled in on itself.
I narrowed my eyes, searching the parking lot. But the looming figure with the flyers—whoever they were—had vanished into the rain.
After a short but unpleasant conversation with the driver of the four-wheeler, I returned to my car, resting my head against the cracked glass.
I pried the sopping paper out from between the rear windshield and the wiper, unfolding it gently as it came apart in my hands.
I read it. And then I smiled.
Because here—drenched head-to-toe, my car wrecked, and standing in the parking lot of a shitty discount sporting goods store—was the answer to all of my problems.
Something Vicious this way comes…