Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
He lets out a breath. “I see it.”
“Do you?”
He nods.
“Good. Because I wasn’t trying to hurt her when I told her she couldn’t train. I knew she was gonna run. I did. And I knew it was to punish me, because she thinks I stopped seeing her. But that’s not what it was. She didn’t grow up right.” I sigh, because I feel like this is coming out all wrong. “One day she was six, and the next she was sixteen. And somewhere in between things got very confusing. For her, for me. She is… I don’t know. I can’t explain it.”
“She is… unbelievably sweet, Maart.”
I look at him and nod. “Yeah. I don’t understand it, actually. Not even Ainsey is as sweet as Irina. But she will fight, Eason. Until her dying breath. The girl does not know the meaning of the word ‘quit.’” I stare at him. I lock eyes with him. “She cannot win against a fighter like Paulo. And I know that’s not how it works in UFC. She would only fight women in her same division. But I don’t want her going professional. So—”
Eason puts up a hand to stop me. “She’s not going to fight again, Maart. She’s probably not even gonna train again.”
“I understand you think you know her, but she holds things in. There is a rage inside her and I know it’s justifiable, but—”
“Maart.” Eason stops me again. “You don’t get it. What happened today…” He lets out a breath. “What happened today changes everything.”
“How do you figure?”
But Eason just shrugs, folding his arms across his chest as he watches Irina laugh and joke, sandwiched between Maeko and Paulo, who are both easily twice her size.
“You’ll see.” That’s what Eason tells me. “You’ll see.”
CHAPTER 35
Each morning for the last six months, Monday through Friday, the three of us get up and eat breakfast like a family. I make pancakes, or waffles, or eggs and toast. We eat, we check Jilly’s backpack, and then we leave, taking the stairs down to the side entrance where we take the path to the beach.
We walk south until we get to the 6th Street restrooms, and then we cross the street and I drop Jilly and Irina off at the School for the Deaf.
Jilly is learning proper sign language, as am I, but Irina has already mastered it, so she volunteers. I know she’s there for Jilly, to make the whole thing as easy as possible, but she’s looking for more kids to save too.
She, and Nandy, and Priscilla—who not only knows Nandy from some language class they took together a few years back, but dated her older brother once upon a time—have something of a crusade going.
Miami is a nice place. South Beach even nicer. But even nice places have dark underbellies.
Irina, Nandy, and Priscilla have made it their mission to find those underbellies.
I do worry about this, but not too much.
I don’t think they’re gonna find any more kids. I don’t think Jilly was left behind by mistake. I think they threw her out. Or maybe it was divine intervention. I do find it curious that Irina turned up in my life at pretty much the exact same moment that Jilly was found in that warehouse.
So… who knows.
Still, I don’t worry.
After I drop them off, I walk over to LMR Eats where I have a standing date with my… father-in-law? I’m not really sure what Romero is to me now, but that’s a good enough term as any. When I called him that day we found Jilly, he agreed to bribe a judge to make this adoption run smooth. But in return he wanted to have breakfast with me every weekday morning.
Did he do that because he guessed that I have days when I don’t want to get out of bed?
Did he do this because he just wants to get to know me?
Did he do this to keep his eye on me?
I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. And anyway, I like coming to breakfast every morning. Davis and Wade did move to LA to start over. So what else was I gonna do?
Estefania serves us strong coffee and guava pastries and we play checkers.
Romero started with chess, trying to teach me how to play, but I’m hopeless at chess. We play half a dozen checkers games each morning. And then, right around ten o’clock, I leave, making sure to say a proper goodbye to everyone first, and walk over to Dog’s gym near the marina.
I would not call what I’m doing ‘training,’ but I do work out every morning while Irina and Jilly are busy.
Part of healing, I’ve discovered, is moving on.
That’s why Maart and his boys had to go back to Brazil. That’s why Wade and Davis had to move to LA. And that’s why Irina goes to that school.