Fight for Her #4: MMA New Adult Contemporary Romantic Suspense by JJ Knight Page B

hug. “I’ll come back later,” I say.
    He holds up the fork. “Make sure you have this when it’s time for a wedding.”
    Mom snaps her head around, startled, but for the first time in my own life, and probably hers, she keeps her mouth shut.
    “Okay, Daddy,” I say. I kiss his cheek.
    And try not to totally freak completely out as I walk out of the room.

Chapter 17: Parker  

    The word gets to us in the late afternoon. I’m sitting on the floor of Maddie’s mother’s house, playing jacks with Lily. Dang nuisance of a game, but Delores insists it’s the best game ever invented. I can’t seem to get my grubby paw to pick up any of the jacks between ball bounces.
    “Your phone is buzzing like crazy,” Maddie says. She walks it over to me, eyes still on a brochure for a rehab facility she picked up at the hospital that morning.
    I take it from her.
    “Got three,” Lily says, holding up the jacks. “I’m going to win.”
    “When did you learn to count?” I say, snatching her up and tickling her belly. “You’re supposed to let your poor old daddy win some of the time.”
    She giggles and squirms out of my grasp. “I can count to eleven!” she says and sits back in front of the scattered jacks.
    I punch the phone on. There’s a bunch of messages from Colt. I scan them and laugh out loud. “That Jax is something.”
    “What about the jacks?” Lily asks.
    Maddie looks up from the brochure. “What this time?”
    I show her the phone. Her eyebrows lift as she reads. “Really?”
    “What about the jacks?” Lily asks again.
    I take the ball from her. “Daddy is going to lose at them,” I say. My chest feels a lot lighter.
    Striker got arrested last night, about the same time as Lani after attacking Maddie. Neither got out on bail, due to their histories.
    Lani violated her probation from the attack on Colt. She’ll probably get out again, but not for a while.
    Striker, though, got busted on four counts. His warehouse brawl got busted by the Vegas police. Illegal fights. Unregulated gambling. Drug dealing. And prostitution.
    “Really?” Maddie asks. “The last one?”
    I shrug. Jax probably did that one as a joke.
    “There’s a link to an article about it,” I say. I take the pink ball from Lily and try once again to pick up a dang jack between bounces. The ball hits the edge of a tile and goes wild.
    “Daddy, you’re just no good,” Lily says.
    “They received an anonymous tip,” Maddie says. “And now his fingerprints are matching up to a dozen other crimes in the area.”
    “Sounds like he’s in for some hard time,” I say.
    Maddie sits on the floor next to us. “So what do we do now?”
    “We can probably call off the guards.”
    Delores walks into the room right as I say it. “What?” she asks. “Oh, no. They have to stay.”
    Maddie and I glance at each other and laugh.
    “What about the fight with Viper?” Maddie asks.
    Lily bounces the ball and expertly picks up a handful of jacks. She’s got dexterity. And not from me.
    “I signed a contract to do the fight,” I say.
    “So you’ll do it?” she says.
    “It’s a pretty big kill fee to cancel,” I reply.
    “Where’s it going to be?”
    “Here in LA,” I say.
    Her shoulders relax. I can tell she didn’t want to go to Vegas.
    “If you want me to stop, I’ll stop,” I say. “I can take out a loan, pay the kill fee, return the sponsor money.”
    “Of course not.” She absently picks up a jack. Lily takes it from her and scatters the whole set on the floor again. Apparently we’re starting another game.
    “I’ll just do the fight. If I lose, it’s over anyway. If I win, I’ll turn down the league slot.” Every time I picture that guy holding Maddie while Lani punched her, I know I’m not going to let Maddie go. I will do what it takes.
    Maddie nods. “You’re not going to lose, though. You never lose.”
    Lily holds up the pink ball. “He loses every time at jacks.”
    And that’s when I know what