“Yeah,” I say.
“Accardo said I had what it took to be a boxer. He had some men train me, and I was going to be one of the best. By the time I was eighteen I was getting ready to enter the pros, to do my first real gig when—” His voice trails off.
“When you broke your leg,” I say.
“Kicking a fucking football,” he says with a sigh. “Toe hit turf, and the shock fractured my tibia. After that, it was just one injury after another. Tore my ACL when I was nineteen, Achilles when I was twenty-one. Ripped my shoulder out three months later, then broke my left femur clean in half on a fucking skiing holiday. Skiing, Duncan! Fucking skiing.
“I was so broken up that by the time I was twenty-four, I could no longer fight. I never put a string of wins together long enough to get me any notice. Accardo left me by the wayside, turned his attention to better, younger men in his stable, ones who could fight, ones who could earn him money. That’s why they call me ‘Glass’. Like I’m made of glass, you know?”
“I get it,” I say.
He sighs again. This is his torture. This is all he cares about. “Fuck!” he spits, slapping the table.
I regard him, think to myself why now, of all times? Why did Dee choose now? I only needed just a few more fights, a bit more money, some wise investments, and we’d be living the life.
We’d have gone away together.
I’d have taken her anywhere she wanted to go.
But she left first. She left without me.
I ball my fist, dig my nails into my palm.
“So what could I do?” Glass shrugs, smacks his lips. “I went into business. I became a businessman. And… and I met Dee’s mother. Boxing… boxing became boring after Tyson was done. The underground scene dried up, too.”
But that coincided with the emergence of MMA, mixed martial arts, what I fight.
No… what I fought.
“I’m done fighting for you,” I say after a moment. Just like that, there’s a switch that’s been flicked in my mind. “I’m not getting in that cage for you anymore.”
Glass turns hard eyes on me. “You think so, huh?”
“I know so. I’m done, Glass. Finished. I’ve made you millions of dollars over the past two years. You got your money’s worth out of me.”
“You didn’t fair too poorly yourself,” he fires back.
“I fought for it. Spilled blood for it. Broke bones for it. I earned my share.”
“I control you,” Glass hisses, leaning forward. His tongue slithers out of his mouth. “I control your bank account, I control your life!”
“It’s over,” I tell him.
I’ve made up my mind. I’m done.
I’m finding Dee. I’m finding out just what the fuck is going on.
He’s about to shout something back at me, but he stops himself, peers at me. “This is about Deidre, isn’t it?”
“No,” I lie. “I’m just done.”
“Are you and her up to something? Are you running away together?”
I shake my head. I wish.
“You better not be fucking lying to me, Duncan, you ungrateful little shit. Because if you are I will hunt you down and I will kill you. And I’ll fucking hunt her down, too! Are you the father?”
There’s a pause. I blink. The father.
“What?”
“God damn it, Duncan, if you knocked up my fucking daughter I swear I’ll—”
I lose it. I throw my chair backward. It thuds loud on the carpet. I rush around the table, faster than Glass can get to his feet, and then I rip him from his chair, pin him against the wall with my elbow against his windpipe.
“Get out!” I shout at Frank now frozen in the doorway. “Or I swear I’ll crush his neck.”
Frank reaches for his gun, but Glass yells hoarsely, “Don’t fucking shoot him you idiot fuck, you’ll hit me, too!”
Frank lowers his weapon, and I turn to look Glass in the eyes.
“What father?”
He doesn’t reply.
“What fucking father, Glass?” I roar, picking him up and slamming him against the bookcase. “Is Deidre pregnant?”
“Yes, you little shit,” Glass hisses.
I widen my eyes. “Dee is pregnant?”
“Yes!”
“Why did you say she took what’s yours? Did she steal something from you? Apart from the money?”
“My grandchild!” The words bubble out of his mouth. “Nobody leaves my family. Nobody takes my family away!”
I shake my head at him. He wants Deidre’s kid? He wants… my kid.
“You were never the son I wanted, Duncan,” he spits at me. “You were never obedient enough.”