Shadowboxer: Tapped Out Book 1 Read online

  Shadowboxer

  Tapped Out Book 1

  Cari Quinn

  Taryn Elliott

  eBooks are not transferable.

  They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Shadowboxer

  © 2014 Cari Quinn & Taryn Elliott

  Rainbow Rage Publishing

  Cover by LateNite Designs

  Photograph by Shutterstock

  All Rights Are Reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Second ebook edition: June 2021

  First ebook edition: 2014 previously published under Cari Quinn

  Sign up for our NEWSLETTER for special updates.

  "Intense and emotional! SHADOWBOXER is a knockout punch to the heart."

  Skye Warren, New York Times bestselling author

  I’m in for the fight of my life...with the man who only wants to be my lover.

  I’ve faced the darkest parts of life and survived. But now I’m starting a new life with my baby sister. And that means I need cash.

  Quick.

  To get the money I need, I’m going to beat the reigning king of the male fighters in New York’s underground MMA circuit, Tray “Fox” Knox.

  Tray refuses to fight a woman, until he learns I’m not what he expected. At all.

  Then he makes me a bet I can’t refuse. He’ll fight me, but if he wins, I will spend the night in his bed.

  All night long, his rules. No tapping out.

  I agree, certain he will lose. Because I have to win. I have no choice.

  What I didn’t realize is that Tray loves to fight dirty…and that this match may end up being the most important one of our lives.

  Author’s note: Shadowboxer is a full-length MMA novel and is book 1 in the Tapped Out MMA series. It has a happily ever after ending and no cliffhanger, though it contains violent material that may be triggering. It was previously published by Cari Quinn in 2014 and has been lightly re-edited.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Dear Reader

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  Takedown

  Sneak Attack

  Tapped Out Series

  The Underworld

  Quinn and Elliott

  Taryn Quinn

  Follow Us

  About the Authors

  Acknowledgments

  Sometimes we make up fictional places that end up having the same names as actual places. These are our fictional interpretations only. Please grant us leeway if our creative vision isn't true to reality.

  Dear Reader

  Fiona Apple’s song “Shadowboxer” led to writing Mia’s book. Her story was so scary to publish because it was so different from our other books. Mia is very flawed, and the way she handles things isn’t the way others might. This series contains potentially triggering content about her past trauma, along with violence and other disturbing events, and may not be suitable for all.

  Trauma affects all of us differently, but ultimately, she is a survivor. We all are, even if our battles aren’t the same.

  Sara Bareilles’ song “Brave” is Mia’s theme song. In a sense, it is ours too. We had a chance to edit these books before we rereleased them in June, 2021, but we didn’t change much. These stories were already mostly as they were meant to be. Little time capsules of a certain time and space, with characters who act in sometimes unfathomable ways but are just trying to get by, as we all are.

  More songs that are important to the series are included in the Shadowboxer playlist on Spotify.

  When the Tapped Out series was originally published in 2014, MMA was illegal in New York, and it was the last state to make it legal. Rather than take out that very important part of the series, we edited it to emphasize that Mia, Fox, and the others were participating in underground unsanctioned fighting.

  Thank you so much for reading. If you enjoy the Tapped Out world, please drop us a line and let us know. We have more stories planned.

  Xoxo,

  Cari and Taryn

  Listen Here

  To the missing.

  One

  I was going to fight with a man who some said might kill me. And I wasn’t even afraid.

  Did that make me the better fighter, a cocky bastard or just an idiot?

  Cocky bastard was probably closest to the truth. But as I stared at the poster advertising my upcoming fight with Giovanni Costas, the newest, deadliest hotshot fighter in the NY underground MMA circuit, I wondered if maybe idiot was about to win a lap and streak for home.

  “He’s not the only one who’s looking to fight you.”

  The male voice behind me didn’t make me turn. I didn’t recognize it, but that didn’t matter either. At The Cage, the flow of guys was steady and constant. Some new, some old, most irritating in one way or another.

  I scratched my chin. “Oh, yeah? Who?”

  “Imagine the most unlikely candidate. I mean, ever. One you couldn’t foresee in a million years.”

  Frowning, I turned to face the guy, but he was already backing away. And he was laughing, as if the joke was on me.

  I was one of the preeminent fighters on the circuit. But this guy—a stranger—was baiting me. I’d fight just about anyone, so that wasn’t the problem.

  Actually, I’d never met a fighter I wouldn’t face. No matter how scrappy or how untrained or how fucking nuts, I took them on. And I usually won.

  I started to ask him who this phantom fighter was, but he was already on the move.

  Icy fingers climbed up my spine. Maybe, for once, I didn’t want to fucking know.

  Two

  I was bleeding again.

  Red-tinged water trickled down the drain of the shower at Mark’s Gym, flowing over cracked tiles and years of grime no cleanser could touch. I tended to do a weird kind of tap dance while I showered, because I didn’t like the idea of all that filth seeping into my unprotected skin.

  Tipping my head back, I winced at the stabbing sensation under my left eye. Scalding hot water didn’t help to soothe my wounds, at least the external ones. But sore muscles responded well to the heat, and I loved ducking my head under the steaming spray until nothing existed but my quivering, straining body and the blissful exhaustion awaiting me.

  I soaped myself with my no-name soap, in
haling the cleansing scent. No flowers or fruit for me. My shampoo smelled just as nondescript. I didn’t have a reason to smell sweet. No man to entice, no women to compete with. I’d fashioned my body for one thing.

  To fight. And to win.

  Now that I was finally making money in the underground MMA scene in Brooklyn, I’d almost reached the point of walking away for good. I’d spent months preparing for an upcoming battle with perfect, blond Fox Knox, a man who probably didn’t know I existed. I’d given up one form of making money with my body for another, but soon enough I’d drop this one too.

  All I needed was that payday from fighting Fox. That was my—our—ticket out.

  I got out and toweled off, then hurried to my locker. Due to the day’s unexpected snow, the locker room was much less crowded than usual. Only my trainer, Kizzy, and a couple others had showed, and our practice sparring session had gotten a little out of control. The real fight Friday night would be extra special now, since I was already hurt.

  I yanked open my locker and smiled at the tattered photo I’d hung up with a magnet so it wouldn’t get damaged by tape. Carly’s bright blue eyes stared into mine, filled with the joy reflected in that gap-toothed smile. Her cinnamon freckles went with her more-strawberry-than-blond hair, a complete contrast to my pale, almost translucent skin and brown eyes and hair.

  Our looks were the least of our differences. Sometimes it felt like ten years separated us instead of a bit more than three. My baby sister had kept me going all these years, and she’d help me get over the finish line to our new life.

  A month from now, she would turn eighteen. Then we’d start the rest of our lives, far away from New York. We both needed a fresh start, far from the memories that haunted us.

  I was determined we’d get one.

  The door to the locker room slammed open, startling me. The feminine laughter that followed dragged razorblades down my spine. Anyone that didn’t think female fighters postured every bit as much as men didn’t meet the chicks I did on a daily basis. This particular group of them had hated me and everything I represented on sight. I wasn’t from their neighborhood of pawn shops and beauty salons.

  I didn’t have a neighborhood. No matter where I laid my head at night, I had no community and few friends. Which made me a target. Take me out and they’d have one less competitor to face.

  But they didn’t get that I was fighting for my life.

  “Hey Mia,” one of them called to me, smiling.

  Apparently, she wasn’t too disgusted by my once again bleeding lip. I must’ve bitten it without realizing.

  “Heard you’re trying to set up something with Fox. You know that’s not going to happen, right?”

  Instead of arguing with Vanity—I could never remember her real name, but I couldn’t forget her brutal right hook—I dropped my towel and hauled up my skinny jeans, sans underwear. I’d never been able to keep a lot of weight on, but lately, it’d been dropping off no matter how many protein shakes I drank. My muscle tone was excellent, though my breasts were about to edge into an A cup if I didn’t watch it. Not a huge problem, since most of the guys I used to “date” ignored their presence. They mostly just got in the way when I was fighting.

  Vanity strutted forward. “Aww, Spyder doesn’t speak?”

  I tugged my sweatshirt free of the crap I toted around on a daily basis. That bag represented my home away from home and overflowed with hairbands, a battered paperback, gauze, cloth hand wraps, extra mouth guards, bike shorts, and a couple of tank tops.

  Right now, the bag offered a distraction. Maybe if I ignored Vanity, she’d leave me the hell alone.

  “I’ve never heard you talk,” she continued. “You fight like a little bitch, so I figured you’d have the smart mouth to go with it.”

  The smirk crossed my face before I could stop it. One day, I’d learn to control my involuntary reactions. They were always getting me in trouble.

  My voluntary ones weren’t much better.

  I pulled the sweatshirt over my head, well aware of the risk I was taking by breaking eye contact even for a moment. The show of insolence was worth it. No one would ever make me cower again.

  The punch hit me square in the stomach, staggering me backward and stealing my breath for a fraction of an instant before adrenaline surged through my system and buried some of the soreness. Panic rose up in my chest, hot and unwelcome, almost as overwhelming as the agony that twisted my guts. Though it cost me extra seconds, I relied on the mantras I used in the ring to shove the fear in a box.

  I’d go down swinging, no matter what.

  I jerked down the sweatshirt and shoved my arms through, smiling like she hadn’t just made me nauseated enough to have the burned egg sandwich I’d eaten for breakfast lurching up my throat.

  She blinked, clearly confused. Flexing the hand she’d just used to give me one more bruise, she glanced back at her friends. And that was all the opening I needed.

  Charging forward, I grabbed her by the throat and drove her into the wall. Her skull cracked ominously upon hitting the wood. I didn’t shy away from pain, my own or others. But I didn’t have a reason to inflict it here, other than the hit she’d delivered to my ego. Blows and namecalling I could withstand. I just couldn’t withstand her taunts that I had no chance of fighting Fox, when I’d been working toward that solitary goal for months.

  Predictably, Vanity’s friends were on me like cockroaches before I’d even had a chance to scratch those overly made-up cheeks. The stage name fit her, since she sashayed around the ring as if she were on a runway in Paris instead of an octagon in a rundown former industrial building in Brooklyn or occasionally, the Bronx. She didn’t fight for the money, such as it was. Most amateur fighters didn’t make much, and amateur women made even less. She fought because she thought it made her look tough.

  And now I was getting my already fucked up hair pulled out by the root by the crew of catty females who’d decided to triple team me.

  Pain bloomed in my ribs, in my back, as they nailed me with punches to the kidneys and everywhere else. That was the bad part about getting into a brawl with fighter chicks. Even if I could’ve taken them on their own, as a group they were pretty persuasive. Especially when Mean Girl Number Two jammed a knuckle in my eye and sent me reeling onto my back on the dirty floor.

  Fuckkkkk.

  I focused on the shapes that loomed over me, each of them in triplicate. They laughed and gasped, holding their sides. They’d beaten me.

  Or so they thought.

  Fast as a rattler, I pushed through the pain and jerked to my feet, grabbing two heads of fluffy curls and slamming them together. I hated them for their laughter, for mocking me, for their pretty hairdos. I’d had pretty hair once, so long ago that even the few pictures I’d saved were unrecognizable. Even my memories of happier times taunted me, if I allowed them to.

  Their inhuman howls tasted like victory, though blood washed over my tongue. Bit it again, dammit. But at least they’d stopped laughing. Even Vanity had backed up, her big blue eyes wide.

  I had nothing to lose. Death didn’t scare me. Why else would I stagger toward it with my fists up night after night, hoping someone would finally put me out of my misery? I never put my death wish into words. Never even let myself think that way. There were definitely things I wanted to live for—like Carly—but sometimes even I wondered how far I really wanted to go.

  They cursed at me and called me names. I’d heard them all before. Puta especially. Then they took off, apparently forgetting they’d come in to shower and get changed.

  A smile cracked my sore lips as the door clanged shut behind them. The expression I so didn’t feel helped stave off the prickling in my eyes. Pity they hadn’t stuck around to get washed up.

  What, didn’t they trust turning their backs on me?

  Limping, I made my way to the sinks to view the damage. Dammit. Even worse than I’d thought. More bruising near my eye, newly reopened cut lip. Various scratches.
By tomorrow, my face and torso would be a rainbow of blue, purple, and green.

  I did the best I could with soap, water, and antibacterial cream, then I shuffled out of the locker room before anyone else could ambush me. The ibuprofen and acetaminophen cocktail I’d just taken had emptied out the last of my meds supply, and in my business, I’d need more quick.

  Time to visit the Kum and Go again, even though I’d just been there a few nights ago to replenish my stocks of tampons, peanut butter crackers, and root beer popsicles for my sore lips. I could power through a few bumps and bruises without pills, but I looked like I’d been hit by a truck that had reversed to do wheelies on my face.

  Didn’t matter. I’d get by. I always did. These scattered body blows wouldn’t do anything but make me train harder. I had the fight Friday night, and I would win. No matter what. Before then, I had to convince my boss at Vinnie’s to let me work tonight, busted-up face and all. The job at the bar, the fights, the pain—they would all be over soon.