Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Zane
I’ve fought twice now.
Two wins.
Ten grand in cash.
They call it easy money, but there’s nothing easy about standing inside a cage while a crowd howls for blood. The air there tastes of sweat and iron, and the noise digs under your skin until it’s all you can hear.
They cheer when bones crack, when a man’s head hits the concrete, when someone stops moving. They feed on it.
The rich ones stand closest to the cage, suits too clean for a place like that. Cigars hanging from their mouths, whiskey glasses half full. They clap slowly when someone goes down, all smug smiles and cold eyes, pretending they’re better than the rest. They are not.
They’re just the filthiest bastards in the room.
Between rounds, I stare at them.
Their watches glitter; their laughter cuts through the roar. The conversation revolves around odds, how long we’ll last.
They don’t see fighters. They see flesh they can bet on. Collateral they will forget by the next night.
My ribs ache. My knuckles are raw. Blood seeps through the tape and stains the floor. The crowd loves it. They always do.
Last night almost killed me.
The guy was bigger, meaner.
Didn’t stop when the bell rang.
Didn’t care about rules that never existed in the first place.
I took a hit to the jaw that made the world blur. I could feel my heartbeat pounding at the back of my throat. Still, I swung back. Harder. Kept going until he dropped.
When they raised my hand, there was no victory. Only emptiness.
The money’s good. The rush is better.
But the come down after… It’s a different kind of pain. The kind that crawls inside your head and whispers that this is all you’ll ever be.
Now it’s morning. My body’s a mess. My hands are shaking. Ten grand in an envelope and not a single part of me feels alive.
I tell myself it’s worth it. That it’s for her. That I’m doing this to fix what’s broken.
But deep down I know I’m lying.
I’m not fighting for Skylar. I’m fighting to punish myself for every part of me she keeps trying to save.
I couldn’t go home last night.
Not looking like this. Not with my eye swollen shut and the taste of blood still thick at the back of my throat. Every breath burns down my side. Ribs screaming, lungs tight.
Skylar would see through it in seconds. She’d press those soft hands against the bruises and then ask the questions I’m not ready to answer.
And Rainer — he wouldn’t even need to ask. He’d take one glance and see it.
Hell, he already did, that day I showed up at the garage after my first fight. I fed him a bullshit story about tripping while I was working on the car he gave me, said it was late and I was tired, and lost my balance.
He didn’t call me out on my bullshit, but I saw it in his eyes. That flicker of disappointment. He gave me that long, quiet stare and handed me the wrench.
He knows I’m falling.
Mason though… that fucker knows.
I caught the smirk on his face that morning in the workshop, stiff and aching after my first fight.
He didn’t say much. He didn’t need to as he leaned against the hood of the beat-up Chevelle he’s been working on with Rainer, arms crossed, mouth twitching with whatever smug bullshit he was choking back.
That’s when he said it. Called it a “hobby.” That one word, thrown out there with a little too much bite, a little too much knowing behind it.
It means he was there.
In the crowd watching. Probably one of the fuckers in the back corner placing bets, sipping beer, laughing with his boys.
And if he fucking says one word to Skylar or Rainer with that cocky mouth of his, I’ll end him.
Ten grand in cash. Stacked in a rubber-banded roll in my backpack, tucked between a busted charger and a half-empty bottle of painkillers. More money than I’ve ever touched in my entire fucking life.
It’s heavy in all the wrong ways. Stained before I’ve even touched it. Blood money.
I crashed at a piss-stained motel off the highway.
A place where people go to disappear. The walls reeked of mold and cigarettes. The mattress sagged in the middle. The sheets were stiff. The air con kept rattling, stuttering, before choking out warm air.
I lay there all night, eyes on the ceiling, with a sick weight crawling under my skin as I thought about her.
Skylar.
She deserves better than a guy who comes home with busted knuckles and a bag full of dirty money.
For the first time in my life, I want something clean.
Not easy, or perfect—just clean.
I want mornings where the sheets are tangled around her legs, where her hair’s a fucking mess and she’s half-asleep, grinning at me through the sunlight.
I want her voice to be the first thing I hear when I open my eyes.
I want her laugh, that low, raspy one she only uses when she forgets the weight she carries.
I know now that I want a fucking future with her.
I love her.
God, I fucking love her.
It’s not a gentle love. It’s brutal, consuming, and bigger than anything I’ve ever had inside me. It takes up all the space in my chest and still doesn’t fit. She’s everything… chaos and calm, fire and softness, and she doesn’t even realize it.
She smiles at me sometimes when she thinks I’m not watching, when Skylar forgets she’s supposed to keep those walls up. That smile tears straight through me, because I know what she’s giving me in those moments.
Trust. Hope. A glimpse of what life could be if I were someone else.
And it kills me. Every fucking time.
But the world I come from doesn’t hand out shit like that. It fucks you up early and teaches you to stop hoping. It dangles the good stuff close enough so you can taste it, and when you reach for it… it rips it away before you get your fingers on it.
Happy endings aren’t for people like me.
All I’m doing is trying to hold on long enough to pretend this story isn’t already over.
I sit on the edge of the motel bed, jeans still sticking to skin that hasn’t stopped throbbing since noon.
I should go home. I can’t keep her waiting forever.
By the time the sun dips low enough to set the sky on fire, I’ve made up my mind. I have to go.
I stop at the shitty Chinese joint on the corner. Grease-stained windows, neon buzzing above the door like it’s trying to warn me off.
I order noodles—her favorite—plus extra spring rolls and fried rice, because she always steals mine even when she says she’s not hungry.
The woman behind the counter doesn’t meet my eyes. Only swipes the crumpled bills from my hand and slides the plastic bag across the counter.
When I reach the workshop, climb the steps to the apartment, and reach the landing, something tightens low in my gut.
It’s that deeper kind of knowing, the one that creeps in before the truth lands. Before it rips the ground out from under you.
I press my hand to the door and push it open.
She’s there.
Skylar, by the bed, frozen mid-movement, hair tangled, face wet with tears she probably tried to wipe away before I got here. But they’re still there, shining on her cheeks in the low light. Her mouth’s pressed tight.
A half-packed duffel sits on the bed, zipper gaping, shirts and jeans spilling out in a mess that looks too final.
It hits me harder than any punch I’ve ever taken.
My throat closes, heart pounding against bruised ribs, because this isn’t a fight I can win.
This is her walking away. And I see it for what it is—I fucking did this.
She doesn’t look at me as she keeps folding. Her hands tremble around the fabric, fingers clenched too tight as she shoves another shirt into the bag.
I drop the takeout on the table and take a step toward her.
“Don’t,” she says. Voice thin. Shaking. Cracked straight through the middle. “Don’t say a fucking word.”
But silence has never been something I’m good at.
Not when the girl I love is standing in front of me packing her fucking life into a duffel bag.
My chest is thudding hard, ribs screaming every time I breathe. “What are you doing?”
She doesn’t answer.
Just grabs another shirt, folds it fast as if she needs the motion to hold herself together.
I watch her hands.
The way they twitch.
The way her breath catches in her throat.
And I understand that if she walks out that door, I’ll tear apart every fucked-up thing I’ve built to bring her back.
“Skylar. Answer me,” I say, stepping closer. “What the fuck are you doing?”
She whirls around, eyes blazing, face streaked with fresh tears.
“What does it fucking look like? I’m done, Zane. I’m not doing this anymore.”
Something tears through my chest. “What the fuck do you mean, done?”
“You disappear and then lie to me. You shut me out and act like I’m too stupid to notice.” Her voice breaks, but she doesn’t stop. “Was I just some pussy you didn’t have to chase? Just something easy, someone already in your bed, so you didn’t have to go looking for it.”
Her eyes flick to my face, before dropping to the split skin on my knuckles.
“You think I don’t see the way you come home half-alive and won’t look me in the fucking eye? Please tell me,” she whispers. “Tell me you fucked someone else instead of leading me along. Have the fucking guts to say it.”
She zips the bag.
The sound rips through the air, and she slings it over her shoulder. That’s when it hits.
She’s really walking out.
I take a step toward her. “Don’t.”
She turns, eyes blazing. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t walk out that door.”
Her chin tips up, defiant. “Why not?”
Because I’ll fucking fall apart, that’s why.
Because I’ve spent my whole life keeping people at arm’s length, and now you’re the only thing that makes me want to stay.
I swallow, trying to force the words past my lips. I’ve taken punches that left me gasping. Seen my own blood hit the floor. But none of it comes close to this.
“Skylar,” I rasp. “Stop.”
She stills.
Just for a second.
But it’s enough. That tiny pause, that flicker makes me reach for her wrist.
My fingers wrap around her skin.
Her pulse beats hard beneath my thumb. I feel it. Every rapid thud.