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  Copyright © 2018 by Sarah Castille

  Cover and internal design © 2018 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover art by Blake Morrow

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious and are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Castille, Sarah, author.

  Title: Strong hold / Sarah Castille.

  Description: Naperville, Illinois : Sourcebooks Casablanca, [2018] | Series: Redemption ; 5

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018010277 (softcover : acid-free paper)

  Subjects: LCSH: Mixed martial arts--Fiction. | GSAFD: Erotic fiction. | Love stories.

  Classification: LCC PR9199.4.C38596 S77 2018 | DDC 813/.6--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018010277

  Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  Fax: (630) 961-2168

  sourcebooks.com

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  Epilogue

  An Excerpt from Against the Ropes

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  1

  Shayla

  Seven years ago

  “Come back.”

  My whisper fades into the night as I stare out from the balcony of the Lucky Dollar Motel. Maybe if I look hard enough, wish desperately enough, it won’t be true. Maybe Zack was joking when he said he was moving to Seattle. Maybe this pain in my chest isn’t the agony of my heart breaking, but something else.

  I hold up my hand when I see headlights in the distance, coming down the highway. That’s Zack. I know it. He probably just went for a drive to clear his head. We’d waited ten years for tonight, and although it was beautiful, it was also intense.

  It’s your first time, baby. We’ll take it slow.

  My heart sinks when the car drives past and the bright red lights disappear into the night, swallowed up by the thick fir trees that crowd the sides of the road.

  I take a deep breath and then another, trying to crush the steadily rising panic in my chest, telling myself it’s all going to be okay. Any minute now, the door will open and Zack will be there, looking at me with those beautiful warm, brown eyes, his sable hair mussed from our lovemaking, his jaw rough with stubble, his sensual mouth curved in a smile. Oh, the wonderful things Zack could do with his mouth.

  And the horrible words he could say.

  I’m moving to Seattle.

  “He’s coming back,” I say firmly, although there is no one around to hear me. You don’t invite spectators to your very first time. It’s just you and the boy you have loved since you were eight years old. It’s the beating of hearts and the merging of souls. It’s the start of what is supposed to be forever, not the end of an era.

  It’s my big chance. I’m finally going to be someone. I’m going to make something of life. I’ll show the whole damn town they were wrong about me.

  “No.” I say it because a sob is forming in my chest, and I don’t want to cry. But the pain is an unstoppable force, ripping through my throat in a bid to be free. Turning my back on the empty road, I tear the covers off the bed, fling the stained sheets across the room. An empty condom wrapper falls to the floor.

  I will not cry.

  This is all just a misunderstanding. Maybe I’m still asleep, and when I wake up, Zack will be beside me, his strong arms holding me tight. He will tell me that he wants to be with me. That we’re going to go to San Diego like we planned, and he’s going to become a carpenter and train at night in an MMA gym. And I will dance with the San Diego Ballet Company, and every month, we’ll come back to Washington to see his sisters and my mom and brother in Glenwood.

  I’ll live my dream, and you can live yours.

  Except this was my dream—Zack and me together forever. Who knew I would wake up alone in a cheap, dingy motel room wearing a rumpled dress and the dragonfly necklace Zack gave me when I turned sixteen, his scent still on my skin.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and hold my breath, but nothing can stop the sob that erupts from my throat. I yank a drawer from the dresser beside me, spilling the contents on the floor. School books. Dance bag. Acceptance letters from ballet companies in San Diego, Miami, Denver, and New York.

  San Diego wasn’t my first choice for an apprenticeship. The ballet company is small and not well known. But Zack wanted to go to California. He wanted to be an MMA star, and that was where all the good coaches and training centers were based. It was also a good place to find work as a carpenter, and if we were going to live together, we needed money to pay the bills.

  So I didn’t tell him about New York. I kept the letter hidden from everyone except my mom. Of course, she couldn’t understand why I planned to go to San Diego instead of New York. In the world of ballet, New York is everything. The best choreographers. The best dancers. The best directors. I didn’t want the best. I wanted Zack. But Zack didn’t want me.

  I know we’re supposed to go to San Diego, but what could I say when one of the top MMA coaches in the country drove all the way to our town to offer to coach me if I could start right away? It’s what I always dreamed about. He’s picking me up in an hour, but I’ll call you and we’ll work something out.

  I was happy for him. But what about me? What about our plans for the future? How could he make that kind of decision for both of us without even giving me a call? When he accepted the offer, he had to know it was too late for me to apply for an apprenticeship in Seattle, and taking a year off dancing would be the end of my career. But did he really t
hink I would still move to a city I never wanted to live in, away from the people I care about, and dance with a company that offers no real future? Alone?

  I know San Diego is far away, but it will only be a few years…

  Years.

  I wade through the pile of covers and grab a pillow. With a howl, I fling it across the room. I throw another pillow and another, but the pain inside me doesn’t go away. If my big brother, Matt, were here, he’d say he told me so. He’d never liked Zack. He said nothing good had ever come out of the Shady Pine Trailer Park, and especially not a kid whose parents had snorted their lives away.

  I didn’t care where Zack lived or how much money he had. I didn’t care what he did for a living or how broken his family was. I loved him, and nothing else mattered.

  Loved. Past tense. An unconscious slip. Because my stupid heart still feels love present tense. But what will I feel tomorrow when he doesn’t come back? Or next week? Or even next year? How will I feel after the years he expects me to wait for him? After he so callously threw away all our plans for the future? I can’t imagine love future tense with anyone other than Zack. I wasn’t made to love anyone else. But I’ve learned a truth tonight. Love isn’t worth the pain.

  2

  Shayla

  Present day

  “Winner by a knockout…Blade Saw!”

  Grinning wide, Jimmy “Blade Saw” Sanchez holds up his arms in a victory salute after I announce his arrival at Redemption, Oakland’s premier mixed martial arts gym. Everyone cheers, although they were all at the fight on Saturday night for his big win—and my humiliating defeat. I lost big-time to lightweight newcomer, Camilla Rizzo, putting me one step further from my dream of winning the amateur title belt and eventually going pro.

  I didn’t join Redemption to become a professional MMA fighter. I came here four years ago to learn how to fight, with no aspirations beyond being able to walk alone at night without suffering panic attacks. Who knew a graceful ballerina had a hidden talent for martial arts and a violent side that came out in the ring?

  “The recruiters are going to be swarming this place any minute now,” Jack “Sadist” Caldwell says as I turn and drumroll my gloved hands on the speed bag. “I can smell them coming.”

  “You didn’t smell them coming when they recruited you.”

  Six feet four inches tall, 250 pounds of rock-solid muscle, eyes as blue as the Redemption mats, thick, blond hair buzzed down to a number two, Sadist is by far the largest fighter in Redemption. Until two years ago, he’d dominated the amateur super heavyweight rankings, but a health scare changed everything. He went on the Paleo diet and dropped so much weight, he had to start fighting as a heavyweight, where he dominated the field. It wasn’t long before he was snapped up by one of the world’s biggest promotions, changed his fight name from Rampage to Sadist, and now he’s Redemption’s second biggest star—Max “Torment” Huntington, the owner of Redemption is, of course, number one.

  “It’s hard to see yourself as others see you.” He stills my speed bag, and his expression turns serious. “You fought a good fight last night.”

  “I got punched in the face twice by a rank amateur with only one fight under her belt, and now I look like a raccoon with this black-and-blue mask.” I knock his hand away. “And then she caught me in a submission that I’d learned how to escape my second week at Redemption. It wasn’t a good fight. It was pathetic.” I smash my fist into the speed bag half a dozen times before pausing for breath. “And it’s not the first time. I’ve been sliding down the ranks all year. I don’t know what’s wrong.”

  “Have you talked to Torment?”

  I lift an eyebrow. No one voluntarily seeks out Torment unless they have a death wish. Although he has been helping me train, he is a formidable man, a virtual MMA god who runs Redemption with an iron fist. Torment used to be a champion underground fighter and turned down many offers to go pro. Even today, the recruiters are still after him, but with a multimillion-dollar business to run as his alter ego Max Huntington, and a new baby girl at home, he has neither the time nor the interest in being a star.

  Sadist laughs. “Wrong question.”

  “Definitely the wrong question. And if you see him, try to keep him distracted and away from me. I’ll be in the practice ring with Sandy. We’re running through the striking techniques I’ll be teaching my junior girls’ MMA class tomorrow night.”

  “The kids are gonna love your new look,” he says as he turns away. “Maybe I’ll talk to the guys about giving you a new ring name. Instead of Shayla Tanner, a.k.a. Shilla the Killa, you can be a.k.a. Ricky the Raccoon.”

  “Ha ha. Very funny.” I started teaching at Redemption after Torment roped me into helping out with the kids’ MMA classes when one of the instructors got sick. The girls in the class were more interested in the fact that they had a female teacher than learning the moves, and they peppered me with questions. I’d never thought of myself as a model or mentor for anyone, but they made me realize I could give something back to the sport that had helped me reinvent myself after my ex-husband, Damian Peters, destroyed the only life I had ever known. I wanted to empower them so they could become fighters, too.

  I cross the mats toward the practice ring, taking in the enormity of what is now one of the top MMA training gyms in California. The vast 25,000-square-foot warehouse in Oakland’s Foster Hoover Historic District is more of a home to me than my apartment in Rockridge. Spotlights shine bright on the electric-blue mats and glint off the equipment. Fighters of all shapes and sizes grunt and groan over in the free weights area. Cardio machines whirr and spin to the steady thud of running shoes on the track that circumnavigates the gym. Tag “Fuzzy” O’Donnell, a cop by day and my co-coach with Torment, barks abuse at a group of newbies in his Fight or Flee class. Over on the grapple mats, the first aid attendant, Makayla, sometimes known as Doc, otherwise known as Torment’s better half, tends to a woman who has managed to get her head stuck between the legs of a full-size submission dummy.

  “Oh my God!” Sandy’s hand flies to her mouth as I climb through the ropes, an almost comical move, given she’s wearing fight gloves twice as thick as mine. “Sadist told me what happened last night. Are you okay?” She runs her glove through her long, platinum-blond ponytail and heaves a deep breath, her generous breasts straining against her too-small, too-tight pink sports top. Sandy loves her breasts, as do most of the male fighters at Redemption. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her show less than three inches of cleavage, but then if I had breasts like hers, I would show them off, too. Unfortunately, years of intense ballet training meant I developed late, and when I did, I didn’t have much to show for the effort.

  “Does it really look that bad?”

  She grimaces and shrugs. “You look kind of Zorro-esque. Maybe if you use a little concealer—a lot of concealer—you won’t scare the kids. And actually, it kind of goes with the grunge thing you’ve got going on outside the gym. If you wear those patterned, ripped leggings, clunky shoes, and that black leather dress you had on the other week under your flannel shirt, people will just think it’s part of your style. Does it hurt?”

  “Only when I blink.”

  Sandy gives me a sympathetic smile. A lot of people at Redemption don’t like Sandy, a wealthy socialite who was once engaged to Torment, chased after him when he was with Makayla, and twice broke poor Blade Saw’s heart. But we’ve always gotten along. She has her flaws—when there are unattached men around, she forgets she has friends—but when it’s just us or we’re out with the Redemption gals, she’s all sorts of fun. She also has a big heart, and although she doesn’t talk about it, she does a lot of charity work for underprivileged kids.

  “Why didn’t you stay home and put some ice on it? Hide out for a few days?” She stretches on the mat, checking out the guys in the gym as she warms up. She just went through a bad breakup and has decided to follow my lea
d and give up relationships in favor of casual hookups.

  “The last time I tried to hide after losing a fight, Torment found me.” I don’t have to mock a shudder; the fear is real. “He came to my apartment and almost broke down my door. He’s a big fan of getting right back in the ring after you lose a fight. He threatened to cut off my membership and break my legs if I didn’t get down to the gym.”

  Sandy laughs as she jumps to her feet. We practice together a few times a week. She’s a recreational fighter, whereas I have been trying to work my way to the top of the amateur circuit for years.

  “You could have stayed home,” she says. “A recruiter from MEFC showed up first thing this morning, and he’s been in Torment’s office ever since. We’ve been taking bets on who’s caught their interest. Imagine. Another Redemption fighter in the pros!” Without any warning, Sandy lunges from the side, clearly hoping to take advantage of my distraction. But we’ve played this game before, and I’ve been ready for her since she dropped into her ready stance.

  “I think it will be Blade Saw. He just won that big fight.” Mega Extreme Fight Championship, or MEFC for short, is one of the world’s top MMA promotions and features the top-ranked fighters of the sport. They are always looking for new talent, and Blade Saw’s recent wins have been turning heads. Spinning, I feint right, but my kick goes wide. Sandy dives in with a straight left that glances off my shoulder. I move in fast with a right hook, dropping Sandy to her knees.

  “My money is on Renegade.” She gestures to the cage where Renegade is tossing a newbie around for fun. “He’s only a few fights away from a title belt.”

  My stomach tightens as it always does when I see Renegade. He’s a great guy with a good sense of humor and one of the most laid-back fighters at Redemption. But he looks so much like Damian, I always have to take a moment to assure myself that the man with the blond hair and blue eyes, the lean, toned body, and the chiseled jaw is not the man I loved and married and shared a bed with for four long years. I wanted so desperately for Damian to fill the black hole in my life that had consumed me since Zack left, I didn’t see what lay beneath his caring and compassion—a deep-rooted insecurity that eventually drove him to the edge.