Fix You: Bash and Olivia, Book 2 of 3 (McDaniels Brothers) by Christine Bell Page A

tension and continued. “Abernathy has a lot of evidence to back up his claim. You admitted you hit him to your then-boss, which triggered your termination, and you confessed to the police once they picked you up that you hadn’t witnessed him actually hit her. Even if Ms. Beckett supports your version of the story at this point, who’s to say she’s not lying?” He pulled off his round-rimmed glasses and rubbed at his tired-looking eyes. “I’m not a risk-taker, Mr. McDaniels. Never have been. I’m willing to take your lead on this and fight if that’s what you want to do, but it’s my duty to advise you the best I can, and if it were me?” He shrugged his sloped shoulders and shook his head. “I’d cut my losses. In cases like this with all else being equal, guys like you don’t do so well against guys like Andrew Abernathy.”
    I opened my mouth to respond, but he held up a hand and stood.
    “Don’t answer me now. Take the forty-eight hours to think it over. In the meantime, I’ve escalated the bail hearing to Superior Court and we’re on tomorrow’s docket. You should’ve been released the day you got arrested for around forty bucks out of pocket. The fact that they made us go to a bail hearing and then set it so high when you have no priors and are such a low flight risk lets me know that there’s something else at work here. Hopefully this next judge will be a little more sympathetic, and we can get you out of here for a minimal amount of cash up front. Hang in there, all right? If I can’t get bail lowered I’ll give you the name of a reputable bail bondsman and you can borrow it against collateral.”
    I nodded, trying to ignore the pounding in my temples. God, this bail hearing had to go better than the last. We didn’t have any collateral. What we had was a shitty-ass gym and a pile of unpaid bills, and coming up with the whole $4,000 cash would be next to impossible.
    I cracked my knuckles and kept my face blank. There was no reason for Matty to know what was going on in my head, but I could almost see the sand slipping through the hourglass for me. Every day I sat in a cell with only thirty minutes a day to train was another nail in my coffin. If I didn’t get back to my exercise and diet regimen for the Spada fight only eight weeks away, it wouldn’t matter whether I was out of prison or not.
    Most guys prepped full-time for six months to get ready for a fight like this. This was the one. My stepping-stone to the big time. My bout was set to be second on the card with the likes of McMillan and Padilla, one of the most anticipated fights of the year that would be aired on pay-per-view. If I had a good showing in front of a crowd that size, I could go from virtual unknown to a real contender in the course of one day.
    I had to be there, and I had to be ready.
    The guard came in to let Salisbury out, but Matty lagged behind, waving him off with a “one minute” index finger before facing me. For a long while, he didn’t talk and I could tell he was getting emotional, so I did the talking for him.
    “Look, I’m okay. Everybody is okay. Nobody’s dead or maimed.”
    Yet, anyway. If what Salisbury said was true, a welcome shanking could definitely be on the menu if I went to the state penitentiary. I couldn’t think about that, though. I had to focus on what I knew for sure, and what I knew for sure was that I hadn’t broken the law.
    I wasn’t innocent, exactly. I had hit Andy a little harder than I probably had to. And I could’ve just as easily gotten him in a hold and bounced him out of the bar. But those eyes—vicious and ice cold—had let me know he needed something a little less subtle if I had any hope of getting through to him. Hitting girls was for pussies. If he was going to act like one, I was going to make him feel like one, plain and simple. If that made me a criminal, then I guess I was guilty, but I wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
    “We’re going to