Read Online Caged Love: MMA Contemporary Suspense (Book One) by Liberty Thunderbolt, Zac Robinson - Free Book Online Page A

stretch with the five or six shops alive with smiling salesman. Now though, its red bricks were faded to orange. The windows that once displayed shoes, hats, or who knows what else, were now dressed in such a dark tint that not even the most curious could see through them. The northernmost door was decorated with a simple white arrow that beckoned any intruders to keep heading south. The next entrance displayed a similar arrow, and so did the next two. Finally, the southernmost door invited entry with a little sign that read, Whit’s Gym Mixed Martial Arts.
    “This place looks like a dump,” Rodrigo said.
    “Yeah, look at the door, nothing about Whit being a champion fighter, nothing about some of the bad asses who train here.”
    “And I don’t see any special deals for new customers either, just plain old Whit’s Gym.”
    “Maybe anything more is unnecessary,” Bretten said. “And maybe he doesn’t want amateurs, just fools like us who are willing to do this for a living.”
    All the parking places were filled, so Bretten cranked the wheel to the right around the building and into the alleyway. The asphalt gave way to a thick gray paste, a mixture of gravel, dirt and rain water. The car found a giant pothole that rattled both men.
    They crept past two parked cars and then five gigantic tractor tires neatly lined up end to end, and found an opening against the orange-red brick.
    Bretten shut off the engine and took a steadying breath. “You ready to do this?”
    “Real knowledge is in the root. That’s where there’s depth. The branches are superficial.”
    “Let me guess, Bruce Lee.”
    “Of course, at least my own version of him. But think about it. In this dilapidated old building we can find the root, real knowledge, we can become so much more, so much better fighters than we are now.”
    Bretten pushed open his car door, “The root...either we find it or get chopped to the ground in the process.”
    “Either way it will be an adventure dude.”
    * * *
    Bags in hand, they walked past the huge tires and dodged rain-filled pot holes along the way. The back entrance was an oversized metal door, propped open a smidge by a rock. The fighters planned on walking around to the front, but just above a head-sized indention, stenciled in faded green, was Fighters Only .
    Rodrigo imagined a great back alley fight in which Whit slammed an unruly fighter’s head into the door. Bretten’s imagination flashed to a distraught fighter bashing his fist into it and creating the dent and a broken hand at the same time. Nothing as spectacular happened. Two years ago the guy delivering the tractor tires got a little sideways in the narrow alley and backed the flatbed into the door.
    Rodrigo pushed open the imagination-instigating metal. It swung freely for a foot, caught on the floor, scraped indignantly, and then broke free with a little more coaxing. The young men were in a hallway. Warm air and the sound of heavy bags being hit, sparring, weights clanging, and the faint smell of sweat and leather smacked them in the faces
    Bretten closed the door and they walked down the hallway. The first opening on the left was a tiny bathroom. The second was an office, a single occupant sat behind a desk mashing his fingertips into a keyboard. The slender man showed a head of tight gray curls, his neck long, Adam’s apple large and surrounded by hundreds of tiny creases. He wore a plaid shirt, its wrinkles matched his neck, and a light film of sweat covered his dark complexion. He looked up at them. “Cortez and Maris?”
    Rodrigo and Bretten nodded accordingly. “Yes sir,” Bretten said.
    “I’m Doc, gym manager. Head down the hall and make a left, go past the locker room and you’ll see the gym on the right. Whit’s probably at the cage.”
    They thanked Doc and he went back to typing before the two had a chance to start off. As they reached the first turn they heard him yell in an excited, crackled voice,