The Art of Being Tony (Tony Winters Book 1) Read online

  “I’d set the camera going in the cardio room and we’ve been watching the parking lot, just in case. Ashley told us that Daren had gotten alibis in place before, each time. So when he came at me, I knew that I’d need witnesses, as well as good camera shots, showing how he was trying to kill a child. That meant getting inside. I could have just run away, but that wouldn’t get enough of it to have him sent away for years. Not really. This might not. It isn’t just my word against his at least. We have proof.”

  His uncle nodded.

  “I think I get the idea. Well, he really was trying to cut you up. How much of the rest did you add?”

  He did something then that had never happened before. Not with Rick.

  Tony lied to him. Not Anthony. No, the act he was playing, being the good person that protected others, told him the whole thing. Exactly as the cops had heard it. More or less. Because that would protect Ash better, in the end. If they knew he was lying, then they might let it slip, or feel guilty over it, later. This way they could just trust in him. Even if he felt horrible about what he was doing. Not to Daren, but to them. Jen, Rick and Steve.

  The people that mattered.

  Daren was a jerk who really should have been in prison already, for at least attempted murder. For what he’d done that day, too. Anthony just had to make sure that all stuck, which meant never telling them the facts of what was said. How the man had practically spoken of love in poetry, using words that were fine enough that Anthony could see how he’d gotten a date with both Ashley and Dani, in the first place. It had to be real. He knew that. From that point on, the man had to have been trying to kill them all.

  Which, even if he hadn’t said it, the wild looking slashing at an innocent Cardio-Boxing class truly made it seem like.

  The hospital was sort of beige and very boring. He had to get a few stitches, about seventy in all, but it didn’t really hurt as much as everyone seemed to be thinking it should. When they went home, taking him directly, the first thing that Jenny did was take pictures of the wounds.

  He had some bruises too, but that wasn’t from the knife. Just his daily life there. It made it seem like Daren had beaten him somehow. It would in court, even if he were honest about that and pointed out that only the cuts were his doing. People just saw damage and would lump it all together.

  The blonde woman seemed scared. For real. As if it mattered if he died, or something like that.

  “Are you… Okay? I… I can see how you might not feel safe at the gym now. I can cancel the fight next month and stay here with you?”

  He actually snorted at her, just as Ashley came inside, followed by Denny. Really, most of his people were kind of there for him, he realized.

  “What? Why do that? I can’t do a lot of training for a bit, but you heard the doctor. I can run and stuff in a few days. As long as I’m careful. I don’t know what to do about the sparring session with Nick tomorrow. I doubt I can do it without tearing things open. Do we have anyone else that can do that part? If we push it back a day we can go over it with them, so they can catch the right tricks.” It wasn’t that hard to do. Not if you practiced first.

  Steve slumped onto the sofa. Ashley moved in right next to Anthony, settling almost on top of him.

  “This is all my fault. I… didn’t think that he’d go after anyone. Not if I wasn’t dating them. Especially you, Tony. I can’t believe this. It’s like a nightmare that I can’t wake up from!”

  Then she hugged him with one arm and buried her head in his shoulder.

  “He could have killed you. It’s all my fault.”

  Except, of course, that simply wasn’t the case.

  “Nope. Not that one. It’s going to be pretty hard for him to walk away from this, I think. He attacked people in front of twenty-odd witnesses and was caught on two cameras doing it. Me being sliced up a little is annoying, for me and janitorial, but not a nightmare. I just have to figure out how to get my workouts in without ripping the wounds open. Those were really clean, so as long as I don’t tear them apart, I should be back inside a month. Even that is only because of all the pulling we do on skin all the time. Otherwise it would be less. It still might be, even given all of that.” If he were just running and lifting weights it would have been about two weeks to return to normal activities.

  His version of normal was just weird, that was all.

  It was hard to sleep that night, but Steve went home, since the major known threat was locked up for the time being. He would be until he made bail. That meant Anthony got his own bed, which didn’t mean he was going to rest well. Like always, he saw things in his sleep that he would have rather avoided. On the good side, he was showered, bandaged and ready when everyone else got up the next morning. Dressed to go running. Not that even Tony was that stupid. It really would be a bit before he could do that part. What he could do however, was go and make sure everyone knew he was timing them.

  “Because slacking off over this won’t help anyone. I’m not even the one in training for anything.”

  Then, because he was on serious light duty, he ended up watching videos all day, taking notes, in Rick’s office.

  “These aren’t fighters that anyone in our club will be working against soon, but things change and being up on them can really help at times. Plus, when you get back, if you can copy any of their styles, or even better, learn how they’d use their patterns to try and defeat our fighters, that could come in handy.”

  Anthony smiled and decided that it was really a better use of time than watching daytime talk shows.

  “So… You can’t think of anything else for me to do either?” He grinned and kept it cheery.

  His uncle sighed.

  “Exactly. So glad I don’t have to try and hide that fact. Still, this really won’t hurt. Even when people mess up, there are lessons in it, if you’re willing to learn.” Then he left. Probably to go and work out, or help someone else train. He never really saw the man doing that kind of thing there, but his build told the story about how it was going on anyway.

  He was lean, hard and…

  Kind.

  Which was probably not a bad thing to be in life. Not if you could get away with it.

  The video was alternately a bit boring and hugely fascinating. Some of the fights, especially the MMA bouts, were technical and a little slow paced due to that. The boxing ones were better, as far as excitement, but the best fighters, in both areas, tended to be a little bit predictable and even yawn inducing.

  Though, there were a couple that hit the right level of things. They won, which everyone seemed to like and did it with skill. Then they caused a splash in the press and the fight world, normally by pulling minor stunts or saying outrageous things. People hated it, but wanted to back the winner. So as long as you did that and weren’t too far down the a-hole tunnel, they paid attention to you.

  It could even work if you lost, at times.

  Missy Holms, who was a fighter in the mix of vids, even though she was just now starting back into things after Fox Rends had shattered her lower jaw, beating her without mercy, had run her mouth a bit first. Going on about how no one could beat her and that Fox wasn’t even very good. It was kind of true, but she’d underestimated the power levels involved.

  It had cost her. Still, everyone was pulling for her now and it was possible that someone there could end up fighting her inside the next year.

  There were others that just seemed to be trying to be rude. To everyone, all the time. Only one of them was as light as Anthony was however. Nearly. Just one fighter in the mix. He was a Japanese man, Ichihiro Saka. He had a lot of tattoos, a wispy, but short beard, trim mustache and a mouth that wouldn’t quit. A great sneer, too. Almost everyone hated him.

  Unfortunately, he was pretty good. Not in the top ten for men, even in his size range, but he was listed, according to the screen, as the four hundredth best male fighter for MMA, in the world. Regardless of weight class. They had a few of his fights on vid and he had
some issues. Most people did, so it wasn’t that hard to work out why that was.

  Really, in a lot of ways, he was similar to Ashley.

  The man had started out in Judo, then learned jujitsu later in life. He used his hands and standing game all right, but the lack of training in it really showed. In a boxing ring he would have been down inside a round or two. Even if he was pretty tough. What he excelled at was submissions and chokes. Honestly, he would have been popular, even in the states, if he would just cut out half the insults he hurled at… Pretty much anyone he could.

  The thing there was that no one really knew if the man was just that bad tempered, or was trying to act that way as part of a scheme to get attention. What they did know was that it wasn’t just something lost in translation. The announcers were very certain about that part of things. Enough so that most of them seemed to not want the man around. On the good side, people would pay to see him lose and he wasn’t unbeatable.

  It took borrowing a stop watch from the front desk, but it was kind of clear that Ichihiro would stand and fight on his feet once engaged, for a time that was almost always between forty-six seconds and a minute-seven. Every time. Even if he was being badly beaten that way, round after round.

  So a fighter could exploit that, using superior standing skills to really hurt him for a minute before he took things to the ground. If they were good enough, they could knock him out right at the start. Most MMA fighters lacked the skill and power to get that done. It wasn’t that they were weak, as much as how they moved and punched. A few, mainly the ones with other kinds of fighting background, could pull it off.

  The thing there was that a lot of the good grapplers were kind of on the small side. The good punchers tended toward the heavier weights. That pretty much meant the man was kind of hard to beat, by anyone in his weight range. That was a bit heavier than Anthony was, at the moment. About a hundred and twenty-five pounds. If they could get Denny down to a small enough size, he could, most likely, walk out and just take the man down, without too much trouble. Steve could probably do it as well. A minute was a long time to stand against a professional boxer, if you weren’t one.

  The phone on the desk rang and then did it again. On the fifth ring he picked it up, figuring that if it hadn’t gone to voice mail yet, it might not do that. Still, he worked to keep the whole thing professional sounding.

  “Winters Gym. This is Tony. You’ve reached Rick Winters’ phone.” It was how you answered another person’s phone for them. His mother hadn’t taught him a lot in life, but that one had managed to stick and not seem too negative. The other one was about taking opportunities when they arose. Even if it was hard.

  “Hello? This is Gene Redding. From WWFN? I heard there was an attack there last night? I was hoping to talk to Rick about it. You know, make certain all the fighters are all right? The man in the video looked good, but was bleeding when he took down the attacker. No one has a name for him yet…” It was kind of clear the man wanted him to give that and was waiting for it to happen.

  Like he was falling for that kind of thing.

  “Let me see if I can go find Rick? Or, I can take a number and have him call you right back? That might work better. I’m currently in his office, doing some research, so I know he isn’t here.”

  There was a pause and a deep, slightly sad breath, but the man wasn’t rude about it or anything.

  “That would be great, thanks. We need to go to air in the next few hours, so if he wants to make a statement or anything, it would be best to get right on that.”

  “Got it. I’ll get on that right now. He should be in touch shortly.”

  The data wasn’t hard to get and once he hung up, he walked, if quickly, to the second floor. That seemed to be the right call and sure enough, Rick was in with Denny, Steve and Mark, along with two other trainers. Working at a brutal pace.

  Which left him feeling more than a bit lazy.

  “Rick? A Gene Redding from WWFN called? About the stuff last night? He wants to know if any of the fighters were hurt and to get a statement, I think?” Anthony grinned then. “I said nothing, myself. I just told him that I’d get you to make a return call pretty fast, since they go to air in a few hours.”

  No one stopped what they were doing, which were sit-ups. Showing off their ability to move the centers of their bodies. Right in front of him like that. Bending almost in half. Teasing him with their uninjured states… It had to take a lot of nerve. He smiled, thinking that and didn’t say anything, even as a joke. The fact was, they might really feel bad about it and they needed to be focused on what they were doing. Not worrying over him. He’d be fine.

  Ashley should be too, unless something happened to change that.

  Like Daren making bail, or escaping to try and really hurt her. It was a risk, but it had been one the day before as well. The man really wasn’t well balanced. Loving others wasn’t a bad thing, but sometimes you had to step back and go away, even when you didn’t want to. Not understanding that was a real problem. One that no one had a real way to handle.

  Now they did and all it had cost was a few slash marks.

  Rick didn’t wave for him to follow, but everyone was switching to push-ups anyway and it was kind of clear that they didn’t need him to stand there and cheer for them to do that. So he ended up just kind of following along with his uncle.

  It wasn’t until they were both in the office that Rick seemed to get that he was there. Interestingly, instead of waving him away for the secret meeting, he closed the door and gestured for him to sit. Then found the number for Redding.

  It picked up after a couple of rings. Anthony could hear the other voice, if not make out what was said.

  “Hey, Gene. This is Rick Winters. I was told that you called?”

  He listened for a bit and after a while, nodded.

  “Not at all. The police have asked us not to talk about the particulars, but the man on the tape is my nephew, Tony. Tony Winters. He’s fifteen. I know! I agree, he finished that pretty nicely. There is a lot more to this, but that isn’t my story to tell and should probably wait until after the trial.”

  Then for some reason he relaxed.

  “Oh, we’re all very excited here. Ashley Lancaster is ready for this. My call? Fox Rends is going to be in for a fight she does not expect. That’s right, the tenth of July, in Las Vegas. On Pay-Per-View. Exactly.”

  They went on in that vein for a while and while it was clear that Rick was being confident, it didn’t sound like anyone else loved Ashley’s chances all that much.

  Which meant it was up to him to help her win, somehow.

  Chapter eleven

  The next few days were some of the hardest that Anthony had at the gym so far. Not because of pain, or the huge physical effort that was needed or anything like that. No, that would be normal and a thing he was kind of getting used to. The problem was with shyness. Innately, that had been a thing he’d carried with him ever since he could remember. Being a quiet person, who read a lot and kept to himself.

  Now though, his friends needed his help. Not in some big way, of course. They all had good trainers and other people at the gym to help keep them going. A lot of them really. Including the ones that he hadn’t really made a point to meet or talk to past waving at and saying hello to as he passed them. Maybe getting them a towel, or on occasion refilling a water bottle for them from the fountain, so they could keep working uninterrupted.

  No one really noticed that kind of stuff, he didn’t think. Which was fine as far as he was concerned. So far however, he’d used working hard the whole time as a bit of a shield to keep himself away from most of the others. Now that had to change. For his people.

  He’d been set up to spar with Ashley and Nick and for each of them his job had been to bring a specific sense to the matches. The styles, or as close as he could get, of their next big fights. Since the stitches weren’t going to let him do that himself, that meant arranging for others to work in.

>   In the end he had to approach five of the amateur MMA guys, to help with Nick. They were all decent grapplers, though none of them were great on their feet in particular. What they could do, working together, was take turns pushing Nick nearly full out over the course of ten rounds.

  Anthony had to work with them for three days first to get them ready for that. Even then, it was a little weak when they actually showed up on the day. The guys were all nervous about working with a pro and it showed in their efforts. Only one of them, Robert, pulled off the act he was supposed to have, pushing hard, but also using all of his ground skills as well as he could the whole time.

  Raul nodded and pointed at him before everyone took off that day. Marking him out from the crowd.

  “Tony!” The man, always big, as far as personality went, moved to gently clap him on the shoulder. “Get better faster than this. I appreciate the effort here, but it isn’t the same as what you would bring. No fake tattoos even. That is a shame. That’s my favorite part.”

  He nodded. It really did seem to make a difference. This sparring session hadn’t been that great really. Not for Nick.

  “Robert did all right at least. The third guy?”

  “Yes! You should look around and see if anyone wants to take him under their wing? He has promise. A bit older, but not everyone has to be a professional fighter to be useful in life, yeah?”

  He nodded, since at least the man was being nice about the fact that the towel kid was trying to be halfway useful. It was hard to tell if Anthony was honestly managing that, or if everyone was just being polite to him about it all. Then, really, at least they were trying to be kind, if that was the case, which made it worth trying even harder.

  Arranging something for Ashley was more difficult, though not as stressful. After all, the perfect man for that job was Nick, who’d stepped up his training a lot, as far as cardio and muscular endurance, as well as strength. He was heavier than Fox Rends would be fighting at, but it was close enough to really push their friend.