Chapter 10 Victor
VICTOR
Icrank the combination on my office lock and push inside, grateful for the scent of the place—sweat, leather, and the faint tang of blood.
Rolling my shoulders, I shake off the memories that attempt to chase me into my space. Last night never happened. It can’t have.
“Boss, you’re early.” Marco glances up from where he’s taping a fighter’s hand. “Thought you weren’t in till noon.” His thermos sits on the bench beside him—the cafecito he carries in every morning. He’s been carrying that same thermos as long as I’ve known him.
“Change of plans.” I drop my bag in the corner and scan the gym floor.
Twenty-five hundred square feet of discipline and pain.
The ring sits in the center—not some fancy, elevated platform like in commercial gyms, but an old-school square ringed with ropes that have absorbed more sweat and blood than a battlefield.
Around it, heavy bags hang from reinforced chains, speed bags are mounted on the walls, and free weights line the far corner.
This place isn’t pretty. The concrete floor is stained with years of spilled water, sweat, and occasionally blood. The walls, once white, have yellowed from thousands of bodies working through pain.
But it’s mine. Every fucking inch of it.
“Jenkins is on the ropes again,” Marco says, nodding toward the back where my newest prospect is pounding a heavy bag. “Kid’s got potential.”
I grunt in agreement. “Tell him to watch his footwork. He drops his right shoulder before he throws that hook.”
This is where I belong. Where men respect strength, not words. Where actions are measured in blood and sweat, not confused feelings or whispered confessions.
The basement below us holds the real money—the underground fights that draw the city’s wealthiest men looking to bet on blood sport away from prying eyes. Three nights a week, I transform that concrete dungeon into a gladiator pit where fighters earn more in ten minutes than most make in a month.
I built this empire with these hands. Fought my way up, broke bones and bled on floors across the country until I had enough to start my own place. The men here look at me and see something solid. Uncompromising. A fucking man’s man.
Not someone who’d...
I slam that thought down and grab the nearest pair of mitts.
“Jenkins! Center ring, now!”
I circle Jenkins, holding the mitts up. “One-two, slip, uppercut.”
He follows my command, his fists connecting with satisfying thuds. The kid’s quick—raw but promising. His technique is tight, but there’s hesitation in his eyes. That’ll get him killed in the cage.
“Harder. You think your opponent’s gonna feel that love tap?” I bark, and he digs deeper, sweat flinging from his forehead.
I step in closer, crowding him. “You got three seconds to put me down, or you’re cleaning the locker room toilets with your toothbrush.”
A shift moves through his eyes—that animal instinct I’ve been trying to draw out—and he launches a combination that knocks me back a step. Good. The fear’s gone.
“Better,” I grunt. “Ten more minutes, then hit the speed bag.”
The gym door swings open, and Ray steps in—my manager and the only guy I trust with the books. His pressed shirt and slacks look out of place among the sweaty bodies, but nobody gives him shit. They know better.
“Victor, got a minute?” He gestures toward my office.
I toss the mitts to Marco. “Finish his session. Make him bleed a little.”
Ray’s already spreading paperwork across my desk when I walk in. Expansion plans for the south side location—the permits finally cleared.
“Construction can start next month,” he says, not looking up. “But we’ve got another issue. Dawson’s been sniffing around.”
My jaw tightens. Rick Dawson—ex-fighter turned promoter with more money than morals—has been circling my territory for months.
“He approached Miller yesterday. Offered him double what we’re paying for his next three fights.”
“Miller say yes?” I flex my hands, knuckles cracking.
“No, but he’s thinking about it. Dawson’s also talking to Jackson and Torres.”
Heat rises in my chest. Those are my top fighters. My property.
“You want to make a counteroffer, or...?” Ray trails off, knowing my answer before asking.
I slam my palm on the desk. “No. Dawson needs to understand what happens when you try to take what’s mine. I’ll handle this my way.”
Ray acquiesces with a nod, then leaves and I head back to the gym floor, losing myself in the routine I’ve run a thousand times.
The fight club has always been my anchor.
Left hook, right cross. Weight on the balls of the feet.
The smell of sweat and leather. The pure, uncomplicated physics of force meeting resistance.
I spot Jenkins still working the speed bag, his technique improving. I bark corrections at two other fighters grappling on the mats. Each instruction, each demonstration pulls me further from last night’s memories.
“Keep your guard up, Peterson! Rotate from the hips, not the shoulders!”
Three hours pass in a blur of punches, kicks, and grappling. My muscles burn with the satisfying ache of exertion—a pain I understand, a pain I control. The white noise of physical exhaustion drowns out the whispers in my head.
By evening, I’ve run two classes, worked with four fighters individually, and put myself through a circuit designed to destroy what’s left of me. My body feels like my own again. Temporarily purged.
“Calling it a night, boss?” Marco asks as I head toward the locker room.
“Yeah. Early meeting tomorrow.”
The locker room hits me with a wall of steam from the showers. Half a dozen fighters are in various states of undress, their bodies moving with easy confidence. Matthews slaps Reyes on the back, laughing at some joke. Davidson walks past, towel slung low on his hips.
Heat crawls up the back of my neck.
I’ve seen these men naked hundreds of times. We’ve bled together, sweated together. It never meant anything before. But now my eyes catch on shoulders, on the curve of muscle meeting hip, on casual touches between teammates.
Davidson reaches past me for his deodorant, his bare chest inches from my face. “Good session today, Vic.”
The casual shortening of my name sends a jolt through me. I mumble something unintelligible, turning toward my locker. My hands shake as I pull off my shirt.
A towel snaps, followed by laughter. The sound of bare feet on wet tile. Someone’s cologne mixes with sweat and steam.
Pressure rises in my chest like a tide, threatening to burst. I slam my locker door shut, the metal crash silencing the room momentarily.
“Forgot something in the office,” I mutter, grabbing my gym bag and pushing past them all, ignoring their confused looks.
I leave everything in my locker and storm out of the gym. Fuck changing. I need space. Need to get away from all these men and their bodies and the way I’m suddenly seeing them.
The parking lot’s nearly empty when I reach my ‘69 Dodge Charger. The black paint gleams under the streetlights, the chrome detailing catching the glow. I run my hand along the hood—something real, something that makes sense. Machinery. Power. Control.
The engine roars to life, vibrating through the seat and up my spine. This car’s more honest than most people—all raw power and no pretense. I peel out of the lot, the tires protesting against the asphalt, and hit the main road hard.
The streets blur as I push the engine, taking corners too fast, the route home becoming a test of reflexes and nerve. The exhilaration of speed temporarily drowns out everything else—the confusion, the anger, the fucking arousal that won’t leave my body.
My apartment building looms ahead. I park haphazardly and take the stairs two at a time, slamming my door behind me. The silence inside is deafening.
I head straight for the kitchen, bypassing the refrigerator for the cabinet above. The bottle of Jameson gleams amber in the dim light. I don’t bother with ice, just pour three fingers into a tumbler and knock back half in one burning swallow.
My phone’s in my hand before I realize what I’m doing. Thumb swiping, opening Instagram. I’ve never followed Theo, never even looked him up before, but my fingers type his name like they’ve done it a thousand times.
His profile loads. @TheoWinters_Eclipse.
I scroll past artful shots of hands on turntables, close-ups of vinyl records, abstract light patterns.
Then stop. Eclipse Nightclub. The photos show a cavernous space bathed in blue and purple light.
Beautiful people with their heads thrown back in ecstasy, hands raised to the ceiling.
The crowd parts in the images to reveal a DJ booth where Theo stands, headphones half-on, one hand hovering above equipment.
He looks... transcendent. Head tilted back slightly, eyes half-closed, lips parted. Like he’s making love to the music, to the crowd, to the entire fucking room. Like he owns the entire world and knows it.
So beautiful.
The thought forms before I can stop it. I switch off the app with a violent thumb-jab and growl deep in my throat.
I toss the phone onto the coffee table, but it’s only seconds before I’m reaching for it again.
My thumb hovers over the message icon. I shouldn’t. But I do.
I open my messages and there it is. Theo’s text. For the fourteenth fucking time today, I read those words:
Miss something this morning? Besides me, I mean. Your watch was on the nightstand. Come find it tonight at Eclipse. I’ll be behind the decks from midnight.
The steel Rolex. My father’s watch. The one thing I never take off except...
I close my eyes, but that only makes it worse. Behind my eyelids I see his hands sliding it off my wrist. See him setting it carefully on the nightstand before guiding my hand back to his body.
“Fuck.”
I shouldn’t have left my fucking watch. I knew it was missing this morning, but I couldn’t remember where I’d left it in my rush to get away. Sloppy. Careless. Now my carelessness has created a chain—a link between us that forces a choice.
If I want it back—and I do, I need that watch—I’ll have to see him again. See those eyes that somehow saw through me. That mouth that...
I grip the phone tighter, my knuckles whitening.
I could demand he leave it somewhere. At the front desk of Eclipse, maybe. Or mail it to the gym.
But even as I think it, I know I won’t ask. Won’t text back at all. Because texting means acknowledging... this. Whatever the hell this is.
My thumb hovers over the delete button. One press and the message disappears. Like it never happened.
I don’t press it.
Instead, I click the screen dark and toss the phone away again, but the message remains, waiting in digital purgatory—neither answered nor erased.