In the Ring: A Dario Caivano Novel Read online

  “It’s not all of a sudden, and you know that, baby. I’ve been wanting you back.”

  “Well . . .” I started, shaking my head in the process. “I can’t. I’m not interested in having shit with you. We’ve been there and done that and it didn’t work. Life goes on.”

  “But life could go on with us. You know you don’t love that damn white boy like you love me, and he for damn sure can’t love you like I do—or the way that I do.”

  And there it was. The fuck!

  My foot began a speedy tap under the table that I couldn’t control. “How do you even—”

  “And if it’s about some damn fame . . .” he continued, as he cut me off, “I got way more than he could ever have. Just gone and stop with all that bullshit and come on home to me where you belong. You and Rai.”

  “I would never, ever put my son through that shit again, Tyler. No thanks, we’re good. Just go and live life like you’ve been doing.”

  “That shit is over, babe.”

  “Don’t call me that. And you’re right, it is over—for me. What happened to your white girl? The one you had to have? Y’all over so soon?”

  “See, I knew it!” he exclaimed, folding his arms across his refined chest. “If it’s about her, that bitch is long—”

  “It’s not about her, Tyler. It’s not about anything other than . . .” I stalled mid-sentence and had to check myself. “You know what? Why is this even such an in depth conversation? I really don’t get it at all. You can have your pick of women, yet after all this time and all the damage that you did, you’re right here. Why is that? Because I’m pretty sure that it has everything to do with Dario and nothing to do with me.”

  “Just the way you let that fool’s name roll off your tongue makes me sick to my stomach. I just know you don’t call yourself all up into ol’ boy like that. That can’t be the case.”

  “And why can’t it be the case? Go ahead and tell me. For the fuck of it, humor me.”

  I was allowing my anger to come through at the thought of him questioning what I had with Dario.

  “I just don’t see it. I know what you like and it’s long and black.”

  “Don’t be vulgar. And I’m more than what’s between a man’s legs. Just because you didn’t get the memo when you were sticking your dick in every female outside of your relationship, doesn’t mean that it’s how I get down. Not only do I have self-respect, but I have a son who watches everything that I do.”

  “Exactly . . . your son . . . our son.”

  I shot him a look that was sharp as hell. “Don’t do that.”

  “Don’t do what? Claim my son?”

  “No. Claim that he’s your son when it’s convenient for you. I didn’t forget how after the relationship you dipped and went about your business like you didn’t know how to separate the two positions you held in that unit. Don’t think I forgot that shit at all. The only reason I ended up caving and allowing you time and space in his life, after the fact, was because he was too young to understand that what you did was fucked up and he was asking for you. That’s the only reason.”

  “I love that little dude. That shit was fucked up, but it won’t happen again. I’m ready to get married, Chanel. I want all of us to be together.”

  I slowly shook my head. “It’s not what I want anymore, Tyler. It’s just not. Two years ago, things might’ve been different, but not anymore.”

  Seemingly agitated, he finally got up from his seat and glared down at me. I was happy as hell that he was leaving, but I couldn’t help but zoom in on his eyes. There was something back there that I couldn’t quite detect. But as long as he was leaving, I didn’t care.

  “You sure that’s your final answer?” he asked cryptically. “You absolutely sure?”

  “Yeah,” I said with nervous pause.

  “Okay, well, it’s kinda not up to you anymore, girl.”

  “Wait . . . what? Excuse me?”

  “You heard me.”

  What’s happening right now? I asked myself. What the hell is happening?

  Tyler placed his hand on the table and leaned down slightly. “See . . .” he continued, “it was presented to you in a way that made it seem like the decision was all yours.”

  I hated him in that moment. And it was a hate that went way deeper than it did before. I was just ready for him to get the fuck out of my damn face—quickly. He wasn’t making any damn sense and I was starting to think he was some kind of damn Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde.

  “Tyler, if you’re done . . . if we’re done—”

  “Nah, we’re not done, Chanel. Not by a long shot. If you need to close shit up with dude, get that done. The sooner the better,” he threatened as he turned to leave.

  “Hold up!” I yelled, jumping from my seat and latching onto his forearm as he tried walking off. “What the hell are you talking about? You don’t run my damn life,” I shot angrily through clenched teeth.

  “Just do what I said, or a lot of stuff is gonna come out that I’m sure you don’t want to.”

  I released his arm from my grasp. “Oh my God,” I whispered. “You wouldn’t do that.”

  “I don’t want to do it, Chanel, but I will.”

  “What for, Tyler?! This is crazy! Why you can’t you just leave me alone?!”

  Suddenly, my server appeared. “Is everything okay here, ma’am?” he asked, looking from me to Tyler.

  “Yes . . .” I managed. “Everything is fine. But thank you.”

  Tyler waited for the coast to clear before finishing his statement. “I want you and I want Rai and I want our family. So, no, I don’t want to have to do that, but I will if I have to.” I was shocked into silence and felt like the entire exchange was all in my mind as I watched him walk away. After he progressed a few yards toward the exit, he turned to me and said, “So, you can tell your great white hype that it’s over . . . or I can do it.”

  “Tyler . . . Tyler, please don’t do this,” I pleaded, tossing pride to the side.

  “It’s done. Do what you have to do, and I’ll be in touch,” he said, curtly upon departing.

  CHAPTER 35

  Chanel

  Several hours after Rai had gone to bed, I sat in the middle of my own bed with nothing but the sound of music in the background. Not that music was what I even needed to be listening to because every song that played made me think of Dario. When Elliot Yamin’s, Baby I’ll Wait for You, started to play, that was when my tears finally flowed. My heart was breaking. But as distraught as I was, I couldn’t bring myself to stop the song. I could only wish that he would wait for me, but I knew that would be impossible. In fact, if he didn’t walk away hating me at the end, it would be a huge surprise.

  Dario had called several times throughout the day and night, but I was too afraid to answer. I just couldn’t. Not yet. Thankfully, he hadn’t called Rai to see why I wasn’t responding because I also wasn’t ready to have the conversation with Rai, had he started his own inquiry. And that would’ve happened if he had been asked to see why I wasn’t answering. Rai is going to hate my guts, was all that I could think. That much I already knew. Our family situation was going to be life-changing, but not in a good way. He’d have questions that I couldn’t give him the answers to and that was going to be the worst part of everything.

  When my phone illuminated in the thick of my thoughts, and I saw Dario’s name on the display, my heart skipped several beats. But this time it was a text message. I was even afraid to look at that for fear that he’d say something like, “I guess we’re over before we started and you don’t have to worry about me calling again.” I slowly picked the phone up holding onto it for a few minutes while I got the courage to read what was there:

  “Since Spring Break is next week, I was thinking that I’d take you and the fellas down to San Diego. I think they’d love that. Let me know. Missed you today. You need me,I’m a phone call away—always.”

  I read the message several times. Several times. I wanted to dia
l him back and tell him that not only did I want to go, but to come to me immediately so that he could make love to me and make everything better. The best life that I never thought I could have was literally being snatched from under me before I could even really and truly get a taste of it. I wanted to run. I wanted to grab Rai and run far away. A life with Tyler was not one that I wanted. At a point, yes, but once that was over it was over and now, here I was being forced to return to a place that I was thankful to have escaped. Fuck my life.

  My tears fell right onto my cell phone, onto the text message I kept swiping to keep alive. I couldn’t believe that this time tomorrow, Dario and I would be a thing of the past.

  God, how I want to dial his number.

  God, how I want this whole thing to have been a nightmare.

  All of the peace of my spa day was down the drain.

  Several more hours later, when I talked myself into lying down and getting some sleep, my thoughts went to the darkest of places. I wanted Tyler dead. I thought I hated him when he disrespected our relationship, but now I was feeling what real hate was like and this was it. I had never in my life wished death on anyone, but him . . . Tyler . . . I wanted him in a casket. Death for Tyler would be too good, though. But in a perfect world, he could die a long, slow, and painful death—at my hands. I hated him that much.

  In the morning when my alarm sounded, I leaned over, eyes closed, and pressed the button to stop the blaring. I wasn’t ready to face the day at all. I was tired as hell. I was sure that my eyes were beat red from all the crying. I already knew that I’d be dropping Rai off and coming back to lie down for a nap. I was physically and mentally exhausted. But just as quickly as I mapped out my non-productive day, I dismissed it as an option. There was too much that needed to be done today and sleeping wouldn’t fix anything; as much as I wanted it to, it sure as hell wouldn’t make Tyler go away. If I wanted peace, then I needed to do what that fucker, Tyler, told me to do. I had to. I had too much to lose if I didn’t cooperate. Way too much . . . and I just couldn’t give up everything I had worked so hard for.

  Over and over Snapped and the different ways those women killed, came to mind and I would have to shake my head to send the thoughts scurrying away from me. They were too inviting.

  “Ma!” I heard Rai yell from the other room. “You’re up, right?!”

  Boy, please! I said in my head as I was adjusting my focus through the bright sun shining in my window. It was bright as hell, when the way I was feeling was much more suited for thunderstorm-type weather.

  “Ma!” he yelled his voice getting closer.

  “Rai, I heard you the first time!”

  “Well, why didn’t you answer me?” he asked, walking into my room and over to my bed. “You feel okay?”

  “Yeah, baby, I’m fine. I’m about to get up now and take you to school.”

  “It’s okay. Uhhh, Tyler called this morning and asked if he could take me in his new car.”

  What the fuck?! What in the entire fuck?! I couldn’t yell it out loud, and I couldn’t react the way I wanted to—by throwing some shit against a wall—but I didn’t appreciate one bit, this muthafucka insinuating himself before I had the chance to make any moves.

  Rai frowned a little bit when he made the announcement, so I knew there was more. “I didn’t want him to, but he sounded kinda excited so—”

  “It’s okay,” I assured my son. “That’s fine.”

  “You’re picking me up though, right?”

  “Of course, baby. Give me some love,” I told him as he bent down to hug me.

  When the doorbell rang, Rai shot me a look before heading out. I grabbed my robe and followed him to the front of the house. My attitude was all the way in place when I opened the door to find Tyler standing there with a stupid-ass grin on his face. I couldn’t even pull off giving him a smile because he didn’t evoke a trace of happiness from me.

  “Good morning, Chanel,” he greeted.

  “See you later, Ma,” Rai said, giving me a hug.

  “Okay, baby,” I said, stepping to the side to allow him out the door.

  But just when I made that small maneuver, my whole mouth fell to the floor when I spotted Dario’s Chevy pulling up curbside.

  Fuck, fuck, fuuuck my life.

  CHAPTER 36

  Chanel

  Tyler followed my eyes to the curb and then looked back at me. The look on his face made me want to slap the dog shit out of him. I saw it for what it was. It was coaxing. The look on Rai’s face after he hugged Dario, I couldn’t quite read, but I was sure he’d talk to me later. Dario’s look I knew well. I’d seen it the first night we met when he got in Tyler’s face. I had also seen it when they panned in on him as he sat in his corner of the ring during his last fight when he glared across at his opponent. I knew that if Rai hadn’t been present, Tyler would be laid up in somebody’s hospital with suggestions from the doctor to notify next of kin.

  It was library-quiet as I sat on my living room sofa adjacent to Dario. I found it increasingly difficult to even look over at him. But each time I did, I knew what was there: confusion and a lot of anger. There wasn’t a smile in sight, not even inside of his beautiful eyes. There was always a smile there whenever he looked at me and it was dim as hell today.

  “Are you gonna start, or should I?” Dario asked me after many moments of awkward silence. “And if you’re gonna start let it be fast and to the point. No beating around fucking bushes.”

  I lowered my head, trying my best to fight back the tears, that in a short time, had become a constant in my life. I had never cried so much. Dario, no doubt, thought I was stalling, but the truth was that the words were just hard as hell to say.

  “Dario . . .”

  “Are you back with that sack of shit, Chanel? Is that why you didn’t return any of my calls yesterday or last night?”

  My voice was trapped in the depths of my soul, bound by more hurt than I could handle. I had made several efforts to force the words, but they wouldn’t come.

  “Chanel!” Dario yelled, his voice blaring loudly. He had lost patience; I couldn’t blame him.

  “Yes,” escaped my lips before I could stop it.

  “Yes, to what?! That you’re back with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re joking, right? Look at me, Chanel! Now!” he commanded. He had stood from his seat by that time.

  “Dario. I just . . . I-I-I guess . . . I was—”

  “Say the shit! I want you to say that shit out of your damn mouth! What was all of this? All these months? Was I just something to bide your time? So, then the night that he was at your club, I really did interrupt some shit?!”

  “I know you have a lot of questions, Dario. I—”

  “Well, fucking answer them then. I don’t need the acknowledgement, I need the fucking truth! Give me that!”

  “I thought I was okay with your mother and what she had to say, but I wasn’t.”

  The lie left my mouth before I could even think about it or stop it.

  “My mother?” He leaned against the wall nearest to him and dry-washed his face with his hands then shook his head.

  I made the mistake of making eye contact and when I saw the look staring back at me, my eyes filled with tears. I had fucked up—royally.

  “We fixed all of that shit, Chanel. At least I thought we did. This is some bullshit.”

  “How could we ever really be happy if your mother always has an opinion about my place in your life? How? How could she forge any relationship with Rai or any kids that we might have later on down the line if we were to become serious? It just—”

  “If we became serious?! According to you, we were serious! According to how I was proceeding with this thing, we were serious! I came here today to check on you because you weren’t answering calls or text messages yesterday. I woke up with a sense of urgency and feeling fucked up because I wasn’t doing more than calling and texting. I was thinking that I should’ve been here
in person to check on you guys to make sure that you were safe! And this is what the fuck it was for?! Were you even going to have the decency to tell me this bullshit in person, Chanel?!”

  “I’m sorry, Dar—”

  “Fuck sorry, Chanel. Fuck sorry!” Dario lifted from his position on the wall and looked around the room and then back over at me. “Enjoy your life. Say goodbye to Rai for me.”

  Everything in my entire soul wanted to run after Dario and tell him the whole truth, but I just couldn’t. I ran to the window to watch him leave, and it had to be one of the hardest things I ever had to do. He never looked back in my direction as he hopped in his car and speed off down my street. My heart hurt so badly. I was devastated. I didn’t know what to do, so I did the only thing I could do—sank to the floor and curled up in a fetal position where I could bawl my soul out.

  4 months later

  CHAPTER 37

  Dario

  At nine o’clock on the dot, I walked into the location of what would soon be my mega boxing club, Wicked. The building was huge and sat in the back of Alameda near the Oakland Raiders training camp, amongst five other multi-level structures. I’d lucked up and spotted the space one day when I was bringing Lennox and Freddie to Harbor Bay to watch the planes take off from Oakland International Airport. The moment I saw it, it caught my eye and I drove straight over to the door and jotted the number of the real estate company down. I would later find out that the space had been sitting for a few years amid the large business park. The red brick made the building even more attractive, and caused it to stand out since brick wasn’t commonly used in California.

  I began a short tour of the first floor where all of the various types of hand-to-hand techniques, boxing, and martial arts would take place. I was itching with a kid-like impatience for the grand opening that would be happening in a few weeks. It had been almost a year to the day, since the purchase went through and it was time to get the ball rolling.