Chapter 31
Rowan
The punch connected hard before I had time to think about what it would mean to land.
For the entire fight, I’d waited for that opening.
I’d trained for it, planned for it, and trusted Keaton to take the bait because I knew him well enough to know he’d see the gap and commit before thinking twice.
My right hand came over his guard exactly the way it was supposed to, my glove caught his jaw, and the impact shot up my arm.
For one breath, the fighter in me knew I’d landed cleanly. Then his eyes lost focus, and everything around me dropped away.
He didn’t stumble into the fence, reach for the mat, swear, or shake it off. He didn’t even try to catch himself, and that scared me because Keaton always fought to stay in it. His body gave out, and he hit the canvas without trying to catch himself.
“Keaton!” I started moving, dropping to my knees beside him before the ref could get between us. “Keaton, wake up!”
The ref grabbed my arm. “Back up.”
Ignoring him, I leaned over Keaton, my fingers hovering uselessly because I didn’t know where it was safe to touch him. His face. His shoulder. His chest. Anywhere that might bring him back to me.
“Baby, come on.” My voice broke, and I didn’t care who heard it. “Wake up.”
“Back up now!” the ref ordered.
“I can’t.” I cupped his cheek. “Keaton, please.”
Hands hooked under my arms and dragged me back.
“No.” I fought against them, trying to twist free, because Keaton’s eyes were still closed. “Let me go!”
“Rowan!” Coach Isaac snapped in my ear. “Back up.”
“I need him.”
“I know you two go way back, but you have to let medical in.”
“I’m not leaving him.”
“You’re not helping him either. Let medical do their job.”
The ref stayed with Keaton while the doctor and Coach Phil came in from the other side. Coach Isaac kept me back, and I hated every inch of space between us, but Keaton needed medical attention more than he needed me losing my shit over him in the middle of the cage.
The doctor dropped beside him, and Coach Phil went down near his shoulder. Their bodies blocked most of what was going on, but not enough to hide that he still hadn’t moved.
“Keaton,” I called as I jockeyed to see around them. “Come on. Open your eyes.”
The doctor called Keaton’s name and touched two fingers to the side of his neck while Coach Phil leaned in and said something I couldn’t hear over the crowd.
I stopped fighting Coach Isaac long enough to watch the doctor’s face, desperate for him to tell us Keaton was okay, but he only reached for the small light clipped to his pocket and checked his eyes.
The doctor spoke again, probably asking Keaton to respond, but nothing changed. He stayed limp on the canvas, and everything inside me turned cold.
What had I done?
The question tore through me because there was no one else to blame. The ref hadn’t done this. The crowd hadn’t done this. The contract, the promotion, the rankings, Devon, all the bullshit that had put us in that cage together hadn’t taken Keaton off his feet.
I had.
I shook my head, even though no one had asked me anything. “No.”
Coach Isaac’s hand dug into my arm. “Rowan.”
“How could I do that?” I pointed toward Keaton. “How the fuck could I do that to him?”
Coach Isaac didn’t answer right away, and I hated him for it.
I hated him for not lying to me. Because he knew enough to know this wasn’t just guilt over a knockout.
Maybe he didn’t know all of it—not the years, the secrets, or the way Keaton and I had broken each other before we ever stepped into the cage—but he knew we had history between us.
Enough to know I wasn’t panicking over an opponent I’d knocked out.
I was looking at the man I loved, and he wasn’t looking back.
I pulled harder against Coach Isaac. “I need him to wake up.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.” I shook my head. “You don’t know.”
Coach Isaac didn’t let me move. “I know you need to stay here.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. Because right now, that’s the only thing you can do for him.”
He was right, and that was the worst part. Getting to Keaton wasn’t an option. Neither was making the doctor work faster, forcing Keaton’s eyes to open, nor willing his body to respond. Yet every second Coach Isaac held me back, the panic dug in deeper, because all I could do was watch.
I forced myself to breathe, but all I could think about was what would happen if Keaton never woke up.
The noise around us started to change from the roar of the crowd to the kind of quiet that only happened when fans realized something was seriously wrong.
Cameras were still pointed at the canvas, officials were still moving around us, and somewhere beyond the lights, thousands of people were waiting to see what came next.
The judges, the cameras, the win I’d stopped wanting the second Keaton went down, all of it disappeared until the only thing left was him lying there while the doctor called his name and waited for him to answer. But then his fingers moved. It was small enough that I almost thought I’d imagined it.
“He moved.” I tried to step around Coach Isaac. “Keaton moved.”
“I saw. Stay back until they clear him.”
“I need to get to him.”
“You need to wait.”
A few seconds passed before Keaton’s eyes opened. He blinked at the lights, then the doctor, then Coach Phil before finally finding me, and I forgot how to breathe.
My vision blurred before I could stop it. “Keaton,” I whispered.
I wanted to get to him. I wanted my gloves off, my hands on him, and his voice in my ear telling me he was okay. I wanted to undo the last few seconds, even though that wasn’t how fighting worked.
The doctor said something, and Keaton answered. I couldn’t make out the words, but he was talking. He was awake.
I bent forward, hands braced on my knees, trying to draw air into my lungs as Coach Isaac stayed beside me.
“He’s talking,” he reminded me.
“I can see that.”
“That’s good.”
“It doesn’t feel good.”
The ref came over. “We need you in the center.”
Still bent over, I looked up at him. “For what?”
“The announcement.”
For a moment, I didn’t understand what he meant. Then I remembered the crowd was still waiting for the fight result to be announced, and for me to act as if my raised hand mattered while Keaton was still on the mat with a doctor beside him. “No.” I shook my head as I stood upright.
“Rowan,” Coach Isaac warned, like he expected me to care about the win as much as everyone else expected me to.
“I’m not doing that.”
“It’s part of the process.”
“I don’t care.”
The referee looked between us. “We have to make it official.”
Coach Isaac’s hand stayed on my arm, but his attention turned toward the table outside the cage. “Do what you have to do.”
“I need him in the center,” the ref pushed back.
“No, you don’t,” Coach Isaac stated.
A beat passed before the guy trying to get me to the center looked away from Coach Isaac and gave the signal.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the referee has called a stop to this contest in round three. Your winner by knockout, Rowan Cross.”
The crowd reacted around us, but I kept my eyes on Keaton. He was still on the mat, still pale, still too slow as he blinked at Coach Phil.
Nothing about this felt like a win.
I hadn’t raised my hand or stood in the center, and I hadn’t smiled for the cameras or pretended the sound of the crowd mattered more than Keaton sitting there trying to piece together the last few minutes.
Coach Isaac’s grip loosened. “Wait until they clear him.”
“I need to get to him.”
“I know.”
“Then let me go.”
“Not until the doctor moves.”
I didn’t have anything left to argue with. Keaton’s eyes were open, and he was answering the doctor’s questions while Coach Phil stayed calm beside him, but none of that made it any easier to stand there with half the cage between us.
The moment they stepped back, I crossed the cage before anyone could stop me.
“How is he?” I asked.
Keaton answered before anyone else could. “I’m right here.”
I crouched in front of him, careful not to get in the doctor’s way. “Hey, baby.”
He blinked at me. “Did you just call me baby?”
“Yeah.”
“In the cage?”
“Yeah.”
“In front of everyone?”
“Pretty much.”
His eyes narrowed a little, but I saw something familiar under the confusion. “Subtle.”
I stared at him, at his open eyes and the irritation already coming back into his face. “You scared the shit out of me.”
He blinked slowly, like the words took a second to make sense. “You knocked me out.”
The guilt in my stomach twisted harder. “I know.”
“You were supposed to hit me.”
“Not like that.”
His attention slipped toward the doctor before returning to me. “I don’t remember all of it.”
Any relief I’d found started to disappear.
The doctor touched Keaton’s shoulder. “Focus on me for a minute.”
He repeated a few of the questions, then added more. Keaton answered his name, where he was, what month it was, and who he’d fought.
When he got to that one, his attention came back to me. “Rowan ‘Lockdown’ Cross.”
I snorted a small laugh. “Really?”
“What? It’s true.” He grinned.
The doctor checked his eyes again. “Any nausea?”
“No.”
“Headache?”
“Yeah.”
“Dizziness?”
“A little.”
“Do you remember the finish?”
Keaton kept his eyes on mine. “I remember taking the opening, and then realizing I shouldn’t have.”
The doctor kept talking, but those words stayed with me. He’d known. In the moment before everything went black, Keaton had known I’d trapped him.
Coach Phil moved beside him. “We’re taking him back to medical.”
“I’m coming.”
The doctor glanced at me. “You can follow, but you need to give us room.”
“I will.”
Coach Phil helped him stand, and everything in me braced when he swayed.
“I’m fine,” he grumbled.
“You were unconscious less than five minutes ago.”
“Thanks. I almost forgot.”
“Not funny.”
He gave me a small smile. “I know.”
The doctor stepped to his other side. “Slowly. Take your time.”
Coach Isaac caught my elbow before I could follow. “Gloves.”
I glanced down at my hands.
Right.