The Harder He Falls: 2 (So Inked) Read Free Page A

You’ll have to explain to her that I’m working.”
    “She’s three, Quin. She doesn’t understand that. All she knows is that Daddy never spends time with her.” Penny tapped his desk to punctuate each word.
    “I do too.” He threw the pen down. “Last time she never even said hi to me. I sat on the couch while she played with dolls. She hardly even noticed I was there.”
    What did she want him to do? Ignore the gym, lose his income and move into Penny’s garage? Yeah, he didn’t think Penny’s husband Chad would appreciate that. He liked the guy, he was good for Penny and treated Josie as if she were his own, but that went only so far.
    Penny swiped at her cheeks. “God, you don’t even get it, do you?”
    He stared past her at the cinderblock wall. He was doing everything in his power to be a good provider. He wasn’t going to let her manipulate him into letting go of the business. If he let up even a little bit this early in the game, it would run away from him.
    Penny’s gaze snared his despite his best intentions. “You can’t throw money at your daughter and expect everything to be okay.”
    He frowned. That wasn’t what he was doing. He provided for them with his own blood, sweat and tears. “Penny—”
    Someone knocked on the door.
    Thank god.
    “Come in,” he called.
    Penny turned her back on them.
    One of the front desk clerks he’d just hired stepped in, glancing from Penny to him.
    “What is it?” he asked, welcoming any excuse to escape this conversation.
    The nervous young man licked his lips and stared at Quin with large eyes. “The delivery from earlier. I think there’s a problem.”
    The second order of punching bags had arrived right as the first practice session was beginning. He’d left the boxes on the back doorstep until he could get the guys together to hang them.
    He sat forward in his chair. The skin across his shoulders prickled and he got a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach. “What do you mean, there’s a problem?”
    “I think you should look at this.”
    Quin pushed to his feet and started around the desk. The jittery kid clearly had adrenaline pumping into his system.
    Penny pivoted and glared at him. “I’m not done talking to you.”
    “Not now,” he snapped. He couldn’t take much more of her nagging. Didn’t she understand that the gym was how he would pay for Josie’s college? Or whatever his baby girl wanted to do. He was determined she’d never want for anything.
    He strode around the block of offices at the back of the gym to the double doors that led to what passed as their loading area. In reality, it was the narrow path between the back of the warehouse-turned-gym and a chain-link fence that bordered an industrial property. The clerk opened the door for him and held it.
    Quin caught a glimpse of ripped cardboard and his stomach dropped. Dread dug invisible claws into his shoulders.
    “No. No, no, no, no, no!”
    He stepped into the sweltering heat and sweat drenched his body. Remnants of the boxes littered the alley and the bags looked like beached whales, their bellies split open with sand pouring out. His skin went cold and hot in waves.
    “Fucking— Who the hell did this?” He strode down the line of boxes he’d stacked an hour ago, his skin going colder with each step. Every single one of the bags was destroyed.
    “Quin?” Penny stepped out into the sunlight, her blonde hair glinting.
    “Not now, Penny,” he growled. Thousands of dollars, ruined. Gone. He shoved his hands through his hair. How was he going to pay for this?
    She closed the distance between them, her jaw thrust out and her little fists balled up. “If not now then when, Quin? There’s always something more important going on.”
    He jabbed a finger in her direction. “Don’t fucking mess with me right now.”
    “You are a terrible father, Quinton Berkus.”
    His vision hazed red. He was not a terrible father. He might not be the best, but he was far from