Page 4 of The Tempo of Truth
My head snapped to the side, sending a spray of sweat and blood flying as the thin skin covering my brow bone split open for the one thousandth time.I’d given up on stitching the area closed after each fight, leaving the spot prone to injury and scarring.I felt warm and viscous liquid drip down my face as I dodged another punch.While I was distracted by what was happening to my face, I took a brutal kick to the midsection.I lost my breath and doubled over in pain while the sound of a shrill whistle echoed through the gym.I spat the hard plastic mouth guard into my tightly wrapped hand and ignored the flurry of angry Russian coming from the seventy-year-old coach who was yelling at me about how much I sucked and reminding me that I deserved to get my ass kicked if I couldn’t stay focused.
I shook my head to clear the perspiration and blood out of my eyes and pressed the back of my hand to the open wound on my forehead.I assured the kid I was sparring with that I was okay and signaled to end the practice session for the day.
On any other afternoon, I could’ve gone twenty rounds with the coach’s new protégé, but my head was on anything but my fighting form today.I should’ve never stepped into the ring.
“I don’t pay you to daydream, troublemaker.I pay you to teach these up-and-comers how to protect themselves against competitors who fight dirty.You look like you’re sleeping on the mat today.”
I took the towel the older man handed me and swiped haphazardly at my bloody face.“Sorry, Lev.I won’t charge you for the match today.I know I didn’t give your new kid a challenge or any new techniques.I’ve got too much shit on my mind to be in the ring right now.”
Once I slid under the ropes and was standing in front of the trainer, he popped me on the side of my head and tsked in disappointment.“Your lack of focus is the main reason you will never cut it as a legitimate fighter.You’re undisciplined and stubborn.It’s such a waste of natural talent.You could be a star if you wanted to, Ky.”
I rubbed where he flicked me and wrapped the towel around my neck.“Who said I wanted to be legitimate?I make more money fighting in celebrity matches against egotistical blowhards who pay a fortune to fight against someone who used to be famous.I don’t want to follow all the rules and regulations that go along with being a professional athlete again.”I walked that path before, and all it led me to was a dead end with no way back and my reputation and integrity in shreds.And if that wasn’t bad enough, the criminal charges and the fight to stay out of prison in a foreign country left me damn near destitute.I never would’ve started fighting if the world hadn’t given me a reason to throw the first punch.I was a football player, not a boxer, but today, I wasn’t either.I was a befuddled loser who couldn’t focus on the task at hand, which made Lev want to smack me upside the head.
Lev snorted while handing me a water bottle.“What’s got you acting all squirrely today?Did something happen to your mom?”
The older man frowned as he waited for my answer.Lev Petrov and my mother used to date.They met while I was playing for a no-name team in Latvia.The Russian immigrant was the team’s trainer, and both of us were working well below our skill levels.I didn’t know at the time that he used to train Olympic boxers back in his home country.I had no clue he left football behind until I hit rock bottom, and he sought me out with the suggestion that I switch sports the same way he did.He believed I had a future as a professional fighter, but my heart wasn’t in learning a new discipline.My options were limited, so I ended up a grunt at his gym, fighting the guys who took him up on his offer to show them the way to fame and glory.
Lev’s relationship with my mother didn’t last long, but he stayed in contact with me throughout my ups and downs.He was pretty much the only positive male role model I’d ever had.As a guy who was cursed with two deadbeat dads—one biological and one through adoption—calling Lev the closest thing I had to a father was saying something.When he immigrated to the States and opened a boxing gym, he left the offer open for me to join him after I got my situation with the league sorted out.
I waited until my mother was happily married to the Frenchman she’d been seeing and occupied with building a family with him and his two young children, before making a decision to go back to the States and settling in my hometown, which just happened to be a thriving big city on the East Coast.Once I knew she wouldn’t have the time to worry about me obsessively and was no longer on the verge of gambling her life away, I left.I trusted her new husband to keep an eye on her and thought the distance would do both of us some good.
I never told anyone that the reason I lost games on purpose and why it was so easy for the league to find evidence I was gambling was because I left a trail a blind man could follow to cover for my mom.She loved me to death, but she loved gambling even more.Once she started, she couldn’t stop, and the next thing I knew, all the money from Win Halliday was gone.All the money I made playing was gone, and scary men with thick accents were following my mom around, asking when she was going to pay them back.Things got ugly.I truly believed her life was in danger, and all I could think to do was take the fall, torpedo my career to save her, and cut off her main source of placing bets.Once I was off the field and facing millions in fines, she finally realized how much her addiction had cost us both and went to seek help.She was tragically apologetic, but none of the regret between the two of us was going to get me back where I belonged.I was forever banished because of her, but I couldn’t sacrifice her to save myself, even if that was the best option.I blamed it on being an adopted kid.
Who knows what my life would’ve been like if my adoptive mom, Julie Kent, hadn’t wanted me more than her next breath.She always put me first and gave me the best of everything.We were a team when I was growing up.She moved mountains to protect me when I foolishly put us on the Hallidays’ radar.I felt it was my obligation to save her from herself when things got really bad, even if it meant I lost everything that I’d worked so hard for.
Once she was settled, it was the perfect time to return to the city.I told Lev right off the bat I wasn’t going to do things the traditional route, but I needed to make money—a lot of it—and I didn’t care if the means were aboveboard or not.In exchange for the Russian brokering and setting up both underground and sanctioned celebrity fights, I agreed to play punching bag for all his recruits and the kids he planned to guide to prizefighter level.It was a setup that proved to be mutually beneficial, even if the old man got frustrated on days like today when I couldn’t force myself to give my all and instead operated on autopilot.
I sat on the edge of the ring and stared at my feet as I finally answered his questions.“Mom is good.Last I heard, she was on vacation with the family somewhere in the Netherlands.Hugo treats her well, and she’s in her element, being the world’s best stepmom.I think she’s the happiest she’s ever been.”I met the angry gaze locked on me with a smirk.“No offense.”
Lev swore in Russian.He leaned next to me and asked, “What can get under your skin other than your family?I’ve known you for a long time, champ.Not much ruffles your feathers.”He scoffed.“Don’t tell me you’re still dreaming of being a pro soccer star.That ship has sailed.”
I grunted while correcting him.“You know damn well it’s called football, not soccer, for most of the world.Stop using the wrong term to sound more American.You aren’t fooling anyone.”I reached for the ledge of the mat where I had left my phone.I opened the first social media app I saw and showed Lev a picture of a pretty, plump redhead holding onto a young boy.The same image was the first image on every site I clicked on and was at the top of all the trending stories from news outlets.Not only was Winnie back in the city and causing a big splash after years of being abroad, but the hidden identity of the child she was holding was the top gossip of the moment.The revelation that Winnie was taking over the day-to-day operations of Halliday Inc.threw me for a loop.It was hard for me to picture the Winnie I knew as a cutthroat, corporate CEO.Also, I never pictured her as a mother because that meant I saw a future with her in it.I knew from the time we met when I was sixteen, it was impossible for whatever I was, and whoever she would become, to intersect.We walked very different paths in life, and those roads were never meant to intersect.
However, my certainty that I’d never have anything to do with Winnie Halliday after that night in Portugal crumbled when I saw her cradling a little boy who looked alarmingly similar to the photos my mother had on the walls from when I was a baby.
I tapped the phone and asked, “How old do you think this kid is?”
Lev leaned over and squinted at the phone.“I don’t know.Four or five.”
“Do you think he looks familiar?”I flexed my fingers, and my busted knuckles ached.“Do you think he looks like me?”
Lev laughed.He used his elbow to poke at my ribs and mimed wiping fake tears from his eyes.“Why would the Halliday heiress be holding a kid who looks like you?I don’t care how famous you were when you were younger; you two come from different planets.Not just worlds, but entirely different solar systems.”He continued to chuckle.“She’s my favorite Halliday.She seems the most interesting of the bunch.She doesn’t seem as elite and snobby as most billionaires come across.”
“She’s not snobby.”I sighed as the screen went dark.“She’s sweet and shy.”And a bit deranged with stalker tendencies, but Lev didn’t need to know that about her.
Lev stiffened and gave me a look filled with disbelief.“You know her?How?You date reality TV stars and hang out with hooligans.She’s pretty much America’s princess.She’s royalty, and you’re trash.Good-looking garbage, but junk just the same.Those two lifestyles are not compatible.”
I lifted my non-injured eyebrow.“We knew each other when we were teenagers.Our paths have crossed occasionally over the years when we were both living overseas.The last time I saw her, I’d just got kicked out of the Premier Liga.Winnie’s the only reason I didn’t drink myself to death or walk into the sea and drown that night.You know I can hardly swim.”I felt old memories I had done my best to bury starting to claw their way to the surface.“Winnie Halliday is the best and worst thing to ever happen to me.”And now I was wondering if I was the father of the child she’d kept hidden from the world up until now.The little boy in the picture looked to be around five.The last time I saw Winnie was that heated and hopeless night more than six years ago.
Was it possible I was a father all this time and didn’t know it?
As a kid who was adopted and then abandoned by his adoptive father, I was more sensitive than the average young man when it came to close familial ties.I never thought about having kids in the future, because my life was so messed up.But now that I thought it might be a possibility, I couldn’t deny there was a quiet longing underneath the disbelief when I thought about being a father.
How could Winnie keep something so huge and important from me for so long?
Lev whistled.“Are you telling me that kid might be yours?”His eyes brightened, and his words tumbled with excitement as he suggested, “You need to get a paternity test done ASAP.If you’re really the father, that little boy is a gold mine just waiting for you to tap into it.Imagine the type of child support you could ask for.Holy shit!The Hallidays might pay you millions just to get you to go away and pretend you have no interest in hanging around the little boy.You’re looking at an opportunity that’s even bigger than being allowed to play in the international leagues.If you can pry open a Halliday wallet, you’ll be set for life.This is life-changing, Ky.”
I dragged a hand down my face.“There’s no proof the kid is mine—or hers.”Sure, she was holding him like he was her entire world, but that wasn’t definitive proof the boy was Winnie’s son.Those Hallidays had spawned a boatload of kids over the years.Winnie had several cousins, and even a half-sibling or two.She could’ve simply been snapped carrying a relative.That didn’t explain why the little boy was my exact copy, but my brain was working overtime to justify my world as I knew it from turning inside out.
