Fearless Read online

  Fearless

  Maya Rossi

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  FEARLESS

  Copyright © 2019 Maya Rossi

  Written by Maya Rossi

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Round one

  Round two

  Round three

  Round four

  Round five

  Round six

  Round seven

  Round eight

  Round ten

  Round eleven

  Round twelve

  Dedication

  For my family

  Round one

  Chapter one

  “We’re sorry but the answer is no.”

  It was the final nail on the coffin, a door jamming shut with a resounding bang. The end of what she was, her future, delivered so coldly and offhandedly that it lit a match inside her. Ava marched up to the huge conference table where Frank, a major stakeholder and director of operations at HTV sat with three other overfed and over-pampered older women casually destroying everything she had worked for. Trying and failing to rein in her anger, Ava thought to make her case again.

  “Mrs Torres, Kane and Fiona, I know you aren’t aware of the day-to-day operations of this organization, and that’s fine. But--”

  “What makes you think we aren’t aware of what happens in an organization we sink our money into?” Mrs Torres curled heavily ringed fingers around her water glass to take a dainty sip.

  Ava stared at those fingers with the heavy rings, thinking, what if the water slipped off her hands to soak Mrs Torres’ expensive silk jacket? It was a petty thought but frustration would do that to anyone.

  “Ava Miller?”

  “Yes?”

  “I asked if--”

  “Because if you were fucking giving this station a thought more than how cool it would look to your rich friends at another one of your pointless ‘who is richer than who’ lunch dates, you would know I’m really the hottest thing at HTV these days. And you wouldn’t leave all the important decisions to freaking Frank so you can shop for more clothes.”

  The women gaped, their mouths falling open in shock. Frank half rose from his seat. “How dare you--”

  “I assume that’s just to get your attention,” Mason Drake laughed, “but then that’s Ava. She never does things by halves. A bitch? Yeah, a hundred over ten but a straight shooter.”

  Swiveling her head backwards, Ava glared at the trio of men who Frank had chosen as members of his inner circle. The biggest of them all, Mason stood out with the light setting fire to his red hair and his ill-fitting trousers.

  “I apologize,” Frank whispered to Mrs Torres, drawing Ava’s attention from the ‘inner circle,’ “She’s such--”

  “You think we spend our days shopping?” Mrs Torres laughed.

  Mrs Kane blinked, looking dazed. “You’re the hottest thing in HTV?”

  Quickly, Ava opened up her file to grab the papers she spent all night putting together. She passed it to the women and at the last second, flung one in Frank’s direction.

  Ignoring Frank’s curse as his copy went skidding off the table, to the ground, Ava launched into her spiel. “I have a natural talent for sniffing out the real stories. Sports reporting has gone beyond attending the big matches, interviewing the fans and coaches, and harassing the athletes for an interview when they would rather be in training--”

  “But that’s what you want to do?” Fiona, the most subdued of the three women observed quietly.

  In her plain cream suit and red sling backs, Fiona looked every inch the serious business executive. Seated in the middle between her two friends, Kane and Torres in their expensive gowns and heels, she couldn’t have looked more different. What the women had in common was the grandmotherly head full of gray curls. Was there a memo somewhere classifying hairstyles by age?

  “Yes, but differently,” Ava replied, unable to stop her voice from shaking in excitement. “Social media has made the usual beats of the sports reporter redundant--”

  “That I can understand,” Fiona agreed. “My teenage son never actually tunes in to our station to get the latest in sports news, he goes to twitter.”

  Ava shot Frank a triumphant look. Did he really think he could sideline her again for the fourth time, brushing aside her objections each time by handing over a project she was most qualified to lead to less qualified men? Did he think she would go down without a fight, meekly running to Edward to cry her eyes out?

  “Exactly, Mrs Fiona--”

  “Call me Fiona, please.”

  “Yes, thank you. No one follows the sport news station anymore because most of the players, clubs, promoters and athletes release updates regularly through their social media feed.”

  “Then why are we here?” Mrs Kane asked, glancing around the room in confusion.

  Ava exchanged a quick look with Gary, Dave and Mason before forging ahead. She ignored the slight shake of the head from Mason. “The two projects that brought our station to the limelight was--”

  “The corruption piece you broke on boxing promoter Timothy Gershum,” Mrs Torres said. “Detailing how he used upcoming fighters like chess pieces in his dealings with the mob, that was great journalism, Miss Miller.”

  Ava straightened, preening under their praise. There was no point wasting her time on Frank, had she known these women were the real deal and not the cardboard cutouts she thought, she would have made a point to meet them during the last company dinner.

  “And the one on sports violence and depression where you talked about the football fan that killed ten supporters from the opposition side,” Mrs Kane patted down her heavy curls. “That one was particularly beautiful and heartbreaking, I remember thinking how unfair it was to kill and die for entertainment. But you passed across a powerful message.”

  Shooting a quick glance at Frank to see how he was taking her moment of triumph, Ava smiled when she saw him studying his shoes. For all his sexist comments and put downs, Ava wished she had a boxing belt she could hold up announcing her victory. For now, she made do with a smile of satisfaction.

  “I was proud to see HTV involved in something important for once,” Mrs Fiona agreed.

  With a deep breath, Ava continued, “With all humility, I have a great support behind me and I’ve got the best sources on the team--”

  “You’re not humble, Miss Miller, drop the act.” Mrs Fiona leaned forward. “You were saying?”

  Ava backpedaled hastily. “These are the real issues in sports right now. It’s the way we stand out. The internet and social media are there to give the fans the results of sports matches and--”

  “Frank, are you getting these down?” Mrs Torres asked.

  Edward, his assistant and her fiance of three years rushed over with a pen, lowering his mouth solicitously to Frank’s ear to whisper urgently. She glared at his downbent fair head. If he dared bring an end to this meeting with a useless interruption like one of Frank’s underage girlfriends waiting to suck his dick, Ava would kill him. Frank grabbed the pen and began jotting down what Ava was sure would be gibberish just to spite her.

  “Continue, Miss Miller,” Mrs Kane urged.

  “Also, we all know I have the best sources helping me sniff out a good story while my colleagues are scrambling with the other stations to interview a sports personality whose team might go into relegation, or he might get injured tomorrow and boom! No one would want to hear about this person anymore. It is the real issues that remain stories ten years after.”

  “An example, please,” Mrs Kane urged, her blue eyes dark with anticipation as she leaned forward eagerly.

&
nbsp; “No one recalls the records Joe Morientes broke as a hundred meters Olympic and World Champion, it’s the drug scandal that followed we remember him for, the drug use--”

  “Is the real story,” Miss Kane made a notation on her tablet, “I get it now. Thank you, Miss Miller.”

  “So, what do you propose? Mrs Fiona asked.

  “Brayden Marshall and boxing.”

  Everyone burst into laughter. To Ava’s further irritation, Gary and Mason joined in. She imagined them whispering about this as some flat joke in their men’s corner and had to clench her fists in order not to do something drastic.

  The three older women joined heads together whispering. It never failed to surprise Ava that three grandmothers bought a stake in a sports news station. In one of the many inane projects she had handled for the station, she interviewed Mrs Torres. Recently widowed and bored ‘the fuck out of her mind’, Mrs Torres spent lots of time with her grandkids who were crazy about sports. To stay up to date with the latest sports news, the sixty-five-year-old hadn’t gone on social media like everyone else, she bought a stake in a small up and coming station.

  Ava would have admired the women if they hadn’t hired Frank. As far as she was concerned, someone should have bought over his stake and shoved a mighty kick up his ass to sending him flying out of the station and straight into another orbit.

  “Marshall? I wasn’t expecting that.” Fiona took a sip of her water. “The man shuns the media like a plague. He’s like a god with an impeccable reputation and a dedicated following not even the Pope can dream of and boxing? It’s a dying sport. All those posturing and fake threats only to dance around the ring for twenty minutes doing nothing.”

  Impressed at the depth of her knowledge, Ava laughed. “You’re right but--”

  “My grandson complains about boxing a lot, especially that heavyweight division,” Mrs Torres said. “Too much money, lack of adequate organization and over-inflated egos.”

  “Sixteen boxers have died in the past one year. For the first time in twenty years, Brayden Marshall is not the sole champion of the welterweight division.” Ava let a shit-eating grin play around her mouth. “Those are the two stories I believe will lead the trends in a few months time, if we break it, we’ll lead the pack.”

  The women mulled things over, leaning across to exchange ideas. This left Frank sticking out like a sore thumb. How Ava wanted to crow in his face and enjoy his humiliation. Childishly, she stuck out her tongue and watched gleefully as his jowly features drenched red.

  “Are you sure about that number? Sixteen in a year?” Kane sounded horrified. “Why isn’t it the hottest topic of discussion? The boxers, the stakeholders, the promoters, everyone should--”

  “Exactly,” Ava shouted excitedly. “That’s the reason. The money.” She pounded her fists against the table top to make her point. “The promoters make so much money that they take risks with the lives of these boxers. I’m still making my research but the fact they bury the numbers alone tells me there’s a big story there.”

  “And Brayden Marshall?” Mrs Torres played with one of her rings. “How does he fit in?”

  “Brayden Marshall has single-handedly ruled boxing for twenty years.” Ava met the eyes of each women to stress her point. “The welterweight division isn’t usually the most important but for Brayden Marshall. Boxing should be a dying sport but for Brayden Marshall. He’s news because he has never granted an interview--”

  “Unless you know how to make that man care about the media, I don’t see the point,” Fiona said dryly.

  Ava forged on. “He ruled because he was a champion, a king for twenty years--”

  “Last I checked, he’s still champion,” Frank finally managed to get a word in.

  “Except, he’s no longer alone. Something it’s different. There’s an interim champion now.” Ava spread her hands in triumph. “Ryan Highland became an interim champion while Marshall was laid off with an injury. Not even the godlike Marshall would like to share his crown. No one likes to share.”

  Frank raised a warning finger. “We won’t--”

  “She’s right, Frank,” Fiona interrupted in a loud voice.

  Unable to help herself at this public put down of the tyrannical Frank, Ava pumped her fists, grinning like a fool.

  Fiona gave her a distinctly unimpressed look. “Ava Miller? The answer’s still no.”

  An hour later, Ava struggled to reconcile where her pitch had gone wrong. She had connected with the women. For the first time, she held an intelligent discussion with people who truly understood sports. Where had it all gone wrong? Ava stopped pacing the length of her office abruptly. She stared at the nondescript brown door to her office and thought it over for a second.

  Frank. Of course. Without missing a beat, she stalked to Frank’s office.

  “Ava,” Dave called, but she brushed him off intent on confronting Frank.

  “Hey,” Eleanor, Frank’s secretary shouted, struggling to maneuver her huge girth out of her chair to chase her down.

  “Don’t worry yourself,” Ava hurried back to press a kiss to her forehead, taking a beat to inhale her familiar smell of baby powder, “I will be just a second.”

  “That’s what you always say,” Eleanor groused. “Have at it.”

  “You’re the best,” Ava whispered fervently.

  “The boss isn’t going to think so,” Eleanor muttered, reaching up to push her shoulder length black hair off her face. “You’ve really got to slow down Ava.”

  Eleanor was the mother she never had but sadly, Frank’s secretary. “I will be a second.”

  She didn’t wait for Eleanor to say more, Ava shoved the door open without knocking. “I should have known you’d sabotage me somehow, I should have--”

  “You did that all yourself, sweetheart.” Frank turned so Eddy would help him with his jacket. “And I’m going to have a talk with Eleanor about letting you barge in here every time you hear a fart in the hallway.”

  Miffed at having to watch her fiance pander to a man she loathed, Ava eyed his bulging stomach scornfully. “How old is the girlfriend this time, seventeen?”

  Frank tried pulling the suit across his stomach and gave up. “Remember, I’m your boss. Be brilliant, pitch the president, hell even the Queen of England, but so long as you work here, your career is in my hands, remember that.”

  “Yeah, I saw how in control you were at the meeting, staring at your shoes and watching like a spectator as the old women made the decisions,” Ava sneered.

  Laughing, Frank took out a comb to brush his four wisps of hair over his bald patch. The man had absolutely no shame, and it infuriated Ava further.

  “I watched, but I determined the final outcome.” He grinned a shit-eating grin. “You pitched, you were brilliant, you wowed us. And you lost.”

  Suddenly, the fight went out of her. The past few days leading to the meeting, she had worked so hard and hardly slept. And it was all for nothing.

  “You know where you lost?” Frank asked. “You insulted those women. They liked your ideas, but you took out your hatred for me on them. And that’s why they said no.”

  “She’s devastated, Frank,” Eddy replaced the comb in a drawer. “Could you please cut her some slack?”

  “Why should I when she doesn’t do the same for herself? She may be the best thing that happened to this department but until she appreciates I hired her and not the other way round, nothing’s going to damn well change!”

  Ava’s shoulders dropped. For all the bad blood between them, Frank was honest. She truly had sabotaged her own pitch. A mirthless laugh burst out of her. Covering her face with her hands, she drew in deep breaths to get control of her emotions. Eddy rushed over and pulled her into his arms.

  The last thing she wanted was to be labeled weak so Ava struggled until Eddy released her. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I’m going home,” she announced.

  Frank laughed. “You’re not going anywhere, help Gary prepare
for his press conference. If you leave you’re suspended for two weeks.”

  But Ava no longer cared. “It isn’t worse than sabotaging my own pitch,” she said carelessly.

  “Frank please,” Edward began, leaving her side to approach Frank. “Can you let her be--”

  “You disappoint me Edward.” Frank grabbed his briefcase. “I don’t care who you fuck, don’t come between me and your girlfriend who’s my employee because you’re also my employee…”

  Ava didn’t wait to hear more. She walked out of the office.

  “Ava?” Eleanor called.

  She waved her back to her seat. “Not now, please.”