At five o’clock on the nose, I’m walking through the front door of Armadillo’s. It’s a dive bar for locals and boasts the coldest beer in town. One of those places you walk in and it takes ten minutes for your eyes to adjust from the bright sun to the dark room. I welcome the sound of pool balls smacking together and crappy country music. It’s a great distraction from the chaos whirling in my head.
As I move through the room towards the bar, eyes follow my every step. The pool balls fall silent, and the chatter turns to whispers. I drop my face and rub my forehead in a pathetic attempt to hide. Should’ve known being out in public would be uncomfortable. After all, these people think I’m a cheater who’s dirtied Las Vegas’s most profitable sport. Maybe meeting at the station would’ve been a better idea.
Dave’s sitting at the end of the bar, beer in hand. He waves me over.
Squeezing past a couple of bikers who don’t make it easy it on me, I’m grateful to make it to my barstool. “You’re early.” I motion to Dave’s half-empty pint glass.
“It’s been a crazy day.” He motions to the bartender for another. “What’re you drinking?”
I order a Sierra Nevada and notice activity in the room has gone back to normal. “What’s up?” No use avoiding the issue. He’s obviously got something he needs to say, and I don’t want to spend any more time here than I have to.
“We made some headway in your case.” The bartender puts our beers down, and Dave nods his thank you.
“That’s great news. You find the prick doctor who dosed me?” I grip my beer bottle so tight my fingers go numb.
“No.”
“Fuck.” My bicep jumps, and I want to hurl my beer across the room, but without the drugs in my system, I control the wild urge with ease.
“There’s been a development. Something that was brought to our attention by an eyewitness—”
“Dave man, cut the shit. I’ve lost everything. My career, my woman, and her kid. If you’ve got some good news, just fuckin’ tell me.”
“Fair enough.” He turns his stool toward me. “Stewart Moorehead set up his wife. He’s the one responsible for what happened to you. But he didn’t act alone. He had a partner to pull it off.” He leans in. “Taylor Gibbs.”
I shove back from the bar, my pulse drumming in my ears. My muscles contract with the urge to break something. “You’re fucking with me.”
He shakes his head and then goes onto explain how Stewart got Layla the job with the UFL, promising Gibbs the publicity he was looking for.
Unable to sit back down, I take a moment to register this new information. It doesn’t surprise me the lengths that Stew went to in order to ruin Layla. She even mentioned that he’d let her go too easily.
But Gibbs. I knew he was a media whore of the worst kind, but to discredit the sport for a headline is some fucked up shit. And throwing out one of his fighters is unfathomable. He’s not only killed my career, but he’s tainted the UFL name, and taken a shit on mixed martial arts while flippin’ it a big fat “fuck you”.
“We’ve arrested Mr. Moorehead, and we’re in the process of getting Gibbs. That’s where you come in. The LVPD’s going to need your help in getting a confession. If not, it’s his word against Stewart’s.”
“I’ll do it. Whatever it is, I’m game. As long as it means he goes down hard.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” He nods to my barstool. “Have a seat.”
I’m so hyped up on adrenaline it’s hard to sit still, but I pull my shit together and hear him out. He explains the plan, and for the first time in a while, I feel hopeful.
“You think it’ll work? Getting the recorded confession?” I take a long drag off my beer.
“It worked beautifully today.” He smiles and tries to cover it with a cough.
“What’re you talking about? And why are you grinning like a girl?”
“How do you think we got that information out of Stewart? We mic’d Layla and sent her in.”
My stomach drops, and the mention of Layla and Stewart in the same sentence makes my flesh crawl. But overriding my irritation is anger. “Why would you do that? Guilting Layla into coming face to face with the man who had her gang raped? Who lied to her about being the father of—”
“Calm down, Blake.” He holds up his hands. “She came to us. It was her idea.”
“Her idea.”
“She had suspicions about Doctor Xavier. Your positive blood test sent her on a mission to prove her theory. She came to me with the idea and said she’d get the confession.”
I’m dizzy, my mind spinning. I brace myself against the bar to keep upright, my head in my hands.
She did all that. For me?
The guy who choked her in her living room? In front of her kid?
I swallow past the lump forming in my throat. “She did that?”