Fighting Irish

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Fighting Irish

Cristina Grenier

Chapter 1: The Way to the Top

Torran remembered the first time he attempted to find a suit that would fit him.

Of course, before that day, he hadn’t ever imagined he would need one. As a kid who had grown up on the poor side of Dublin - who had only managed to make it through secondary school by the skin of his teeth - he had never taken much pride in his clothes. Torran had always been more concerned with whether or not he had clothes at all. While all his friends at school had parents who bought them everything they needed - who kept them fed and clothed - Torran was self-sufficient.

By the time he was thirteen, he had an under the table job sweeping up hair in a back-alley barbershop. The gig had allowed him just enough extra cash to purchase a few t-shirts, pants, and a new pair of shoes every now and then. Sweets and junk food had always been something of a luxury for him.

Of course, he technically had a guardian at the group home. But Elaine Elmhurst was often too drunk to know her arse from her elbow, and she wouldn’t have cared for him unless he was made of solid gold. So he made his own way, stealing where he could, earning under the table - and it stayed that way all the way until he got to high school.

But then, of course, everything had changed.

It was because of those changes that Torran sought his first suit at the tender age of twenty five. He remembered stepping into a shop where a dinner jacket probably cost more than Elaine bloody Elmhurst had seen in her entire life. He was hardly able to believe they didn’t laugh him right out the front door. Instead, the tailor and shopkeeper bowed and scraped the moment he flashed his cash - and kept on kissing his arse until the moment he left.

It was certainly good to be on top.

But even after almost seven years, Torran wasn’t used to it. It seemed to him that his life had changed so much, so quickly, that sometimes he woke up at night still expecting to see the peeling ceiling of the shelter above him.

Instead, he stared at the pristine, whorled ceiling of a prime fifth avenue penthouse smack in the middle of New York City.

Fuck. How long had it been since he’d moved here? Two months? Three? Either way, it still didn’t feel like home. It didn’t matter that he’d dropped a cool eleven million on the place, or that the real estate agent he’d fucked to within an inch of her life insisted it was one of the most exclusive listings in the city.

He missed Dublin. The city that had shat on him, chewed him up and spit him out; but also the city that had saved his life.

Manhattan was a grand, sparkling gem of the modern world, but it was no Dublin.

Though it was only four in the morning, Torran rolled from bed, wide awake. He would grant the United States that everything was bigger here. He’d always been large for his age, and, as a result, the old, narrow streets of Dublin often seemed suffocating to him. In New York, he hadn’t yet encountered a place he couldn’t fit his six and a half foot frame - even if he had to bend down a bit to make things work. His penthouse needed no modifications to accommodate his bulk. It was, in its floor plan, meant to house between six and eight people.

But Torran liked having all the space to himself. He supposed he deserved it, after all these years.

In nothing more than a pair of clinging boxer-briefs, Torran made his way through the expansive apartment to the kitchen. There was already a bottle of Scotch sitting out on the counter, and he poured himself a healthy nightcap. Or, morningcap as it were. He was wide awake, and hoped that the slow burn of the alcohol would put him back to sleep.

He had a long day ahead of him.

Leaning against the counter, Torran sipped at his drink as he gazed through the wall of floor to ceiling windows that lined his living room. He was afforded a breathtaking view of the city he’d chosen- or rather, the city his work took him to. With a frown, he made his way over to the window to look down at the street far below. Fifth Avenue was situated snugly between Central Park and the city surrounding it. As such, it was one of the quietest streets at night - a haven for the monied who lined its hallowed walkways.

But even now, it wasn’t quiet. New York truly was the city that never slept, and even from the thirtieth floor, Torran could hear the sounds of traffic far below.

He both hated and loved this place. In the past five years of his life, he’d managed to travel all over the world, leaving a string of broken hearts and irate tempers in his wake. He was, as his lead-stockholders constantly impressed on him, volatile, to say the least. But as long as he was making them money, the most they would do was slap him on the wrist. And for Torran, who’d been beaten to within an inch of his life more times than he could count, a wrist slap was absolutely nothing.

Even if Torran was forced to go through the daily drudgery of running a company that had all but fallen in his lap, he liked to think he was pissing someone off. Or, in his case, a lot of someone’s. People who never thought he would make it to where he was. People who were absolutely incensed that he, who had never set foot in a university for anything other than speech giving, was capable of such success.

But here he was.

An interesting blend of his roots and what the world had made him.

Money, Torran often told himself, was all well and good - but it was the fighting that kept him sane. There were days he spent in the office that he narrowly escaped murder. Even though those he worked with told him he had a head for numbers, these very same numbers often drove him to the absolute edge of his tolerance.

And that, of course, was when he had to hit something.

For this exact purpose, Torran had a gym in the basement of his downtown office building. If ever his work day got to be too much for him and he needed to blow off some steam, he made a beeline for the basement. Better he broke things there than in the offices. Lord knew he’d gotten into enough trouble doing that already.

Even after finishing his generous helping of scotch, Torran wasn’t ready to head back to bed. Instead, he settled in his living room and turned on the television. He would be willing to bet that at close to five in the morning, there would be shite all on television, but he was surprised to turn into a months old MMA tournament.

One that he participated in.

It must have been on for a while, as they were halfway through the fourth match. The fight, Torran recalled, had been between Lyle McCready and reigning heavyweight champ Akahiko Matsuhiro. The Japanese fighter was probably the biggest boy the Far East had ever produced, at close to six and a half feet tall and two hundred eighty pounds. He beat McCready by knockout in under two minutes. Sent the fucker to the hospital.

Frowning, Torran recalled his own fight with Matsuhiro that day. He had been confident. Too confident. Just because he had a few inches and maybe ten pounds on him, he’d been certain that he’d see the Japanese fighter’s moves coming a mile away.

And he was wrong.

While the champ hadn’t knocked him out, it was a very close thing. And Torran’s anger - his drive to win which had always served him so well - had been useless in the face of Matsuhiro’s technical superiority. It had been his first shot at the title, and he’d been humiliated.

But now cowed.

There was another fight scheduled for a little less than a month from now. When he and Matsuhiro took the stage then, Torran wasn’t going to leave until the Japanese man was putty on the mat. It was the only outcome he was willing to accept.

Maybe, in light of his goals, it might be smart to have as many bad days at work as humanly possible and save up his frustration. Then, there would be no way Matsuhiro walked out of the ring in one piece.

But for now, Torran would just settle for making it through the day. It was barely five in the morning, and he was already exhausted at the prospect of the day ahead of him. He had not one, but two meetings with new hires that were supposed to head his Chinese and Japanese divisions. This, of course, meant that he’d have to use a translator. He wasn’t the intellectual type that studied languages for fun. In fact, Torran was pretty sure his Irish English was about as poor as the language came, so his language skills were minimal.

He would spend the entire day being translated for and then be shown to the mountain of paperwork that always awaited him on days like this. Then, if he made it through that, he’d be able to get away to the gym and work out some stress.

Torran might have come from the streets, but he wasn’t an idiot. He knew full well what people were saying behind his back: that he wasn’t fit to head the company. That he was going to run it into the ground. True, he’d only managed to land where he was out of dumb luck, but now that he was on top, he was putting in the work. They could say whatever they wanted, but at the end of the day, there was still a fighter responsible for their bread and butter.

So they could all go to hell, as far as he was concerned. Torran knew exactly what he was, and where he’d come from. He knew what a field day the tabloids had every time he got into another fight, or dumped another high profile model. Half of the women he’d ever slept with were probably out for his blood, but he wasn’t known for being the most gentlemanly of types. Torran liked to fuck to relieve stress. When he joined a woman in her bed, it was wild, hot and unfettered - he pulled no punches, and they always came crawling back for more.

Even if he wasn’t interested.

The most important thing to Torran was that he came out on top in whatever he chose to do. After a lifetime of clawing his way up from the bottom, he wasn’t headed back there anytime soon. Not until he was dead and buried.

So he would keep fighting. And he wouldn’t stop until he won.

Chapter 2: Breaking Barriers

Savannah had never been late to work before, but she wasn’t going to let this be her first day. Despite the traffic, despite the fact that she hadn’t had a single miserable cup of coffee to get her through the morning, she was going to make it.

She hoped.

With a sigh, the young woman gazed at the long, never-ending line of cars before her. The highway was backed up as far as the eye could see and the radio was blaring something about an overturned tractor trailer.