Chapter 12 #2
“There’s no official regulation, if that’s what you mean.
No paper trail, no athletic commission, no emergency physician waiting in the back with a clipboard.
You break something, you get it fixed on your own time.
You get seen seeing a doc? That’s on you.
But don’t think this is to the death or some such shit.
That’s in the movies. But this is bare-knuckled brutality—that keeps the customers coming. ”
Medical oversight: zero. Liability: one hundred.
I hated how interested I was. Hated the way part of my brain was already calculating how much cash we could use to pay down medical bills, maybe do IVF, fund Chloe’s manga printing without touching our savings.
Our.
I swallowed that down.
“Sounds like a great way for a guy to end up with a permanent limp,” I said. “Or worse.” He had one hell of a sales pitch, and I was tempted. Really fucking tempted.
“A guy who doesn’t know what he’s doing, sure,” Maurice said smoothly. “You’re not that guy.”
He said it like a fact, not a compliment.
“You’re a firefighter and an EMT,” he went on. “You know what your body can do and what it can’t. You know how to take a hit. You know when to tap instead of letting your shoulder explode on principle.”
I went very still.
“How do you know I’m a firefighter? An EMT?” I asked.
Maurice’s smile didn’t change, but there was a flicker in his eyes. “Small state,” he said. “You fight in gyms long enough, word gets around.”
“Word gets around that I ride a truck in Jasper Creek?” I asked.
He held my gaze for an extra beat, then lifted both hands, palms out. “Hey,” he said lightly. “I do my homework. That’s all. Gotta know who I’m talking to.”
Bullshit.
My skin prickled under my jacket. If he knew that much from “homework,” what else did he know?
Had he pulled my name from gym waivers and gone looking? Run my plates in some friend’s database? Followed me home from Cappy’s, seen the house, the neighborhood, the way I parked in the driveway alone.
“You’re a local,” he said, like he was making an observation about the weather. “Got roots. Family. That’s good. Means you’re not gonna do something stupid and blow up your own backyard just to make a little cash.”
The phrase scraped across a nerve.
You’ve got roots. Family.
Chloe hadn’t been living with me for months. She should’ve been out of the line of fire by default. But the rest? The Averys? My crew at the station? All the people who somehow counted as mine?
This guy didn’t have to know their names to hurt them. He just had to know they existed.
My jaw tightened. “You said something on the phone,” I said. “About guys like me. About knowing when we’re not done.”
He shrugged again, casual. “I’ve been in this business a long time. You get a feel for people. You can see it in their eyes when they’re hungry. When they’re fighting themselves harder than the man in front of them.”
“That’s all you meant?” I asked. “Or were you hinting at something else?”
He lowered his hands, folded them on the table, and leaned forward just slightly. The light flickered above us, buzzing.
“I’m not threatening you, Post,” he said, tone smooth. “You’re misunderstanding my meaning.”
I stared him down, heartbeat thudding slow and heavy in my chest.
Bullshit, my instincts said. Loud and clear.
Maurice let the silence stretch. Then he shifted, changing gears like he’d finished making his point and saw no need to belabor it.
“Look,” he said. “I’m not here to drag you into anything. I’m offering an opportunity. One test fight. See how you feel. You don’t like it, you walk. No contracts, no long-term handcuffs. You keep your day job, I get a read on whether you’re right for the circuit. That’s it.”
I’d come here straddling the fence. Part of me yearned to go further. Not be under Cappy’s thumb. Part of me wanted to listen to the smarmy bastard and turn him down flat.
But that little slip—You’ve got roots, family—and the way he’d skated past my questions about how much he knew had shifted the ground under my feet. This wasn’t some sleazy recruiter trying to pad his roster. This was something bigger. Organized. With eyes on places they shouldn’t be.
If I just walked away now, that didn’t make it disappear.
It just made me blind to it.
“Test fight,” I repeated.
“Practice,” he said, nodding. “I saw you training. I know you’re hurt. We start you with something smart. A week or two out. Lower weight class. Get your legs under you. You show up on time, you follow the rules, you show me you’re not a headache, we talk about what’s next.”
My ribs twinged at the thought of “a week or two.” Realistically, I needed six.
Realistically, I shouldn’t be considering this at all.
But his slip had done its job. I needed to know what this was. How big. How close. Whether there were other guys from Cappy’s already involved. Whether anyone had eyes on Chloe’s building in Gatlinburg or my sister-in-law’s houses in Jasper Creek.
You couldn’t take something like this to Nash on a hunch and a bad feeling. “Hey, Sheriff, I had coffee with a guy who gave me the creeps,” wasn’t exactly probable cause.
I needed something tangible.
“Okay,” I said.
Maurice’s eyes sharpened. “Okay?”
“One practice fight,” I said. “You tell me when and where. I decide after that if I’m in.”
His smile went slick. “That’s all I’m asking.”
The waitress reappeared with my coffee. She set the mug down, topped off Maurice’s without asking, and slid the check to the edge of the table.
“Whenever you’re ready,” she said, then moved on to refill someone else’s cup at the counter.
Maurice reached into his coat, pulled out a wad of cash, and tucked a twenty under the edge of the check. Then he stood, smoothing his shirt like he’d just finished a business lunch.
“I’ll be in touch,” he said, and offered his hand.
I took it.
His grip was firm, dry, too warm. He squeezed once, just a hair too long, like he thought intimidation could be transmitted through palm-to-palm contact.
Then he let go, slid out of the booth, and walked out without looking back.
I sat there with my back to the door and my eyes on my coffee cup, listening to the bell jingle as the diner door closed behind him.
The mug was chipped at the rim. The coffee inside was dark and smelled like it had been sitting on the burner since noon.
I took a sip.
It was terrible.
And still, as the bitter burn hit my tongue and slid down my throat, a realization landed with it.
For the first time in longer than I could remember, I wasn’t actively wallowing.
I wasn’t replaying the miscarriages, or the look on Chloe’s face when she moved out, or the way the nursery door mostly stayed closed.
I was thinking about something outside myself. About circuits and cash and shady men who knew too much. About threats I couldn’t see yet but could feel moving around the edges of my life.
It wasn’t exactly healthy.
But it was…different.
I wrapped my hands around the mug, letting the heat soak into my fingers, and stared at the swirling surface of the coffee.
What the hell was I getting myself into?
Whatever it was, it had teeth.
And for the first time in months, I felt something that wasn’t just grief.
I felt awake.