Page 132 of With Wine Comes War

“I get that, but do you think this is a good idea? This guy is dangerous.”

“I’ve looked into him and his family. If you don’t want to hear this, you should hang up now.”

“Why stop now, just tell me.”Fuck do I really want to hear this?

“Tanner’s been arrested on multiple occasions for abuse against women. Physical and drug related. He’s gotten off every time because of his brother. This time the woman didn’t back down. That’s the only reason anything happened to him. Alex is the one who took the plea deal for the lower sentence. She knew she’d have to go through a trial to get the five years and they’d just let him out early, so she decided to bait him so she could ask for more severe terms.”

Well, damn, she’s a smart girl, isn’t she. Except for the part where she’s going to fight a violent abuser. I laid my head down on the desk.

“Grant. Do you think she can beat him?” I mumbled into the desk.

Grant laughed. “You don’t? I thought you knew her better than anyone?”

I thought about that and watching her fight in the ring at the gym. I guess I was only paying attention to the times she got hit over the times she was doing the hitting. Maybe she can do this.

“Well, you’ll have to let me know how it goes.” How can I possibly watch that when I can’t even watch her with people who didn’t want to hurt her.

“I’ll do that. Don’t worry about our girl, Roman. She’s going to figure this out.”

Two more days till show time. The door to my elevator opened and in walked Harrison and Amelia.

“Hey guys, how are you?” I’m sure this is just more feeling sorry for me and worrying about Alex.

Amelia said, “We’re fine. How are you? I’m sure you’ve seen the news and social media and know what’s going on, right?”

“I did, yes.” I leaned back and stretched my arms out on the back of the sofa.

“Are you going to try and stop her?” Harrison demanded.

Why do people think I have any power to stop this? “Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know, maybe because she’s getting into the ring with a psycho?”

Not sure which one of them was more psycho, to tell you the truth.

“You know she did this, right? She got a judge to agree to this.” They looked at each other like that was impossible.

Harrison commented, “That can’t be true. No judge would ever do something like this, would they?” Apparently, they would.

“I mean, I know she’s been training and working out or whatever, but this is dangerous. Why would a judge turn this into some kind of hunger games?” Amelia sounded alarmed to say the least. I shook my head. That’s a damn good question. Maybe this judge should be looked into also.

“I don’t know, I wasn’t there, and I won’t be at the insane spectacle either.”

Harrison seemed a little uncomfortable when he said, “Well, I’m going to support the girl. Too many people are calling her crazy and insane…" He tipped his head directly at me and I smiled "…and I don’t want that getting in her head, so Amelia and I are going.”

“Thank you.” After they left, I stayed up a little while longer trying to extend this day as long as I could— then I saw the text. She wanted me to pray for her to show my support. I will always be here to pray for you sweet girl, always.

Saturday morning came quicker than expected. I reread her text several times when I woke up. I was still on her 5:00 am wake up time, so I had plenty of time before her fight to decide if I was going to be there.

***

ALEX

I kept myself busy all week with work. I was getting tired of everyone saying I was crazy, and I couldn’t win this fight all over my social media, so I turned it all off. I didn’t watch the news, and I didn’t talk to any of the reporters outside my apartment building. Grant made sure they left me alone at work and said he would work on the ones at my building too. Not sure how he was going to do that but if he could then that’s spectacular.

I didn’t interact with Roman when I was at his office in meetings. I was engrossed in putting together the new non–profit that Harrison and his investors were helping me get started. The meeting with the Burrow Township residents was amazing. Almost everyone was on board. Only some of the residents decided to go their own way and not be a part of it. They thought we were relocatingthem to a dump, and I couldn’t disagree, but I had a clear vision. I also had Shay and Darius so versed on the project they could practically do it themselves. That was part of my plan because I didn’t want what was going on with me to overshadow the project.

Every day after work I went to the MMA studio and had Bruce keep me focused. Raphael was my new sparring partner, and he taught me a lot more than I already knew. The Friday before the fight the whole team had a surprise for me. They had a potluck with balloons, cards and the most important thing, their support. I was ready.

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