Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
LUKE
The locker room before a title fight is different from everything that came before it.
Not louder—quieter, actually. It says everything without a word.
Everything unnecessary has been stripped away, leaving only what matters.
No jokes, no music, no performance. Reyes taping my hands in the corner, Mack standing near the door with his arms crossed, the two corner men moving around us with the efficiency of people who have done this before and know that efficiency is the only thing that matters now.
I close my eyes, and I breathe.
Twelve weeks of work behind me. Four days since the licensing complaints landed, and I decided they could wait until Monday.
Three hours since Andi kissed me in the hotel room, said she’d be in the second row, aisle, and walked out like she wasn’t terrified, because she knows that my seeing she’s terrified doesn’t help either of us.
She’s in the second row on the aisle right now. Brandon is beside her.
I breathe.
Reyes finishes my hands. He stands in front of me, looking at me for a long moment without a word. He does this before every fight—the final read, the last assessment. I let him look.
“Sharp,” he says.
Same word as five weeks ago. But different now—earned differently, carrying more weight.
“Yes,” I say.
“He’s good,” Reyes says, meaning my opponent. Carlos Vega, twenty-eight, twelve and one, the number two-ranked contender to my number three. “He’s patient. He’ll wait for you to come to him.”
“I know.”
“So don’t come to him.”
“I know.”
Reyes nods once. “Make him take the fight he doesn’t want to have.”
Mack, from the door, says, “Time.”
I stand up.
It’s time.
The walk to the ring is an experience in itself.
The arena is full—seventeen thousand people, the distinct roar of a crowd that’s been waiting and is finally getting what it came for.
I walk behind Mack, not looking at the crowd, not looking at the ring, not thinking about Andi in the second row, the licensing complaints, or the story that’s supposed to break Monday morning.
I think about Vega’s jab. The way he sets up the right hand behind it. The tell in his shoulder drop before he throws it.
I get in the ring.
The announcer takes the center. The arena goes up in anticipation and then pulls back to something close to quiet for the introductions—seventeen thousand people going quiet the way crowds do when they want to hear what’s being said.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is the main event of the evening—twelve rounds of boxing for the WBC heavyweight title eliminator. The winner will become the mandatory number one contender for the heavyweight championship of the world. The opponent first. Vega, in red and gold, twelve and one, fighting out of Miami.”
The crowd gives him his due.
Then me.
“And his opponent—fighting out of Atlanta, Georgia, wearing black and silver, with a professional record of sixteen wins, one loss, fourteen wins by knockout—ladies and gentlemen, Luke—Woods!”
The arena goes up again. Louder this time, or maybe it just feels that way because it’s my name in it.
I look at Mack in the corner.
He nods once.
ANDI
I find our seats at six-fifty.
The arena is already filling—the undercard has been running for two hours.
The crowd is energized, waiting for the main event to begin.
That’s what they’ve all come to see. Brandon finds me at the entrance, and we walk in together.
He’s moving better than he was a week ago.
The soreness in his ribs is still present but manageable.
He looks at the ring and then at me.
“He’s ready,” he says.
“I know,” I say.
We sit. The second row, aisle seats. I can see everything from here—the ring, the corner entrances, the judges’ table. I set my phone in my lap face-up, and I wait.
Bill texted twenty minutes ago.
Daniel is in position. The attorney is with him. We’re watching.
I text back.
So am I.
LUKE
Round one belongs to feeling each other out.
Vega is exactly what the film showed—patient, technical, comfortable in the pocket. He’s not trying to hurt me in round one. He’s trying to understand me. His jab is landing to establish range rather than damage, his footwork is clean, and his head movement is better in person than on tape.
I let him work.
Reyes’s voice is clear as a bell in my head, “Make him take the fight he doesn’t want to have.” Which means I don’t give him the fight he prepared for—the version of me that chases, that loads up on the right hand, and that gets impatient when the jab isn’t landing.
I move. I work the body. I let him think he’s controlling the pace.
Round one bell.
Mack in the corner: “He’s reading your right hand.”
“I know.”
“Stop telegraphing it.”
“Working on it.”
He hands me water. I breathe.
ANDI
Round three.
My phone lights up between rounds with a text from Bill.
Daniel is at the hotel. Meeting with journalist confirmed. The attorney is inside with him.
I read it without moving my face. Brandon sees the phone from the corner of his eye.
“Bill?” he says quietly.
“Daniel is with the journalist,” I say. Same volume. Nobody around us is paying attention to anything except the ring.
Brandon nods and then looks at the fighters.
In the ring, Luke is doing something different from the first two rounds. Smaller movements. Cutting angles I haven’t seen him use before. Reyes’s work is visible in real time.
“He’s adjusting,” Brandon says.
“Yes,” I say. “He’s reading his opponent.”
I watch Luke, and I watch my phone, and I hold both of them.
LUKE
Round five is where it changes.
Vega has figured out that I’m not going to chase him, so he starts coming forward—bringing the fight to me because standing and waiting isn’t working. Which is exactly what I wanted. A reactive Vega is different from a patient one.
His right hand comes off the jab in the third combination of the round. I’ve been waiting for it since round one. I slip it, come underneath, and land the body shot that Reyes has been building into my muscle memory for twelve weeks.
Vega covers. Steps back.
First time he’s stepped back.
The crowd feels it before I do—the subtle shift in the arena’s sound when something has changed. I don’t acknowledge it. I follow. Cut the angle the way sparring with Castillo taught me and make Vega work in a direction he doesn’t prefer.
Bell.
When I’m in my corner, Reyes looks me in the eye and says, “There it is. Now do it again.”
ANDI
Round seven.
I get a text from Bill, but I wait until the bell between rounds six and seven to look at it.
Someone is outside Daniel’s hotel room. Not hotel staff. The attorney is calling security.
My stomach drops.
I type back.
How many?
One. Security is responding.
Brandon feels the change in me before I say anything. He leans slightly left.
“Daniel,” I say. Barely a sound.
“How bad?”
“One person outside his room. Security responding.”
We watch the fight. Luke is doing something remarkable in the seventh round.
I can see it clearly, even if I can’t name the exact combination Reyes taught him.
After all the years I’ve spent with Pop in the gym, I can see the difference in how he’s found his rhythm and is now operating from within it rather than searching for it.
My phone vibrates with another text.
Security removed the individual. No confrontation. Daniel is fine. Attorney confirms.
I exhale.
Stay with him until it’s over,
Already planned.
Brandon: “Good?”
“Good,” I say.
In the ring, Luke lands the right hand clean. The crowd goes up.
LUKE
Round ten.
My body is talking to me the way bodies talk in the late rounds—not screaming, just present and fully aware of the punishment I’ve put it through.
The ribs where Vega landed a short right in round eight.
The left eye, slightly swollen from a jab I didn’t slip fast enough in round nine.
The accumulated cost of thirty minutes of professional combat.
I’m ahead. I know I’m ahead because I’ve been doing this long enough to count rounds, understand the scoring, and know what Vega needs to do to take it from me. He needs a knockdown. Probably two.
He knows it too. His eyes tell me.
He’s going to throw everything in round eleven.
I breathe. I look at Mack across the corner. He gives me the nod—the one that means I see what you see and you’re right.
Bell.
ANDI
Round eleven is the hardest to watch.
Vega comes forward with everything he has—combinations I haven’t seen him throw before, pressure he’s been saving, and the desperate fury of a fighter who understands what the scorecards say and has one round plus change to change them.
Luke takes some of it.
Not all of it—he’s moving, he’s covering, he’s making Vega miss enough that the shots that land do less damage. But some of it lands. The crowd is on its feet. Brandon has his hands clasped in his lap, his jaw set, his eyes on the ring.
My phone is face down on my knee. Whatever Bill needs to tell me can wait until the bell.
Vega throws a right hand, and Luke rolls under it, coming up with a left hook that snaps Vega’s head back. Vega covers. Luke works his body. Vega will feel those body shots for days. The roar from the crowd is deafening.
Bell.
I pick up my phone.
Bill: Daniel is done with the journalist. The story is filed. It runs on Monday at six a.m.
I read it twice.
The story is filed.
I look at Brandon. He reads my face.
“Filed,” I say.
He closes his eyes for one second. Then opens them.
“One more round,” he says.
LUKE
Round twelve.
There is a moment in round eleven I don’t tell Andi about afterward.