Page 65 of If You Fight

Chapter Twenty

Serena

For nearly five months, Ryder trained constantly and when he wasn’t training, he was fighting in matches my father arranged for him. Each night, he lay next to me with his hand on my belly as it slowly grew, the two of us sharing a secret no one else in the world knew about. We talked about my OB-GYN visits and decided we didn’t want to know the sex of the baby until he or she was born. He told me about all the places we could go once he made enough money, and even though he never explained where he was making this money since I knew my father wasn’t the source, I didn’t ask, in part because I didn’t want to know what he had to do to make it and in part because I wanted him to know I trusted him.

But I never stopped worrying that one of those nights he’d step into the ring and when he left, he’d look like Seth did staggering away in defeat.

Every day felt like the calm before the storm. My father seemed happy with his new arrangement with Ryder, smiling in that way that didn’t terrify me whenever I saw him. With each successive win, he made more money and Ryder’s worth grew in his eyes.

Still, I had to wonder if that might be a double-edged sword. The more valuable he became to my father, the more reluctant he’d be to just lose him when Ryder and I could finally leave. We had no plans to tell him in advance, but if he wanted to find us, there’d be nothing in the world that would stop him. We could go to the ends of the earth, and if he decided he wouldn’t let Ryder go, it wouldn’t matter what we tried.

We’d be trapped here until my father decided neither of us were worth enough to care about.

His obsession with making me as miserable as possible seemed to ebb away as his fascination with Ryder fighting again grew. I wanted to believe none of it would matter when the time came and we could finally escape, but I knew with every day there existed a chance that all our plans would be for naught.

The private detective called me once a week to update me on his progress in finding my mother. My hope for seeing her again slowly dimmed as each time he said he hadn’t located her, yet I wondered if I’d waited too long to look for her and she was long gone from the world. If that were the case, I knew who to blame.

Then one night Ryder returned home and I smelled a familiar, sickening scent. It wafted through the air as he walked toward me and leaned down to kiss me hello. I’d know that perfume anywhere. The sweet smell of it had never left me.

He smiled and patted my belly. “How are my two favorite people doing tonight?”

I inhaled deeply, taking the odor of that cheap perfume into my nose. “Where do you go when you go to train with Floyd?”

The surest look of guilt crossed his face before he answered, “The warehouse. When there aren’t fights going on, we train there.”

“Why don’t you train here in the work out room? It’s got all those machines, so I imagine you’d be able to lift or whatever you do, right?” I asked, my stomach turning from that smell.

Ryder chuckled and shook his head. “Training means more than just lifting. Most sessions, I spar with another fighter. I can’t do that here.”

“Is this training something you’re keeping from my father? I can’t figure out how you’re making money for us to get away from here if you’re just training every day.”

His expression grew serious and he drew his eyebrows in. “Yeah, this needs to be kept a secret, Serena. Just trust me. I’m doing what I have to so we can get away from here.”

I didn’t want to not have faith in him, but I knew where that perfume had come from. He wasn’t going to tell me the truth, though. I knew that too.

“Are we getting close to what we need?” I asked as sweetly as I could while inside every insecurity I had began to plague me just like when I first heard Ryder say he’d been with someone named Kitty.

He smiled and I wanted to believe him when he said, “Almost. I think before the baby comes, we can be out of here.”

I watched for any sign of betrayal in his eyes, but I saw none. That smell hadn’t come from nowhere, though.

“What do you say I get changed and we take a walk in the garden? It’s not too cold out tonight,” he said as he walked into the bedroom.

“It’s April, Ryder. It’s still chilly out at night,” I yelled into him.

He poked his head out of the bedroom and smiled. “It’s got to be fifty degrees out now. We’ll only take a short walk if you get cold.”

I couldn’t say no to him when he looked so eager, so I got up and headed in to get my shoes. “I usually don’t go out into the garden until it’s warm enough that I don’t have to wear anything on my feet. Fifty might be a little chilly for that.”

Ryder stopped getting dressed and turned to face me. “Instead of that, let’s just stay here.”

“Why? It sounded like you wanted to go, so let’s go.”

“No. I don’t want to anymore.”

He pulled me into his arms, and I knew what the sudden change was about. He’d remembered how much I hated wearing shoes. We hadn’t talked about it in months, but he’d remembered.

“Are you sure?” I asked, wishing I hadn’t just minutes before been thinking of him cheating on me with Kitty.

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