It never occurred to me that mail was something to fear. Not until the day I came home and found Em sitting on the floor, her arms wrapped around her knees, and a ripped open white envelope on the bed behind her.
“Sunshine, what’s wrong?” I asked. She swallowed hard and sniffed a few times like she was trying to hold back tears long enough to talk to me. I reached for the envelope, thinking it would give me some clue as to why she was so clearly freaked out.
“Don’t,” Em croaked. “Please,” she added pleadingly. I knew then, as a tear rolled down her cheek, that whatever was inside had to be bad. Contained within a folded sheet of plain white paper were about a dozen or so photos. They were different sizes and all taken at different times, but Em was in every one of them. The earliest photo was of a smiling, happy nine-year-old. Just a normal kid out riding her bike. When the next one showed the same kid, fast asleep in her bed, I felt sick to my fucking stomach. The older that Em was in the pictures, the more invasive they became and none of them looked like they were taken with her knowledge. The last photo was really grainy, like it had been through a window maybe, or with a really bad camera, but it showed, in intimate detail, her frail, bruised body taking a shower.
“Motherfucker,” I yelled, wanting to fucking hit something. Anything. I grabbed the envelope looking for some clue who’d sent it, like I didn’t fucking know. Frank was still in prison, pending trial, so someone on the outside must have sent this for him. The postmark on the envelope read London, which didn’t tell me much. The knuckles on Em’s hand were white where she gripping hold of her legs so hard.
“Shit, love. You okay?” I said, hating that she looked so fucking scared. She nodded unconvincingly, but didn’t answer. I gathered up the pictures and stuffed them back into the envelope, not wanting her to see them anymore, but I knew we’d need to give them to police as evidence. The idea of her being on display like that to the police and the prosecution lawyers was as bad as knowing what she’d been through. Sitting down next to her, I wrapped my arm around her tiny body and pulled her into my chest. She was stiff as a board and shaking slightly. Rubbing up and down her arms, trying to get her warm I waited for her to talk to me. That was the way of it sometimes with Sunshine. She needed to think shit over before she could get it off her chest.
“I didn’t know about any of them. He’s been taking pictures of me for years. How could I not know? How could I let that happen?” she asked me.
“You didn’t let anything happen. He’s a violent, abusive rapist who’s sick in the fucking head. He did what he did because he’s a fucking whack job. Nothing you said or did gave him permission to do this.” I could see by her face that the pictures shamed her. Fuck that. There wasn’t a single fucking thing for her to be ashamed of.
“It was bad enough dealing with what happened, but he could have hundreds of these pictures and God only knows what he does with them. As if that’s not bad enough he knows where we live. Even in prison he can get to me. I’ll never be free of him, will I?”
“Sunshine, even if it means killing him, I swear he will never touch you again. This is just a sign of desperation. In a few more months he’ll be too concerned about how to pick up the soap in the shower without getting arse raped to worry about getting you back. He’s going away for a very long time and there’s fuck all he can do about it. This kind of shit just gives the barristers more ammunition against him.” I did my best to reassure her, but I was as freaked out as she was. The fact that he could get hold of the pictures and post them from prison had me worried about what else he could do from the inside.
She wiped her eyes and leaned across to give me a quick kiss.
“You’re right,” she told me. “A few more months and this will all be over.” It had to be, because I hadn’t been exaggerating. If Frank came after her again, I’d kill to keep her safe.
* * *
Three days later I held up my right hand so Danny could tape my knuckles, while the grip of my left hand tightened on the bench. Why did the door have to be red? Of all the fucking colors a door could be, this one had to be red. Changing rooms were pretty much the same in every place I’d ever fought in. This one was practically identical to the changing room I’d had when Em was kidnapped. As my mind played over that night, I started to lose focus.
“You’ve got this fecker, Con, but don’t go soft on this guy. It might be an exhibition fight but Temple wants to hurt you. He wants a show. The cocky little fucker is top of his game and needs the world to know he’s staying there. He’s gonna treat you like a stepping-stone, so you show him you ain’t one, okay?”
I didn’t hear a word that Danny said. I couldn’t take my eyes off that fucking door. My certainty that Frank was going down had picked Em up a bit, but truthfully, Frank’s letter had properly fucked me over. He’d taken Em once on fight night, and just because he was in prison didn’t mean he couldn’t send someone else to finish the job. He’d found a way to get those photos to her hadn’t he? Once I walked out the door and into that ring, who would protect her?
The slap to my face woke me up. “Where the fuck is your head, Con? You’re fighting in fifteen minutes, and right now I wouldn’t put you in the ring with Kieran’s feckin’ grandmother,” he roared. I hung my head knowing he was right. Six months ago, I had nothing to lose. Now I had Em and I knew what losing her felt like. It made me afraid, and going into the ring like this was a bad fucking idea.
“Kier, he’s not going to hold it together.”
Kier swapped places with Danny and carried on taping. “What’s going on, Con?” he asked me.
“This place looks the same as the one where she was taken. I can’t think about anything else,” I told him. Maybe I should have made some shit up, but Kieran knew me well enough to call me on my bullshit if I lied.
“It’s not the same, Con. You know that. Frank’s in prison, and Em has more bodyguards than Justin Bieber. You can do this. Stop worrying about what will happen when you lose everything and start getting mad at the fuckers trying to take it from you. She’s right here and she yours. So what happens when someone messes with what’s yours?” he asked.
“I decimate the fuckers,” I answered. He was right. I needed to get my head out of my arse. I was hard as fucking nails and no one was fucking with my girl.
“What happens if some guy wolf whistles or tries to grab her arse tonight?” he goaded.
“I’ll decimate the fucker,” I told him more forcefully, feeling the adrenaline starting to kick in.
“And what happens,” he said finally, “if someone tried to take her?”
“I. WILL. FUCKING. DECIMATE. THEM.” I enunciated slowly, completely pumped now.
“Thatta boy,” he replied with a smile. “He’s ready,” he said to Danny, who’d swapped places with Kieran to put on my gloves. My knee was bouncing, and I was impatient to get out of there. Pumped and primed, I wanted to hurt someone. The second he was done, I jumped up from the bench and started going at the pads with Kier. Cross, cross, jab. Cross, cross, jab. I cleared my mind of everything but the pads. How to move my body to land the perfect punch was instinctive. Years of relentless training did that. There wasn’t a how or a why when I fought. The only thing that concerned me about the guy I was fighting was where to land my fist to cause the maximum pain. But this time was different. This time my opponent had a face, and it was Frank’s. It burned me that, with everything that went down, I hadn’t had the chance to lay a fist on him. I was a valve with no release, and if I didn’t vent that rage and fear soon, I was going to explode, and there’d be casualties in the wake. Danny watched me spar and didn’t look happy. As far as he was concerned, getting in the ring carrying any kind of baggage was a bad fucking idea. It was why he made us go to church before a fight. Inside those ropes I was supposed to be an emotionless machine and I hadn’t been that in a long time. One of the management team opened my door. “Con, it’s time,” he told me.
Kieran held out my robe, and I stopped bouncing just long enough to slip it on. Danny opened the door and cringed as my music pumped loudly through the speakers. Fort Minor’s “Remember the Name” didn’t do it for him at all, but Kieran had picked it years ago, and it sort of stuck. The bass was making my blood pump and I strutted out of the room like I was invincible.
“You ready?” Kieran asked.
“Hell, yeah,” I replied. I burned with the need to hurt someone, and the thought of releasing all that rage on Rico Temple got my blood pumping.
“I hate that cocky little shit as much as you do,” Kieran admitted. “But fight smart. Don’t just go barreling in there trying to hurt him. He’s got a lot more fights under his belt than you do, so you need to think about how you’re gonna do this,” he told me. I rolled my eyes, not really caring about his advice. Making him bleed was all I could think about. Danny reached up to grab my chin and turned my face so that I was staring straight at him. It took some effort given our height difference.
He looked more pissed off than I’d seen him in a long time. “I’m your coach, and Kieran’s your corner man. That means you listen to what we have to say. If you don’t fight smart like Kieran said, this guy’s gonna walk all over you. Now I want you to fight the first three rounds defensively. Keep your guard up and wear him down. Round four or five, when he’s up on points, you let him have it. Then take him by surprise when he thinks you’re done.” I nodded my head as I bounced. I knew he was right but I struggled with the craving to hurt someone. “And for fuck’s sake, don’t knock him out. This is an exhibition match. Anything more than heavy sparring and you’ll be disqualified.”
“Sure thing,” I answered as I shifted my weight from foot to foot. Then it was time. At the sign from the management guy, I jogged slowly toward the spotlight.
As I reached the ring, I climbed in through the ropes, with Kieran and Danny right behind me. Kieran helped me off with my robe, and I looked past him, anxious for Temple to join me.
Even standing in this ring was cathartic. In a few minutes, I’d be able to unleash all my hatred in the name of sportsmanship, and what’s left of me after belonged to my girl. My music ended as his began, and I snorted. He’d chosen some stupid rap shit and was strutting toward me like he had the fight sewn up. He hadn’t fought with me yet. I was gonna knock the cocky right out of him, and he’d kiss the canvas in gratitude for the lesson. I bounced around shaking out my arms and looking like I hadn’t got a care in the world. Rico Temple was nothing to me. I had enough inside to take down ten of him with how I was feeling. Danny smacked my abs to draw my attention and shoved my gum shield into my mouth.
“Stick to the plan, keep your guard up and pick your punches. You ready?” he asked. I nodded at him but my mind was already on Temple. Squeezing my shoulder reassuringly, he climbed out of the ring. The referee called us to the center, and the self-assured smirk on Rico’s face was already pissing me off.
“Gentleman, when I say ‘break’ I want a clean break. In the event of a knockdown, you will be directed to go to a neutral corner. You’re both professionals so I expect a good, clean fight. No hitting below the belt, and protect yourself at all times. Okay, touch gloves and come out at the bell.”
I held my gloves out, staring Temple in the eye as I willed him to know that I was gonna end him. He ignored the gesture and saluted me mockingly. The crowd was already booing at the bad sportsmanship. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t feeling very fucking sporting anyway. I tried to keep my expression neutral and remember what Danny told me about the game plan. Then the bell rang out, and it all went out of the window. Every bit of training I’d ever had, all the advice I’d ever been given, every ounce of common sense I’d been born with and it was all gone at the bell. With the sound ringing in my ears, Temple became Frank, and I threw myself at him. He didn’t expect me to come out so aggressively, and I landed two crippling body shots and a right hook to the head before he got his guard up. I wasn’t pacing myself or holding anything back for the rest of the fight. All the power I had went into every punch as my stress melted away. I managed to herd him into a corner and was going at his ribs as hard as I did the bags at the gym. Em was the most fucking precious thing in the world to me, and I imagined this was the fucker who nearly broke her. He spent most of his life tearing her down and beating her, and when I swore she’d never feel that way again, he took her from under my nose. Not this time. This time I was gonna end him in the ring and he’d never get to her again.
The referee pulled me back, and Temple shook it off. A few minutes ago, he looked cocky. Now he looked mad. “Tone it down. This is supposed to be an exhibition match,” the referee warned me.
It was all the time Temple needed to recover. As soon as the referee moved away, he smacked me in the cheek with a killer left jab, throwing my head back and nearly dislodging my gum shield. Without pause, he served back to me exactly what I’d just delivered. I couldn’t stop him, but I didn’t really feel much pain either.
Pushing him back in the corner, I started going at him again until I was almost windmilling. My adrenaline level must have been through the roof because I felt like I could pound on him all night. In my peripheral vision, I saw the referee moving toward me on my right, and I knew he was going to warn me again when a left uppercut came out of nowhere and had me seeing stars. The referee stood between us giving me a moment to recover, and any warning died on his lips. We were both breaking the rules and spirit of an exhibition bout, but the referee had no fucking clue what to do. He couldn’t disqualify us both, and the crowd was fucking loving it. He threw his arms down to signal that we could fight but both of us were a little bit wary this time. In that moment, I literally wanted to end the arsehole. As we squared off against each other, I dived at him again, no longer caring that I didn’t have an opening. He fended off all my body shots, and I wasn’t holding back. The more he held his guard, the angrier I became. When the bell sounded to signal the end of the round, I could have roared in frustration. Kieran put my stool down in the corner, and I sat down. Hard. Leaning forward, I was dying to get back out there, and I willed the sixty seconds to go by quickly. Kieran shot water into my mouth, while Danny laid into me.
“Are you deaf or feckin’ stupid, Cormac O’Connell?” he asked. “’Cause I distinctively remember telling you how to fight this match. You don’t look like a professional boxer out there. You look like an arrogant kid who’s about to have his arse handed to him.” I didn’t answer back but it’s not like Danny would’ve given me a chance anyway. He was on a roll. “You listen to me if you want to save this fight. Now he knows what you’re made of but he has to be betting that you’ve worn yourself out. So you go back to the original game plan. Protect yourself and let him think you’re spent, then let him have it.” I nodded at him but I couldn’t concentrate, and I was already looking for Temple behind him. Danny looked at Kieran and shook his head, like they were having some kind of silent conversation. I didn’t give a fuck what they were both bitching about. Whether I did it Danny’s way or my way, I had this in the bag.
The bell rang, and I stood up to fight. I was watching Temple’s shoulders, trying to read his next move when he came at me. His hook-hook-jab combination was predictable. The left hook that caught me square in the eye wasn’t. I stumbled about a bit on my feet, dazed but not knocked out, but it was enough for the referee to give me a standing count. As I waited impatiently for the count to be over, I could see the judges scribbling furiously. That hook had cost me, but Temple was going to pay for it. Charging at him the minute I had the go-ahead, I unleashed a volley of body shots. Most of them were blocked, but the ones that did get through must have been rib bruisers. Thinking that I had him trapped on the ropes, I was stunned when he jerked up and reversed our position. Every single one of his hits, even the ones I blocked, hurt like hell. I’d been motherfucking rope-a-doped. Like Ali had done with Forman, he used my anger to provoke me into attacking. The ropes were taking the strain of my ineffectual hits while my energy level plummeted. The referee pulled him off with a warning when he cut above my eye. We danced around each other for a few more seconds, but when the bell rang again, we both sat down looking like we’d done ten rounds, not two. Going against the norm, it was Kieran who gave me the pep talk, while Danny sorted out my cut. For the whole sixty seconds, Danny didn’t say a fucking word. He simply squeezed my shoulder as a silent gesture of support as he climbed out of the ring. The next ten rounds were absolutely brutal. We both punished each other, and the whole thing was more like a street brawl than a professional boxing match. The only reason the ref never called it was because we were both as bad as each other. When the bell rang out for the final time, I was banged up and exhausted. The cut had reopened, and the blood was streaming down my face. Both Kieran and Danny were uncharacteristically silent as they patched me up. After a few minutes, the ref called us back in the ring. I looked for Em in the crowd as he called out how the judges had scored the fight. I wasn’t really listening until he finished. “Ladies and gentleman, your winner by unanimous decision. Rico Temple.” He raised Temple’s arm in the air as I locked eyes with my wife. She looked sad, and I guess she thought I’d be worried about the loss. I wasn’t. In my head, I’d just gone twelve rounds against Frank. All I felt was relief and the burning need to do it all over again.