The Unstoppable Tony Winters Read online

  On top of helping out Lexi. It hadn’t seemed like that much before, but suddenly everything felt almost crushing.

  “Honestly? I don’t really know. Things are a mess, so I’m trying to help clean up the parts of them I can. It isn’t my mess. You know? I walked into a pit of drama and now the world thinks a whole bunch of things about me that aren’t true. I bet half of the people out there still think that I beat up Simpson with a pipe, even having seen the video. The other half figured that I was getting busy with Sally, too. My only goal here is to get that fight done. Hopefully with a win. It isn’t worth it. This being good all the time stuff kind of sucks, sometimes.” He sounded a bit pouty at the end, so grinned after that.

  The blonde fighter patted his back.

  “Yeah. Sometimes. It tends to work out in the end, doing the right thing. It can be hard to see, in the moment. It doesn’t always work, either. You don’t always get the win. That doesn’t mean giving up is the right answer. People that do that tend to live in failure.”

  It was probably wise and deep, so he just nodded and tried to take in the lesson. When they got inside they had to find people, but he got a few slaps on the back as he went around. Then, even if he was emotionally drained, he put on some sweats and started to clean up the Cardio-Boxing room between class sessions. People were there for it, but it was warm enough that everyone was dripping already.

  That meant he caught Lexi at eight, coming out of her BJJ class. Seeing him she jogged over.

  “You’re back early. Because of the fight thing? Everyone has been talking about that. What kind of person does that? Worse, he’s this big muscular guy, hits you from behind and still lost? That has to hurt the ego. The crying didn’t help either.” She was fighting a grin then, as if there was something humorous about it all.

  Which, if he could stand back enough from the individuals involved, there probably was.

  “Pretty much. I had to bring Sally Laird back with me, so you’ll get to meet her in the morning. We’re running, at five. You can make it? You feel all right?” He waved at her legs, which got her to nod.

  Doing new things could leave a person sore, but running wasn’t that new to her.

  “I should be good. How long do you think it will be, before my cardio is up to speed?”

  Thinking about it, he shrugged.

  “Half a year? That’s getting up to a really high level. You’ll have amateur fights before then. I think you should wait two months before your next one and we need to find someone with more experience to go up against, so you won’t get bored. Really, if I can work that out, I need to find someone to spar with you in the next few days. Have you been practicing, other than your night class?” She worked for a living, after all. She might not have had time.

  “A bit? Denny has me doing some things. It’s pretty hard. Only about an hour a day.”

  Which was about right for a serious amateur fighter. Two hours, with running every other day or so. It had taken him a while to get that part of things. Most people took a year or two before going pro. Really, most never went pro. It took a lot of work and dedication and if you weren’t driven to do it, that was probably going to be a waste of time for most people.

  Really, it was probably why everyone kept looking at him funny when he spoke about going into medicine like he had been. They just couldn’t see why he’d be working as hard as he was, if he wanted to do something else. Even though he’d told then the answer.

  It was for them.

  All of them.

  Himself too, but not in the way anyone would think. He didn’t need fame, or glory. Money was good, since he’d done the poor thing and it kind of sucked, but having a good life didn’t take a fortune. Really, as far as he could tell, being hard working and not making a bunch of stupid life choices was probably enough that way. It could be hard, but it was better to have a hard life of work, than a hard life of scrambling for whatever you could find.

  He smiled at Lexi then, as she looked back. She had green eyes, he noticed. He’d gotten that she was pretty, before, but not that part of it. Not that it mattered. Even if they were the same age, he wouldn’t have dated her. Not if they were working together. So, turning his mind from that idea, he winked.

  “It sounds like a long time, but it really isn’t. On the good side, a lot of that half year will be much cooler than this.” He wiped his brow, which was slightly moist. The world had been, for months now.

  She giggled at that and touched his arm, lightly.

  “See you in the a.m. then? Thanks, Tony. For the help? Not everyone cares that much.” Then she walked off. His eyes followed her for a bit, but he pulled himself away, moving to take care of the last classes for the night. People needed towels and water, after all.

  Only, of course, they really didn’t. At least, they could do that for themselves. Meaning that he was, most likely, just wasting time, going around and doing that sort of thing. He’d been gone for a few days and the place had magically survived without him. It could keep going on, he knew. Which was good, since he needed to start his real training soon.

  To his mind that was going to be brutal and filled with pain, but he knew that it wouldn’t be that different than what he’d been doing so far there. He’d seen the others training and basically been doing that the whole time, for months. The difference would be in when he did things, since there was actual science behind real training. He’d done the stuff, but it was just following along, pushing the whole time.

  Still, he went to Rick’s office, to see if he could use the man’s computer to find any of Hodder’s old fights. The man had many of them, which weren’t hard to locate at all. Getting copies of them, he made a file and put it on the thumb drive he kept all the fights on. It took about half an hour, but when he got back home, carrying the brown canvas backpack he’d borrowed from Jen, no one said anything about it.

  Still, he explained, as he settled at the dinner table. There was a plate of food already made up for him. A large salad, plain, with two decent sized portions of white fish and some rice. Anthony was not a fan of fish, but he ate it anyway, then smiled at the others, who were being unusually quiet.

  “I broke into your office, to get copies of some of Hodder’s fights. I need to start prep for that. If that’s still going to happen? I don’t know if the thing with Simpson changes that?” It wasn’t a thing he’d thought about, to be honest. The man had claimed that Tony had beaten him with a pipe however.

  His uncle crossed his eyes at that idea.

  “You’re kidding, right? His people called yesterday night to confirm you were all right. They offered to send a doctor to make sure, even. That little bit of video will probably have ten times the number of people watching that fight. It didn’t hurt that you won like that. What Ralph was thinking… I mean, he’s a good fighter, but that wasn’t the same man that I used to work with.”

  That part was news to Anthony, but the fight world wasn’t nearly as big as all that. It probably shouldn’t surprise him to find out that people knew each other.

  “Probably that I wasn’t very good at fighting and stealing his booty call? I’d sparred with Sally earlier, doing my best to be Diego Valdis. Seeing that, he probably figured that was my level. Fair enough, I guess.” Which couldn’t excuse the fact that the man had still come for him. It just explained that he’d figured on an easy win. So much so that he didn’t fight very well himself.

  That would be why Anthony had taken down a much bigger person like that. There was no doubt that the man was strong. Probably skilled as well.

  His uncle just looked at him.

  “So, that part isn’t going to work against you, or the event. It’s… I got a call earlier, from Adam Forsythe?”

  It took longer than a few days to get DNA results, Anthony was nearly certain of that. So it wouldn’t be about that kind of thing. The man was, most likely, too big for him to fight in the cage or ring. What that left… He had nothing and knew it.

&nb
sp; “Oh?” That was all he said. It was a bit noncommittal, but did get Rick to take a deep breath.

  “Um… He wants to come and meet you? He did send out a sample and I have that into the lab already, but it will be a bit before the answer comes in. I said he should wait for that?”

  Shrugging, he regarded his uncle closely.

  “That takes about a month, right? To get the results?”

  There was a sudden cough, which was covered by a large hand.

  “Nope. We can get the results tomorrow. Online. I just figured that if it says he isn’t the dad, he doesn’t need to waste the trip. Also, I don’t know if you want to meet him or not. I mean… You haven’t seemed excited by the idea so far. Not that I can see.”

  That was more or less just the truth. It wasn’t about the man himself. The concept of having a father just wasn’t a real one to him.

  “I don’t know? I guess he can come, if he wants? I’m going to be kind of busy soon. I… This thing with Sally is less than great. At least it will only be three weeks. I think I need to call the promoter and let him know that the fight is still on? Don something?”

  Jen smiled then.

  “Don Teevan? That’s a big name for a smaller fight like this. I guess that I can see it. A woman fighting a man has been done before, but it always gets a certain percentage of people watching. It’s just not normal, so… Plus, it’s in Vegas, so there will be gambling on it.”

  Anthony decided to do that in the morning. That evening he needed to start getting ready for his own fight. Not that he really wanted too. Other people were counting on him though and that was important.

  The others talked as they ate, mainly about the hassles of getting multiple fights together. It sounded hard, but Rick was pleased as to the results that his efforts had been getting so far. It wasn’t just about the one big fight either, since they had several of the things going on that way.

  After dinner, helping to clean up first, Tony went to the living room and just watched an hour of Hodder fighting. The man was decent on his feet and better on the ground. If he ever got tired, it didn’t show either. A few times he used some power moves, showing that he wasn’t weak or anything. The biggest weakness he had, if it was one, being that he tended to fight by pushing the other person up against the wire.

  Not all of the time, but it happened in half his fights. Also, he wasn’t unbeatable, which was good to know. The current UFC champ in his weight class had beaten him rather soundly. In that case though it was pretty much down to what the referee did. He’d kept standing them back up, the other man being a better fighter on his feet than Erlander.

  The name was interesting. At first Tony had figured the man as being black because of it, but he was slightly Mediterranean looking. About thirty and lean in each fight. There was almost no difference that way. That probably meant that nothing Anthony did would leave him in better condition physically than the other man. Not that he could slack off. If anything it meant he’d need to struggle that way as hard as he could, just to leave things kind of even.

  It probably meant he had to add weight lifting, since he needed to be stronger, fast.

  Skill wise… Well, the man wasn’t perfect. There were some gaps in what he did. The thing there was that there weren’t a lot of them. His kicks were much better than Tony had ever managed, for instance. That was a weak point for him still. His punches weren’t as good in form, at least.

  Sumner was better that way, by far and Tony could mimic that pretty well. On the ground the man had really smooth and flowing connections between moves. That plus his strength would mean that he won there. Probably about thirty seconds after they went down.

  Worse, even if he could match him in skill that way, which might be doable in time, the other man being so much more powerful meant he won. Working it all out in his head and including things like the man just deciding to box with him for no reason, or slipping and pulling a muscle, the odds weren’t that great.

  About three percent of the time, Tony might be able to pull off a win. Even training hard, he doubted it was going to be more than ten percent on fight night. The trick then would be to make sure it didn’t happen in the first few minutes. People were paying to see him fight after all.

  The hard part there was that, really, he wanted to win. Tony wanted to believe that he could do it. That his skills and talent were enough to go and make it happen. It just wasn’t the truth. Everyone would know it too. Given that, he didn’t see much point in the fight. Not other than as a curiosity.

  Still, when he went to bed, he lay there for nearly an hour, going over everything he knew how to do, trying to work out a way that it could happen. Not much came to him. He could provide a better guard than the man had ever fought against, he thought. That and hand skills that would be hard to match, until the man took him down to the floor.

  Then… Well, he had to be more skilled. That meant breaking down everything that Hodder might do and working out how to counter it. Then making it part of his instinctual being. Nothing came to him as to a special trick, or technique that would allow him to overcome the guy.

  He had a few months, but there was a real chance that nothing he did would fix the basic fact that the other man was good and innately more powerful than he was. Nothing other than time. Eventually he might reach that kind of thing himself, but not in the next months.

  Thinking those cheery thoughts, he slept.

  When he woke up, things seemed a bit more hopeful. Not about the Hodder fight, in particular, but part of the weight that had been dragging at him lifted. That meant he felt nearly good when he got to the gym at five, to find ten people standing there, ready to run.

  Waving, he called out.

  “I’m on a light run today, with Lexi. Sally, are you all right doing that today?” Tony had no clue how her running was. She’d gotten tired fighting, but not horribly so, really.

  There was a sullen nod, as if he were suggesting punishment. That stopped though, when the others took off, moving much faster than they were. To him it felt like they were barely moving, just jogging along at a restful pace.

  Lexi was breathing a bit hard after a mile and while Sally was smoother that way, she complained a bit.

  “I feel dead. This sucks. Are you sure I can’t use some speed?”

  Lexi went wide eyed and turned her head to look at the new woman. She didn’t speak. Anthony nearly didn’t, but he was supposed to get his fighter ready for the coming match.

  “You’ve gotten used to propping yourself up artificially. That isn’t allowed in real fights. From now on, you have to make yourself do it. Come on, let’s pick up the pace. Ready Lex?” He doubted she really was, but she nodded and kept up, more or less.

  On the good side that meant they were back only about an hour and twenty minutes after starting and that the day was still cool enough to work a bit. Not that he got to, being on rest like he was. Still, he went with them and got both women to actually train like they meant it. At nine Lexi had to run, to teach her first yoga class. Actually, that meant leaving them half an hour before that, so she could shower first.

  Sally huffed as she watched her leave.

  “Lucky. How much longer do I have?”

  “Till noon. Then were going to eat lunch. After that you have sparring. With me. Then we can just sit around, relaxing and going over all of your mistakes. Mine, too.”

  She made a face then, but smiled as she stood up.

  “Okay. I can do that, I think. Won’t I be all tired out for the sparring though?”

  He nodded, but didn’t let her off the hook that easily.

  “Always. Remember, this is pretty much a professional fight for you, at least possibly. Diego might just surprise us, which means we have to make a point of getting you ready. I would have been pushing you harder the whole time, if it were me. Dan… He probably likes you, or did. He was certainly way too soft on you.”

  Seeming a bit miserable, she nodded.

 
; “I… You know, we um, were doing it, for a while?”

  “Which explains so much. Now, head in the game. On the fight. We have to make up for lost time.”

  Chapter ten

  Sally did not get to have a good week there. The same for the one after that, to be honest. The biggest problem for Tony was that he was suddenly over extended by a good clip. Not because the training was that hard, since it wasn’t. It wasn’t even that he couldn’t find a way to win the fight that was coming. No, it was that both of the fighters he was working with decided to become a bit needy.

  Lexi did it first, which shocked him. Mainly by calling him all the time, in the evenings, to ask him questions about what she was supposed to be doing. Even after they made up a schedule for her, he got a nightly call. Worse, she wanted to chat. For hours. He didn’t have time for that kind of thing.

  It wasn’t, as Jen seemed to think, that the woman, who wasn’t all that old, liked him. Anthony understood that one pretty clearly. Not that she secretly hated him. It was just that he’d slipped into being the man in her life, without meaning to. She didn’t have time to get a boyfriend and most of her female pals didn’t get why she was doing the whole fighting thing.

  So her focus went to him.

  Sally was just whiney and complained about fifteen different things per day. Not about the stuff that he would have suspected. He could have gotten that part, if it had taken place. She was working hard and sparring every day, which she hadn’t been before. Mainly with him, but also against some of the other fighters, just to mix things up for her.

  That part didn’t bug her in the slightest. No, she complained because she wanted to get laid. To him. Which was better than doing that with any of the other guys there. They probably would have just helped her address the issue. Tony was going to stand fast, even in the face of her trying to get him to let her do what she wanted.