ROMANCE: BAD BOY ROMANCE: M.V.B. - Most Valuable Baby (Sports Secret Baby Romance) (Contemporary Interracial Pregnancy Romance) (60 page)

Daddy stood up then and grabbed Sophia’s arm. She cringed because his hand squeezed so hard it hurt. He sat her down on the bench, and then smacked her, leaving a red handprint on her face. Zach tried to step in but the bald man shoved him out of the way. “Daddy is working,” his opponent said. Sophia was reminded of a movie trailer narrator.

She rubbed her cheek, feeling like a child again. She wanted to just leave with Zach but she knew that wasn’t possible – at least not yet. She gazed up at him defiantly as he spoke. “How dare you leave your own home when you have an appointment to keep?”

“I’m here aren’t I?” she spat.

He slapped her on her other cheek. Both of her cheeks burned furiously. She felt nothing but hatred for this man and was looking forward to watching him get put behind bars.

“Don’t test me girl,” he said in a low tone. “Not when your lover’s life is at stake.”

“Why do we get this fight over with then?” Zach asked. He had his shirt off and was in the middle of wrapping his hands. His opponent had been ready from the beginning and was only waiting for him.

Daddy turned to Zach. “You have five minutes. After that, whether you’re ready or not, he will attack you.” He eyed Zach’s hand and smirked. “Got into an accident?”

Zachary finished wrapping his hands. “What, this? I would worry more about yourself, Daddy.”

“Well, may the best man win.” Daddy smirked and turned towards the bench.

Sophia felt sick to her stomach hearing Daddy say that. She knew he had something up his sleeve. The mafia never fought fairly – the man appointed as Zach’s opponent had something that would put Zach at a disadvantage and everyone present knew it. Zach was searching his enemy intently for anything out of the ordinary but could find nothing.

Finally, Zach and the bald man whose name Sophia did not know stood across from each other and Daddy sat down next to her. A moment of silence passed and she could almost see the intensity passing from the bald man to Zach. Daddy raised a flag, and the man charged at Zach.

CHAPTER SIX

She watched as Zach blocked attacks from multiple directions and put his opponent in a headlock but his opponent out-weighed Zack and he was flipped onto his back. Zach recovered quickly, never taking his eyes off of his enemy. He wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings – he was focusing all of his attention on winning, or at least not losing.

That was where Sophia came in, though. She wanted to watch the fight, and she did glance over from time to time to keep an eye on Zach’s condition, but she was mostly keeping an eye on the surroundings to see if anything was out of the ordinary. She counted herself lucky that everything seemed to be normal except for the two men fighting in the park. She couldn’t even imagine how out of place the scene must have looked to other people.

For a time it seemed like the fight would be fought fairly and Zach seemed to be winning. Even with his physical impairment, he had the knowledge and skill to beat another master. She felt proud of him and hoped that for once, Daddy would fight fairly. At the very least it seemed that his champion was fighting fairly.

The man picked Zachary up and threw him over his shoulder, and in a flash he dove to the ground with his elbow out. Zach rolled out of the way and quickly hooked his leg on his opponent’s arm so he couldn’t get up, and with his good hand began to lower blows on the bald man’s face.

Something happened then that Sophia almost missed. She saw a glint in the sunlight, something that hadn’t been in the bald man’s hand before. In her focused attention on her surroundings, it shone just enough to catch her attention. Zach’s opponent had hidden a small knife in his hand wrappings.

She stood up and yelled, “Zach, look out!”

Daddy quickly pulled her back down and forced her to watch what transpired next, but the ribbon was already in her hand and flying in the air. She let go of it and it sailed in the wind behind them.

“Don’t interfere, girl” he said.

In the span of five seconds, Zach’s opponent swung his arm underhand and thrust his knife up towards Zach’s neck. Zach ducked back, his senses keener now that he’d been warned, and barely missed being stabbed. He jumped away and put his hands up to the level of his eyes, now protecting his neck and paying attention to his lower half. The tides had turned and Zach knew now it was ten times more dangerous. He couldn’t just run at him carelessly and hope his technique was stronger than his opponent’s. It wasn’t just a wrestling or MMA match anymore, it was now a fight to the death.

Sophia’s eyes darted to the tree she’d seen the day before – the one with the split down the middle. Where no one had been before, now someone was leaning against it and watching. Seemingly unarmed, but watching. She didn’t know if it was an undercover police officer because she’d given the signal or a mobster. She decided not to trust anyone or wait to find out.

“Zach!” She lifted a finger from her lap to point at the man leaning against the tree. She saw Zach’s eyes move just an inch to register the stranger’s presence before he turned his gaze back to his opponent. Daddy slapped her on the back of the head, yelling at her to shut up.

For just the brief moment that Zach took to register his surroundings, he took his eyes of his opponent, who took that moment to charge forward and lodge his knife in Zach’s abdomen. Thinking quickly, Zach stopped the knife only halfway and pushed himself backwards to soften the blow. The tip cut his stomach and went in a few inches more, drawing blood, which began to flow freely. Zach stumbled back, his focus broken.

Sophia could see that the second Zach lost his concentration, the man at the tree pulled a small crossbow from behind his back and aimed. Sophia stood up, and even though Daddy’s grip was pulling her down already she spat in his eye and broke free. “No!” she cried, rushing towards him.

Zachary held his arms out, palms facing towards her. “No, don’t!”

She rushed past his arms and took him down to the ground with her, using more strength than she thought she’d had. She felt a hand touch her arm as they went down and realized quickly it was the bald man. But he missed and they hit the ground with a soft thump. She heard Zach groan from the pain in his stomach as her weight pressed on him.

A second later, she heard a blood-curdling scream.

She looked up and quickly scrambled off of Zach, allowing him to breath again. What she saw was worse than anything Daddy had ever done to his victims. His deaths had always been quick and merciful…this was nothing of the sort.

The bald man’s eyes were wide with pain and the arrow was in his wrist. The sniper at the tree had missed Zach, but hit his own man. She felt bad knowing that it could’ve been avoided, but she realized the arrow had been poisoned when he began clutching at his chest. It had flowed into his bloodstream, and reached his heart in less than two seconds. She put her face in Zach’s chest, unable to look on.

She heard Daddy run over to them and her scalp burned with pain as he yanked her hair, pulling her away from Zach. She cried out in pain, almost in sync with the dying man in front of her. He was on his knees now, scratching as his chest as if trying to get his heart out. She almost didn’t hear Daddy scream at her. “You filthy whore! Look what you’ve done!”

She heard a click above her. “Unhand the girl and put down your weapon. You have the right to remain silent.”

Daddy immediately let her go and was yanked upwards, away from her, as handcuffs were placed on him. She fell forwards, too relieved for words.

Then it hit her…Daddy had been arrested. Perhaps now she could live a normal life. She looked up to see the man with the crossbow getting hauled away as well as the sound of sirens could be heard in the distance. She truly hoped the bald man could be saved.

Zach. She scrambled over to him. “Are you okay? Talk to me Zach.”

Zach opened his eyes and smiled at her, even with how bruised and broken he was. “Hey baby…”

Sophia grabbed his shirt and wiped his sweat away with it and then pressed it on his wound to stop the bleeding.

“We did it, Zach, we really did it.”

He reached up for her with his good hand and caressed her cheek. “You did it. You saved us, Sophia.”

She watched as the ambulance rolled up and immediately pulled out stretchers. The paramedics rushed over to the bald man first and began administering CPR. He was gasping for air and his eyes were wide. They injected something into him and he calmed down within seconds. For some reason she truly hoped that the man would live.

Zach, now propped up by his elbows, took her chin gently and made her look at him, his expression telling her he knew what she was thinking. “It wasn’t your fault. He tried to stop you from saving me, you can’t blame yourself for that.”

Tears formed at the corners of her eyes and spilled out freely. “I don’t know if I can live knowing someone might have died because of me?”

Zach took her head in both of his hands. He cringed at the pain of moving. “I would have died and he would have lived. And you would still be living with that monster. You’re free now, Sophia.”

He pulled her close and kissed her forehead. “No matter what, someone would have died. But you didn’t make that choice. He did.”

A paramedic came over and two more carried a stretcher. “We’ll take care of him now. Are you family?”

She looked up at the paramedic, and then back at Zach. She didn’t know what to say…

Zach nodded. “Yes, she’s my wife.”

Sophia blushed furiously. His wife… “Yeah.”

“Well then you can ride in the ambulance as well. We’ll take good care of him, don’t you worry.”

She smiled through her tears and walked with them as they rolled Zach into the ambulance. The bald man was taken to another and the way he looked with the injection, she was confident he would live. She decided she would visit him later.

She didn’t think to look back to where Daddy was being shoved into a police car, glaring her down and cursing revenge on her someday. If he ever got out of jail, that was.

A few months later after mounting evidence against him and a few investigations, Daddy was sentenced to life in prison. That same week, Sophia and Zach were officially married.

The bald man was Zach’s best man.

*****

THE END

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