Ringer: A New Year's Romance: The Doyles, a Boston Irish Mafia Romance

  Ringer

  A New Year’s Romance, The Doyles - A Dark Boston Irish Mafia Romance

  Sophie Austin

  Ringer

  Book 7 in The Doyles Series

  Copyright @ 2019 Sophie Austin

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without express written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events and incidents are the products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Any brands, trademarks, or other proprietary terms are the property of their owners.

  Production team:

  Cover Design: Kasmit Covers

  Proofreading by: Red Rider Romance

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  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Where to Find Sophie Austin

  1. Jack

  2. Alix

  3. Alix

  4. Jack

  5. Alix

  6. Alix

  7. Jack

  8. Alix

  9. Jack

  10. Alix

  11. Jack

  12. Alix

  13. Jack

  14. Jack

  Epilogue 1

  Epilogue 2

  Where to Find Sophie Austin

  Sign up for my newsletter at Sophieaustinromance.com and get on the list for the free prequel novella to the Doyles series!

  I’m a Boston Irish brawler. A boxer. A soldier. An ex-con.

  Kathleen is sweet, beautiful, perfect. And she’s my dead best friend’s little sister. Too good for me.

  But I'll show her how much I care, what I can give her.

  Because in the end, she's going to be mine.

  Sign up now at sophieaustinromance.com to get the latest news on the Doyles and be first to get a copy of the free prequel novella to the Doyles, Sinner.

  1

  Jack

  The lights are low.

  Christmas carols are playing through the gym’s sound system.

  Who the hell works out to Christmas carols?

  I strain to hear beyond the music: for the sounds, the vibrations, the smallest details. Anything I can use to analyze my opponent’s weakness.

  I’m always probing for weakness:

  On the battlefield, with my Marine Corps Special Operations unit.

  In the ring, when I’m fighting MMA against a guy like Owen Doyle.

  In the bedroom, where I can’t afford to let my vulnerability weaken my resolve.

  To let me fall again.

  It’s been a while since that happened, though.

  Duck, dodge, take a hit to the gut, and roll with it to mitigate the impact.

  It’s rare that I get a chance to spar with a guy my size.

  Owen’s always been the best fighter to train with.

  My dad and Owen’s father, Murphy, did some jobs together back in the day. He and I became buddies.

  Owen always wanted to be a fighter.

  Now, he has his own gym.

  This one, where I’m listening to Christmas music and trying to avoid getting my ass tagged by this brute.

  Owen’s glove flies past my nose, barely missing.

  Focus.

  Dodge. Weave. Watch where he’s going.

  Me?

  I only saw one way out of the living hell I grew up in: boot camp.

  One of the reasons I agreed to watch Owen’s gym was so he and Molly could go spend time with family over Christmas.

  The other reason was the chance to train with Owen.

  Not that I have anything else going on over Christmas.

  We’re dancing on the mat, and Owen’s not relenting.

  He’s good.

  Great, actually.

  A man needs a challenge to stay at his best.

  And, I need to win this New Year’s fight.

  It’s the biggest match I’ve ever been in.

  Owen introduced me to the local MMA circuit, and I’d been doing well enough to land on a big New Year’s Eve card.

  That fight means a lot of things.

  Means a guy on the edge of forty, basically a dinosaur in the Special Forces world, isn’t washed up yet.

  Means maybe I have something to look forward to when I finish up my final tour of duty next year.

  Means some money I can use to fly out to see my kid.

  Owen’s glove brushes my nose.

  Focus, Mulvaney.

  It screwed me over when my ex obtained court-ordered permission to move across the country and take my boy with her.

  It wasn’t enough for her to move 3,000 miles away. No, she had to take JJ.

  Punch.

  The guy she left me for was our marriage counselor.

  Punch.

  Asshole.

  Punch.

  He knocked her up three months before I returned from my last deployment.

  Punch. Kick. Punch.

  “Jack, dude,” says Owen. “Take it easy.”

  He’s wincing a bit from the kick.

  I smile, grimly.

  “Sorry, man.”

  Back up. Breathe. Dodge.

  I tell myself it’s better this way.

  We never really loved each other. It doesn’t lessen the pain, though, or the sense of failure.

  Punch.

  It didn’t make it better for my son. At least in my mind, a boy should be near his father.

  He seems happy with his new stepsiblings and half-sisters. At least JJ and I talk every day.

  He tells me he loves that big house on the West Coast. “So much better than our old house, Dad,” I hear his tinny voice on the cheap cell phone she bought him.

  Kick.

  And, boy, did she go all out on the guilt spending.

  The golden retriever.

  The fancy karate school.

  The gaming consoles.

  And a shitty cell phone for him and I to keep our relationship on life-support.

  Kick, kick, kick.

  “Damn it, Jack,” Owen grunts, dodging a savage kick.

  I get out to California and see JJ every chance I get.

  Jab jab jab. Straight to the heart.

  Can’t afford much on Marine pay – not even Special Forces officer paygrade. Not with child support and alimony.

  Punch.

  My ex did me a favor, in a way. Got hitched three days after the divorce finalized. Three goddamned days.

  So, no alimony.

  Punch.

  I hate how bitter I sound.

  Honestly, I just want her to be happy.

  Even now, the look on her face when she found me after a one-night stand haunts me.

  Dodge.

  I can still see her tear-filled eyes. The fear. The accusations. The hate.

  It all spilled out of her.

  How much she didn’t want this.

  Didn’t want me.

  Didn’t want the military life.

  She never wanted any of it.

  Still, I offered to get married or to support any decision she made.

  I swore to myself I was a different man from my father: a man who took responsibility for his actions.

  Duck. Punch.

  I just wanted to do the right thing by her. Give her whatever she wanted. Make a good life for my kid and her, if she’d have me. I barely knew her, but I thought we’
d grow to love each other in time.

  Punch.

  Huh.

  Shows how little I knew.

  Spent thirteen of the first eighteen months of JJ’s life on missions overseas. No choice.

  Punch-punch-punch.

  Came home to the first request for marriage counseling. Guys like me don’t go to fucking counseling.

  Kick.

  But I did – for my son and her. For us. I just wanted to make them happy, the way nobody ever thought about making me or my mother happy.

  Things my old man never managed.

  Work hard, make a steady paycheck, stay faithful, don’t hit anybody.

  Just do that, and it’ll work out fine.

  Punch. Punch. Punch.

  Four more years. Five more counselors. Six more deployments.

  And then that night, when I was finally coming home for good.

  I’d used everything I had, every ounce of political capital and goodwill, to get a special post at a base near Boston. Three years, with limited time in the field, in the only city she said she could tolerate.

  Then, I’d retire.

  I’d take a job doing security in the private sector or grab a gig in government contracting.

  It would be enough.

  Punch.

  My CO looked at me hard.

  You sure, Mulvaney? Because you got a lot of guys pulling a lot of favors to make this happen. You miss the field? Tough shit. Wife wants to move to Florida? Tough shit. You hate your life every day? Tough shit.

  No sir. This is what I want. I meant it.

  They are what I want.

  Dodge.

  I took a seventeen-hour flight home from a real mind fuck of a tour in Asia. I couldn’t wait to get home. I walked in and the lights were on.

  She’d waited up.

  She never waited up for me.

  I felt exhilarated and tense. Maybe this really was a fresh start?

  Maybe she had changed too?

  And I let myself feel something new, something different: hope.

  Then, I saw the look on her face.

  Nope.

  Punch.

  We have to talk, she said in a flat voice. It’s over. There’s someone else.

  Of course, I acted like an idiot.

  Told her marriage was forever, ‘til death do us part. All of it.

  I still believe that.

  I told her I was a man that kept my commitments.

  She looked me in the eye. Dropped the bomb.

  I’m pregnant.

  Punch-punch-punch.

  A second of hope. I love my kid.

  Another one would be amazing.

  But then I did the math – it’s been years since anything happened between us.

  Years.

  Three months pregnant.

  I’d been gone five, almost six.

  It wasn’t my kid.

  No way it could be.

  She kept talking, but the buzzing in my head made her sound like she was a thousand miles away.

  I’m sorry, Jack, but you have to leave finally penetrated my thick skull.

  I stood up, grabbed my stuff, and drove to a nearby motel.

  As I headed out the door, she asked: Where will you stay?

  A part of me, the stupid hopeful part, lit up.

  Maybe she still cared? Maybe there was a chance for us to work this out for JJ?

  Nope. She just needed the address to know where to serve me divorce papers.

  7:59 am the next morning.

  I answered the door, bleary-eyed, and a stoic deputy sheriff handed me a manila envelope that held the death certificate on my marriage.

  Kick. Kick. Kick.

  Families are tough things to hold together. They’re like bones and hearts. They’re not held together by discipline.

  Easy to fracture.

  Easy to break.

  Easy to lose your focus.

  “Jack,” there’s a warning note in Owen’s voice.

  Focus.

  I focus on his face.

  Be here now. Prepare to win the fight.

  The real fight you’re training for today. Not the one you lost two long-ago Christmases.

  “Sorry, man,” I grit out.

  Focus.

  Losing focus gets you hurt.

  Gets people killed.

  Gets you blindsided.

  He takes a step back, and we both take a moment to towel off.

  He grins.

  “Man, you really tagged me good with that one set of kicks. You do that to Manfredo, you’re just gonna piss him off,” he laughs.

  “I thought you’d flex with it,” I say, swiping the towel around my face.

  “No worries, man. Let’s do one more round. You just dodge. You’re going to need to be able to dodge Manfredo,” he warns.

  We’ve studied the fight tapes.

  He’s right: it’s all in the dodge.

  Manfredo.

  My opponent in the New Year’s fight.

  Twelve days.

  I breathe, center, focus.

  The Christmas carols change, from something about white snow on Christmas to a breathy woman singing something dirty about Santa.

  We spar.

  I look up to clear my eyes and pull a glove across my forehead to clear the sweat.

  Just then, the gym door swings open.

  A cold gust of air, and a small swirl of white flurries cascade around a person rushing through it.

  Small form, female, shapely - I calibrate automatically. It's what you do after being in battle.

  She’s wearing a big red winter coat, with a huge hood that obscures her face.

  She tilts her face up, and the hood falls back.

  Holy shit.

  A face I didn’t expect to see ever again. She’s like something out of a dream.

  Every good dream I’ve had since I was nineteen years old.

  I can’t process why she’d be here.

  But it’s her.

  I recognize the long, dark hair and the wide blue eyes. Her high cheekbones. Her curves.

  Those curves.

  I’d know them anywhere.

  I can’t take my eyes off her.

  So that’s how I fail to dodge the ham-hock of a fist hurtling through space straight at my face at lightning speed.

  Owen’s swearing even before it makes contact, but it’s too late.

  I hear the sound of my nose break: Snap, crunch, spurt.

  There’s an explosion of light. Blood gushes. I feel pain I haven’t felt in a long time.

  Damn.

  Can’t fucking breathe.

  I manage to stay on my feet – come on, I’m tough – and even as my hand comes up to my nose, I still can’t tear my eyes away from her.

  “Jack, what the hell, man?” Owen says.

  His voice is taking on an edge of horror.

  Big bruiser of a guy like that, and he just hates to hurt people, even with what he does for a living.

  Owen wouldn’t have made a good soldier, I think, not for the first time. He’s big and strong, but he cares too much about other people. Doesn’t like hurting them.

  Hell of a guy, though.

  “Put pressure on it,” he’s saying.

  He’s trying to push me back to the bench at the edge of the ring, but I won’t budge.

  I can’t seem to move.

  I’m paralyzed by the sight of her.

  When I take a step, it’s not back where Owen’s pushing me.

  It’s forward, fighting against him, to get around him, to get to her.

  “Molly,” Owen calls to his girlfriend, voice rising.

  I’m still focused on the red jacket.

  Try to speak, but nothing comes out.

  My mouth is dry, there’s blood everywhere, and my nose is broken.

  Great.

  I’m going to be even uglier now.

  The woman in the red jacket just stands frozen, her eyes sweeping the gym.

&nbs
p; At first, they lock on Owen, and she looks like she’s about to throw him a wave.

  But then they swing around, back to me.

  Away.

  Back.

  Recognition hits her.

  Her eyes go even wider.

  Her kissable mouth forms an ‘O.’

  I take another step, but Owen’s arms tighten around me as he calls for Molly again.

  Molly, red curls flying, leaps into the ring with enough prowess that I think, not for the first time, that she’d make a damn fine Marine.

  But when she sees my face, she whirls on her boyfriend., “Owen Doyle, did you break his god damned nose?”

  Owen looks a little stunned.

  “He was supposed to duck.”

  Molly snaps her fingers in front of my face, forcing me to tear my gaze from the woman.

  “What the hell, Jack?”

  “I’m fine,” I growl.

  Blood’s everywhere, making a compelling counterargument.

  Definitely not fine.

  Molly snorts.

  “Yeah, you look great. Sit down.”

  If there’s one thing I know, it’s how to follow orders.

  But my eyes move back and lock on the woman in red.

  Molly sees her at the same moment.

  She calls out.

  “Oh, thank Christ, Alix. Get over here. This idiot,” she points to Owen, “punched this idiot,” she points at me, “and for some reason, he didn’t duck.”

  She sounds exasperated and maybe furious.

  Alexandra Winthrop, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and the ghost of every good thing that once existed in my life, is inexplicably crossing the gym, sliding under the ropes, and finally stands staring down at my battered face for a long minute.

  I swallow hard.

  Suddenly, I can’t breathe, for reasons that have nothing to do with my face or my busted nose.

  She purses her full, cherry-red lips into a hard line, and fights a half-smile.

  “Well, Jack Mulvaney. You’re a fucking mess.”

  2

  Alix

  There’s one reason I got into the medical field: to help people.