ADRIANA

 

The lights are back on and the goon has manhandled her down the stairs, tying her restrained hands to a water pipe running down the wall. Then, he hurries to get a chair for his boss.

 

“It’s just a precaution, my dear. It’s nothing personal.” The short man gestures towards her restraints before he settles himself elegantly down into the chair. The goon takes a step back, but continues to stare at Adriana as if she is the first hot meal he is likely to get all year.

 

“Well, excuse me if it’s a little hard to believe you. You broke into my apartment, drugged me, and locked me in your little dungeon of doom here. That feels pretty personal.” Her voice is dripping with sarcasm, but she holds onto that anger. Anger is better than fear and better than the tears that completely overtook her on the stairs.

 

“It’s just business, Adriana. May I call you Adriana?” The man looks at her deferentially. The situation would be funny if she wasn’t pretty sure that he is going to kill her at the first available opportunity.

 

“I don’t think I’m really in a position to tell you what you can and can’t do.” She looks pointedly at the pipe that she’s been tied to.

 

“Smart girl.” He nods appreciatively, as if he’s impressed with her reasoning abilities.

 

“And what should I call you? You have me at a bit of a disadvantage on more than one front.” She tries to keep her voice calm and confident, not letting him see that inside she’s feeling anything but.

 

“You may call me Morrison.” He looks at her a little expectantly as if she should react somehow.

 

“Should that name mean something to me?” She frowns, looking as unimpressed as possible.

 

“Grayson never mentioned me? I should have assumed as much.” He sighs loudly. “After all the time we spent together, it’s sad that he doesn’t talk about our little adventures. But, what can you do?” He shrugs, his hands open as if to show how powerless he is. It’s a little hard for Adriana to believe his little act when she’s completely at his mercy.

 

“You said you were a friend of Grayson’s. What kind of a friend kidnaps his girlfriend to blackmail him?” Adriana’s tone is as biting as her words. She doesn’t have any intention of making nice with this man, not after everything he’s put her through and whatever he’s about to do to Grayson.

 

“You should be less worried about what kind of man I am, Adriana, and more concerned about what kind of a man your new boyfriend is. If you’re as smart as I think you are, you’ll see this as an opportunity for you.” He smiles at her benevolently, but it doesn’t even come close to reaching his eyes.

 

“An opportunity?” Adriana’s laugh is bitter. “I wouldn’t call being held captive in some rat-infested basement an opportunity! Not unless you and I have two very different interpretations of the word!”

 

“Perhaps after you’ve heard what I have to tell you about Grayson, you may decide that our meeting was fortuitous, that I saved you from giving yourself to a man whom you know so little about.” His eyes land on the article that still sits on the table in front of him, and he raises an eyebrow at her, clearly wanting her to ask him what he knows.

 

Adriana has no intention of doing anything that he wants her to do, so she waits him out, swallowing down her own curiosity and her own need to know how the article has any bearing on the Grayson whom she knows and loves. She meets Morrison’s eyes, staring him down and watching his reactions. She allows herself a small smile of satisfaction when she sees the frustration plain on his face before he softens his expression.

 

“It’s a shame. I really did think that you weren’t quite so naïve.” Morrison scrapes his chair back, as he moves to get up. “But if you’re honestly not interested in what happened,”—he taps the article, pointedly—“then I suppose there’s nothing left to talk about. I’ll leave you with your little furry friends.” He smiles wolfishly at her and turns to go, followed by his goon.

 

“No! Wait!” The words are out of her mouth before she can stop them. Much as she doesn’t want to give Morrison the satisfaction of participating in his little scenario, equally she doesn’t want to be left in the dark again, with the rats scuttling around her feet.

 

Morrison turns around slowly, raising his eyebrows at her questioningly. Goddam him, she thinks to herself. He’s mocking me; he’s actually enjoying this. Whatever he has to say about Grayson, there’s one thing for sure, Grayson isn’t a malicious man. He doesn’t enjoy inflicting pain on other people, physical or otherwise.

 

“I want to know. Tell me what happened to Vinnie Jones.” She takes a deep breath, preparing herself for whatever he may tell her.

 

Morrison remains standing, looking at her expectantly, as if she’s forgotten something.

 

She squeezes her eyes shut. “Please.” Her voice seems to be just desperate enough to convince him, and he nods with that same goddam amused expression on his face.

 

“Of course, my dear.” He smiles at her deferentially, mocking her. “What would you like to know? I have nothing to hide.” He spreads his hands, like a magician who wants to show he has no surreptitious cards.

 

Everything, she thinks but doesn’t say it. There’s only so much power she’s willing to give away at a time. “How did you two meet?”

 

Morrison smiles and settles himself in his chair, looking for all the world like the question had made him nostalgic. “Well, Grayson and I officially met the night of the infamous fight.” He nods his head towards the article. “But I was aware of him before then.” He looks up to the ceiling, as if he’s watching his memories play out above them. “He’d started coming to the fights a few months before. At first he kept to the back, you wouldn’t have even known he was there. But as time went on, he got a little more confident and started getting as close to the action as he could. That’s when I realized, he wasn’t watching the fight; he was watching the fighters, studying them.”

 

“He wanted to be like them.” Adriana finishes the thought for him, trying to imagine what had driven Grayson to the underground illegal fights. However, it wasn’t much of a stretch to figure that out. “He wanted to support his mom and sister. Violence was all he’d known growing up.” A lump in her throat forms, as she thinks about how hard Grayson’s childhood had been…if it could even really be called that. He’d never had much of a chance to be a kid; his father hadn’t given him one.

 

Morrison waves her explanation away, clearly not interested in the reason behind Grayson’s fascination with the fighters. “He needed the money.” He shrugs, as if that was all that mattered, as if Grayson had needed it to spend on designer clothes and girls.

 

“So, how did you figure into the story? You said you met at the fight.” Adriana prompts Morrison, wanting to hear the facts, not just the idle speculation of a man who clearly doesn’t know the first thing about Grayson, or perhaps he just doesn’t care.

 

“I should say I suppose that we officially met at his fight, his first one.” Morrison pulls the brim of the hat that he’s wearing low on his head. He looks like an old-style gangster from the movies in his expensive outfit, but he doesn’t fool Adriana. She knows that he’s just a two-bit villain.

 

“His first fight was with the man who died.” Adriana swallows hard, not trusting herself to say anymore without her voice breaking.

 

“It was when I saw him in the ring that first time that I knew he would go far; I knew he would be somebody.” He sounds more proud of his own foresight than of Grayson’s natural abilities. “He had the makings of a great fighter.”

 

“Turns out you were right. He is a great fighter.” Adriana can’t help but revel in Grayson’s talent. She had never seen anything quite like the way he’d moved in the ring that night, the night that he’d told her he wanted to make her proud. “But he was somebody already, before he walked into that ring.”

 

Morrison smiles at her indulgently, making her feel like a little kid. “Young love! It sees what it wants to see. Before he met me, Grayson was white trash. He was on the road to a life of asking, ‘Do you want fries with that?’ and drinking himself to death. I made him what he is today.” Morrison stabs his chest with his index finger, emphasizing his own importance. It’s something that he seems to need to do. Short man syndrome, Adriana thinks to herself.

 

She remembers the conversation that she’d overheard in Grayson’s house that morning. I’m done with you pulling my strings. It had been Morrison; he had been the mystery caller that Grayson had dismissed as some whack-job fan. He had lied to her face. The realization hits her stomach like a bowling ball, but she forces herself to focus on Morrison.

 

“How did you make him? What did you have to do with what happened that night?” Adriana narrows her eyes at the short man, searching through his expressions and tics like a human polygraph.

 

“With the murder? I had nothing to do with that.” Morrison lifts his hands, palms up. The word murder sends a shudder through her. “I just helped Grayson realize that no good would come of him being found, holding the body, so to speak.”

 

“The body?” Adriana’s voice is a whisper.

 

“Yes, our friend Mr. Jones.” Morrison gestures towards the article. “What, did you think that he ended up with those injuries by hurling himself against a wall?” He shakes his head at her ignorance.

 

Adriana bites her lip so hard she tastes blood, but she refuses to cry in front of this man. She refuses to give him the satisfaction of seeing her brought to her knees. “Grayson killed him?” Her voice is so cracked and quiet it’s almost inaudible, even to her.

 

“I’m sorry, my dear, I didn’t quite catch that.” Morrison cups a hand to his ear, straining to hear her.

 

“Did Grayson kill him?” She repeats herself, louder this time, but it’s like trying to pull her own teeth out of her head.

 

Morrison sighs again, theatrically. “I’m afraid so, Adriana. It really was a terrible business.”

 

“How?” The word comes out half-strangled, and she swallows hard, her mouth suddenly dry.

 

“I’m sure you don’t want to hear all the gory details…” Morrison looks at her as if he’s assessing if she’s strong enough to hear it, but he’s just toying with her like a cat toys with a mouse before it eats it.

 

“I’m a nurse; I can take the gory details. Tell me.” She steels herself against what she’s about to hear, remembering that it’s just Morrison’s words against everything she knows about Grayson. But somehow that doesn’t make it any easier.

 

“He broke his neck. You could hear the snap right from the back of the warehouse.” Morrison smiles, as if he’s telling a family-friendly story, and he plummets another few feet in Adriana’s already low estimation of him.

 

Adriana doesn’t even bother to try to hide her gasp at his words. She can’t help but imagine what Morrison has described. She’d seen the way he’d attacked King Kong in the fighting ring, the way he had kept his eyes so firmly fixed on Kong when he had gone down onto the mat, as if he was making sure that he was going to get back up again. It all made sense; he was terrified that he’d killed a man again.

 

It’s a few minutes before Adriana feels safe to speak without all her emotions falling out of her like a spilled box of matches. “You helped him get out before the cops arrived.” It’s a statement of fact; it wasn’t hard to figure out how things had gone down.

 

Morrison bows his head, as if she’s just congratulated him. “He was just a kid. No one knew who he was, and in those kinds of fights, people don’t tend to come forward as witnesses. It’s not the highest class of person who attends those kinds of events.”

 

“People like you, you mean.” Adriana’s voice is pure revulsion, and it’s not lost on Morrison. The goon behind him takes a step towards Adriana as if to teach her a lesson on behalf of his boss, but Morrison lifts a hand, motioning him to stay, like he is a dog. The big guy stops dead, but his eyes remain trained on Adriana, as if he’s willing her to make another mistake and do something that will give him a reason to hurt her.

 

“Glass houses, my dear. I’m not the killer in this story.” Morrison looks pointedly at her.

 

“And that’s what you’ve been holding over Grayson. You’re the only one who knows that the kid that…that hurt Vinnie…that he’s one of the UFC’s biggest and brightest now. You’ve been blackmailing him for years.” The dots start to connect for Adriana, and she sees how right she is in Morrison’s expression.

 

“Like I told you before, my dear. Blackmail is such an ugly word. I much prefer ‘incentivize.’” He shoots her a warning look. “Besides, I didn’t hear Grayson complaining when he was sharing in the spoils.”

 

Adriana frowns, confused at this loop that she’s been thrown for. “The spoils? What are you talking about?”

 

“You really have no idea, do you?” Morrison shakes his head at her in mock-fascination. “If I were you, Adriana, I would be more careful about the kind of people that I associate with.”

 

“The spoils?” She prompts him, not allowing him the luxury of going off on one of these tangents that he so seems to enjoy over how little she knows Grayson.

 

“I didn’t force Grayson into the car with me that night outside the warehouse. He came of his own free will. He left the scene of a crime that he’d committed and took up my offer of a better life.” Morrison shrugs as if to say that it was exactly that simple.

 

“A better life? How?” Adriana’s father had instilled in her a suspicion of any easy ride. He used to tell her that there was no such thing as anyone doing something for anyone else out of the kindness of their own heart; there had to be something in it for them. When she was little, she’d thought that he was being negative, a hangover from the way her mother had treated him.

 

“I’m a speculator. Some people speculate on the stock market; I speculate in sport, mostly fights: MMA, boxing, legitimate or otherwise.” He looks at her with false apology.

 

“You’re a bookie.” Adriana’s father had also always taught her to call a spade a spade, no matter how it was dressed up to look like something else.

 

“In common parlance, I suppose that’s correct.” Morrison watches her, waiting for her next question.

 

“So, you helped train Grayson to win in these illegal fights. You bet on him and split the winnings.” Adriana follows the breadcrumbs that Morrison has laid for her, reaching the logical conclusion. It wasn’t exactly the most honorable way to earn money, but there was nothing so terrible, aside from the fact that it was all illegal. Adriana wonders absently where his mother thought all the money was coming from. Perhaps she didn’t ask…she probably figured that she didn’t want to know.

 

“Not exactly, you’re halfway there though. You’re sharp.” It’s a compliment said in a way that’s so patronizing it’s impossible to take it as such. “We didn’t just split the spoils when he won; we split them when he lost as well.” He looks at Adriana like he’s sharing a secret with her.

 

Then, it dawns on her what Morrison is trying to tell her. “You knew when he was going to lose because you’d tell him to throw the fight. So whatever happened to Grayson in that ring, win or lose, you both got paid.” She tries to line up this image of Grayson with the one that she has in her mind. The man who she knows would never throw a fight. He would never do anything but give his all; he didn’t know how to live any other way.

 

“Exactly, my dear! And obviously the more specific you can be, the more you can win. For example, if we bet on Grayson going down in the first, we could make a nice little package, enough to split between two.” Morrison is almost rubbing his hands with glee at the memory of all that money.

 

“So Grayson made you a lot of money.” Adriana tilts her head at Morrison, seeing him for the greedy little man he is. “And him going legit means that you don’t get to dictate whether he wins or loses, so you don’t have a sure thing anymore.” As Morrison’s expression darkens, Adriana realizes that she’s hit on the exact point. “That’s what this is all about? Money? A couple hundred dollars is enough for you to kidnap someone? Wow, times really must be tough.” She’s almost disappointed that her life is being put into jeopardy for a few bills.

 

“Just when I think you’re getting it, you say something that proves you’re as silly as all those other bimbos Grayson has had.” Morrison’s tone is bitter. “You think I would go to these lengths of a couple of Benjamin Franklins?” He laughs, but it sounds like it’s something he doesn’t have much practice with. “Grayson’s next match, for the state title, there’s close to a million dollars riding on that fight, and I don’t intend to lose it.”

 

Adriana’s eyes widen at Morrison’s words. A million dollars was a figure that she couldn’t even begin to fathom, not really. They were figures that didn’t mean anything to people like her who lived in a world of balancing paychecks with the rent, juggling to get to the end of the month, and paying the minimum on all her credit cards. It wasn’t hard to understand how far someone might go for a million dollars.

 

“So what do you need Grayson to do? What are you trying to make him do in exchange for me?” She watches as Morrison smiles like a crocodile.

 

“Grayson is going to throw the fight. He’s going to lose, specifically in the third round.” Morrison doesn’t even bother to try to hide his glee at the prospect. “It’s going to get messy, I’m sure. You see Dexter has a habit of hurting his opponents quite badly. The Grayson that comes out of the fight will probably be all but unrecognizable.”

 

A strangled cry escapes Adriana. “Grayson was right! You are a whack-job! How can you do that to him?”

 

Morrison looks at her with pity, like she’s an injured bird that he knows there’s no hope of saving. “Do that to him? He’s the one that left me behind. We were partners, and he just up and left.” It’s the first time that Morrison sounds genuinely hurt, but Adriana isn’t buying it.

 

“You could care less about Grayson. You lost your moneymaker; that’s all he was to you. So, you had to find a way to make money out of him a different way.” Adriana shakes her head in disgust at the little man in front of her. “He’s not going to do what you want. He’s not just going to let himself get beaten, not after he’s worked so hard to get to where he is. He’s left you behind Morrison. Deal with it. Besides, he knows that you’ll probably just kill me anyway.” Her voice shakes at the last moment, and she closes her mouth, refusing to let Morrison see how scared she is.

 

“You really do have a high opinion of him, don’t you? The honorable Grayson Fletcher! It’s sweet really how loyal you are to him, even if it is completely misplaced.” He pushes himself up from the table and walks towards her slowly, deliberately, goon in tow. She keeps herself as rigid as she can, telling herself to stand tall and proud. It’s something that’s surprisingly hard to do with her hands tied to a water pipe. “You’re just like all the others, Adriana, don’t you see that? You’re just another one of his little flings. I’m sorry to say that he’s not the man you think he is, my dear.” He looks at her sadly as he settles a conciliatory hand on her shoulder, but she shrugs him off. That only seems to spur him further on to inflict as much damage as he can. “Do you know how many women he’s been with, Adriana? Hundreds and that was just when I knew him. I’m sure the Miami club scene has afforded him all kinds of new experiences.”

 

Adriana lifts her chin, refusing to be cowed by a man who gets his way by tying women up and extorting people. “That’s all in the past. Grayson’s made no secret of the fact that he’s not a boy scout.” She watches with satisfaction, as a look of frustration passes over Morrison’s face and then disappears again just as quickly.

 

“You’re a lovely girl, Adriana, lovelier than someone like Grayson deserves. But you’re a fool if you think that a man like that will be satisfied by just one woman.” He looks at her. For a moment, he seems almost fatherly, but any sense of that is wiped away by his next words. “It’s part of the lifestyle. The women…they throw themselves at him. You’ve seen what his fights are like! How can you expect any hot-blooded man to keep his hands off when they’re handing themselves out to him like cake on a platter?”

 

Adriana tries to push away the memories of the cries that she’d heard from the women in the crowd the night of the fight. We love you, Punisher! You’re so fucking hot, Punisher! Fuck me, Punisher! Tommy had said the same thing to Willow that night—that the women come as part of the package of being an MMA fighter.

 

“Grayson isn’t like that. He cares about me.” Adriana wishes that she didn’t sound so desperate. It’s as if she’s trying to convince herself as much as she is Morrison. She doesn’t want to believe Morrison, but it’s getting harder and harder. She knows that there must be more to what he’s telling her than what he’s willing to share. She holds onto that thought and the knowledge that Grayson loves her with both hands. “You don’t know anything about us Morrison, so why don’t you just crawl back under the rock that you came out from?”

 

Morrison raises his hand threateningly as if he’s about to strike her. She flinches away automatically and then wishes that she hadn’t, angry with herself for giving him anything at all. But his hand doesn’t connect with her face like she expects it to. Instead he drops it, smirking at her as if amused by her reaction.

 

“You’re feisty, Adriana, and you’re smart. I like that about you. But that doesn’t mean that I won’t discipline you if I need to. You only get so many free passes, my dear.” He looks at her meaningfully, nodding towards his goon and letting her fill in the blanks.

 

“I don’t care what you do to me. Grayson isn’t going to do what you’re asking him. If you’re right and I’m nothing more than a fling to him, then I’m not much of an incentive for him to do what you’re asking.” She feels a sense of achievement in turning Morrison’s twisted logic on its head.

 

“Trust me, Grayson will do what I tell him to.” Morrison’s confidence doesn’t even seen to waver an iota or perhaps he just has a better poker face than Adriana does. “He’ll throw the match in the round I tell him to and if that should end his fighting career and even his life, well then, so be it.”

 

Adriana bites back the tears that she feels coming. The idea that something could happen to Grayson because of her, or because of the way he feels about her, is worse than anything Morrison could do to her. Despite everything Morrison has told her, she can’t believe that the Grayson she knows is the same person who Morrison is talking about. She knows that Grayson is a good man and that’s what makes her afraid…that he’ll try to save her whatever the cost. She can’t allow that.

 

“I think it’s about time we check in on our Grayson Fletcher, don’t you?” Morrison holds out his hand and almost immediately the goon has filled it with a cellphone. “It’s not long now until the fight, and we want to keep him focused on what’s at stake if he doesn’t do what I’m expecting of him.”

 

He dials a number and waits patiently, his eyes never leaving Adriana’s face, studying her emotions.

 

“Morrison.” Just the sound of Grayson’s voice at the end of the line gives Adriana some comfort, even if it is short-lived.

 

“Grayson, my boy, how the devil are you?” Morrison winks theatrically at Adriana as if to show how funny he’s being.

 

Adriana doesn’t catch what Grayson replies, but she’s fairly sure from the look on Morrison’s face that it isn’t anything remotely complimentary.

 

“Let’s get down to business, Grayson. Have you made the right decision, the one that will keep your new girl here safe and sound?” Morrison smiles apologetically at Adriana, as if he’s just saying what he needs to but doesn’t really mean it.

 

Adriana doesn’t smile back; she has no interest in playing this little game of Morrison’s. The only interest she has is keeping Grayson safe and getting herself out of this hell-hole.

 

“You can trust me, Grayson. Adriana is perfectly safe.” Morrison has started wandering around Adriana, making her dizzy with the movement. “Talk to her? I don’t think so, Grayson.”

 

Adriana strains to hear what Grayson is saying at the other end of the line. However, she doesn’t need to hear. All she needs to do is watch Morrison’s reaction, and he doesn’t look happy. Grayson must have said something to him that leaves him with no choice but to prove that I’m alive and well. After all, what would be the point of him throwing the fight if Morrison had already hurt me beyond repair?

 

Morrison covers the mouthpiece of the cell with his hand and looks at her with a hatred she could never have deserved. “Be smart, Adriana. Remember, I don’t want to have to discipline you.” He whispers the words, but they ring loud and clear in her mind. She understands the thinly veiled threat.

 

But this could be her one shot, her one opportunity to give Grayson some kind of a message. She doesn’t entertain the thought that occurs to her that it might even be the last time she gets to speak to him. So make it count, she tells herself. Make it count, Adrie. That was what her dad had told her about boxing, that she should avoid getting into fights, that she shouldn’t court attention, but if she finds herself in a situation where she has to use the skills he taught her, that she should make every punch count.

 

She nods in understanding at Morrison, putting on her best ‘butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth’ expression, hoping that he buys into it enough to think that she can’t have any intention of betraying his trust. Morrison holds the cell out towards her.

 

“Adrie?” Grayson’s voice is like a balm that soothes her battered soul.

 

“Gray.” She can feel the tears rushing to her eyes at the sound of his voice.

 

“Adrie, I’m so sorry.” His voice cracks, and she knows that he’s fighting as hard as she is to keep his emotions under control.

 

“It’s not your fault.” She takes a few deep breaths to keep the tears at bay. The last thing she wants is for him to hear her whimpering and not knowing what the hell is going on. It is harder than she could have imagined to hear his voice and be so far away from him, with no way of getting to him. Plus, knowing that she’s the reason for the fear in his voice crushes her.

 

“Are you alright? Has Morrison hurt you?” The coldness in Grayson’s voice is chilling, but she knows that it’s the way he steels himself against things that threaten to pull him apart.

 

Morrison gives her a look that speaks volumes, a look that tells her not to mention the chloroform or the fact she’s lost most of the feeling in her hands or the sprained wrist. She nods in understanding once again. It doesn’t matter since she has no intention of telling Grayson any of those things, not when she’s only going to get one chance to throw the punch that counts.

 

“No, I’m fine.” She sees Morrison visibly relax as the words come out of her mouth. She takes a deep breath, ready to say as much as she can for as long as she had before she gets cut off in one way or another. “Grayson, you can’t do what he’s asking you. You can’t! I’m in a basement somewhere. It’s dark. I don’t know—” She doesn’t get to finish her sentence; she hadn’t really expected to.

 

Morrison reaches out with the hand nearest to her, which happens to be the one holding the cellphone, and he backhands her with it. The cell hitting her squarely on the cheekbone, making her feel like her cheek has just exploded.  She cries out and then pulls herself together, reminding herself that she doesn’t want to give Grayson any more reasons to worry about her than he already has. But Morrison’s strong right hand has seen to that.  There was no way that Grayson hadn’t heard that, and God knows what he is thinking now.