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his words. She can’t help but imagine what Morrison has described. She’d seen the way he’d attacked King Kong in the fighting ring, the way he had kept his eyes so firmly fixed on Kong when he had gone down onto the mat, as if he was making sure that he was going to get back up again. It all made sense; he was terrified that he’d killed a man again.
     
    It’s a few minutes before Adriana feels safe to speak without all her emotions falling out of her like a spilled box of matches. “You helped him get out before the cops arrived.” It’s a statement of fact; it wasn’t hard to figure out how things had gone down.
     
    Morrison bows his head, as if she’s just congratulated him. “He was just a kid. No one knew who he was, and in those kinds of fights, people don’t tend to come forward as witnesses. It’s not the highest class of person who attends those kinds of events.”
     
    “People like you, you mean.” Adriana’s voice is pure revulsion, and it’s not lost on Morrison. The goon behind him takes a step towards Adriana as if to teach her a lesson on behalf of his boss, but Morrison lifts a hand, motioning him to stay, like he is a dog. The big guy stops dead, but his eyes remain trained on Adriana, as if he’s willing her to make another mistake and do something that will give him a reason to hurt her.
     
    “Glass houses, my dear. I’m not the killer in this story.” Morrison looks pointedly at her.
     
    “And that’s what you’ve been holding over Grayson. You’re the only one who knows that the kid that…that hurt Vinnie…that he’s one of the UFC’s biggest and brightest now. You’ve been blackmailing him for years.” The dots start to connect for Adriana, and she sees how right she is in Morrison’s expression.
     
    “Like I told you before, my dear. Blackmail is such an ugly word. I much prefer ‘ incentivize .’” He shoots her a warning look. “Besides, I didn’t hear Grayson complaining when he was sharing in the spoils.”
     
    Adriana frowns, confused at this loop that she’s been thrown for. “The spoils? What are you talking about?”
     
    “You really have no idea, do you?” Morrison shakes his head at her in mock-fascination. “If I were you, Adriana, I would be more careful about the kind of people that I associate with.”
     
    “The spoils?” She prompts him, not allowing him the luxury of going off on one of these tangents that he so seems to enjoy over how little she knows Grayson.
     
    “I didn’t force Grayson into the car with me that night outside the warehouse. He came of his own free will. He left the scene of a crime that he’d committed and took up my offer of a better life.” Morrison shrugs as if to say that it was exactly that simple.
     
    “A better life? How?” Adriana’s father had instilled in her a suspicion of any easy ride. He used to tell her that there was no such thing as anyone doing something for anyone else out of the kindness of their own heart; there had to be something in it for them. When she was little, she’d thought that he was being negative, a hangover from the way her mother had treated him.
     
    “I’m a speculator. Some people speculate on the stock market; I speculate in sport, mostly fights: MMA, boxing, legitimate or otherwise.” He looks at her with false apology.
     
    “You’re a bookie.” Adriana’s father had also always taught her to call a spade a spade, no matter how it was dressed up to look like something else.
     
    “In common parlance, I suppose that’s correct.” Morrison watches her, waiting for her next question.
     
    “So, you helped train Grayson to win in these illegal fights. You bet on him and split the winnings.” Adriana follows the breadcrumbs that Morrison has laid for her, reaching the logical conclusion. It wasn’t exactly the most honorable way to earn money, but there was nothing so terrible, aside from the fact that it was all illegal. Adriana wonders absently where