Chapter 14 What He Hid
FOURTEEN
WHAT HE HID
TROY
Istood at my bedroom window watching Declan's truck pull out of the driveway.
He'd been doing this for days. Disappearing after dinner. Coming home late. Never explaining where he'd been.
And I'd been pretending not to notice while trying to convince myself I didn't care.
Except I did care. And that was the problem.
That's why I'd let Rafael fuck me. Why I'd put on the lace I'd bought at that overpriced boutique and let him bend me over my bed and use me until I couldn't think about anything except the immediate physicality of it.
It was supposed to prove a point. Supposed to show me that what I felt in Declan's kitchen when his hands were on my skin was just proximity and loneliness and six years of unresolved bullshit. That any attractive man could make me feel that way. That Declan wasn't special.
Except Rafael's hands on me had felt wrong. His mouth on my neck had felt like a placeholder. His cock inside me had felt like a distraction instead of a solution, like I was using him to fuck away a problem that lived too deep to reach with just mechanics.
The whole time he'd been fucking me, I'd been thinking about someone else. Someone I had no business wanting. Someone whose touch I could still feel days later like a brand I couldn't scrub off.
Sleeping with Rafael had been a disaster.
Had proven exactly the opposite of what I'd wanted it to prove.
Had shown me that want without truth behind it felt like going through the motions with a stranger, even when that stranger was good at what he did, even when my body responded the way it was supposed to, even when I came hard enough to see stars.
Because afterward I'd still been thinking about Declan. Had still wanted the wrong person. Had still felt empty in a way that had nothing to do with being physically satisfied.
I grabbed my jacket. Headed downstairs. Got on my bike and followed him.
Following someone through Chicago at night was easier than it should have been. Declan drove like he had a destination in mind but no urgency to get there. I stayed three cars back, kept my headlights off when I could, and used the late-night traffic as cover.
We ended up in a part of the city I didn't recognize. The industrial area had been half-converted into lofts and businesses. Warehouses with new paint and expensive signage lined the streets. The neighborhood straddled the line between gritty and gentrified.
Declan parked in front of a building with no obvious markings. There was just a number above the door and a handful of motorcycles lined up outside.
I parked a block away and watched him get out of his truck carrying a duffel bag I'd never seen before.
He walked to the door and someone opened it from inside. Light spilled out, along with noise and music and voices talking over each other. The crowd inside sounded thick and engaged.
I sat there for a long moment trying to figure out what the fuck I'd just witnessed.
Then I got off my bike and followed.
The door was unlocked. I slipped inside, immediately hit by heat and noise and the smell of sweat. The hallway was narrow and dimly lit, leading toward brighter light and louder sound ahead.
I followed it and stayed close to the wall.
The hallway opened into a large space that had been converted into a fighting venue. An octagonal cage sat in the center with rows of chairs around it, maybe two hundred people packed into the space. The ring lights overhead made everything look harsh and bright.
A fight was already in progress. Two men were circling each other, trading shots while the crowd stayed loud and engaged.
But I wasn't looking at them.
I was scanning for Declan and I found him near the back, talking to a woman I didn't recognize. She was handing him tape for his hands. He was nodding, saying words that made her laugh.
Then he started wrapping his hands the way fighters did before a bout.
Declan was fighting tonight.
My stepfather was a professional fighter who apparently had a whole second life I knew nothing about.
The anger that flared up was immediate and irrational. He'd lied to me. Not directly. Just by omission. Just by letting me believe he was one person when he was another entirely.
Just like I'd been lying to him for years.
The hypocrisy of my anger wasn't lost on me. It didn't make the feeling any less valid, but I could taste the bitter irony of it.
I found a spot in the back corner where the crowd was thinner and leaned against the wall. I watched Declan finish wrapping his hands and disappear through a door marked “Fighters Only.”
Twenty minutes later, they called his name.
The crowd erupted. Apparently Declan was known here, was the popular fighter people came to see.
He walked to the cage wearing black shorts and nothing else. His tattoos were on full display and every muscle was defined under the harsh lights. He moved with the calm focus that came from doing this too many times to count.
Dangerous was the word that came to mind. Violence wrapped in control. Someone I had never seen before even though I had known him my entire life.
My mouth went dry and my pulse kicked up in a way that had nothing to do with the crowd noise.
His opponent was younger and moved faster than Declan. The kid came out aggressive and hungry, throwing combinations that looked good but left him open in ways Declan would exploit.
Declan waited, stayed patient and controlled while he read the movement like he had all the time in the world.
The kid threw a jab-cross-hook. Declan slipped the first two, blocked the third, and countered with a low kick that made the kid's leg buckle slightly.
They circled each other. The cage felt smaller with both of them in it.
Declan moved like he owned the space, every step deliberate, every shift in weight calculated.
His chest was already gleaming with sweat under the lights, muscles flexing with each breath, and I couldn't stop watching the way his body moved.
I couldn't stop noticing everything.
The way his shoulders rolled when he slipped a punch.
The way his jaw was set, tight and focused.
The way his hands stayed up, guarding his face, but loose enough to snap out fast when he needed them.
The tattoos on his arms looked darker under the sweat and the harsh lights, the ink shifting with every flex of muscle.
He belonged here. This was what he was made for. All the careful control he wore in everyday life was just a thin shell over the fighter underneath who knew exactly how to hurt people and enjoyed the precision of it.
The kid feinted high and went low with a takedown attempt.
Declan sprawled perfectly and drove his weight down, and I watched the way his back flexed, the way his core engaged, the way he controlled the kid's momentum like it was nothing.
Then he spun around to take the kid's back, smooth and efficient, with no wasted movement.
My body was responding in ways I had no control over. Heat was pooling low in my stomach. My cock was starting to take interest in the violence and the sweat and the way Declan's body moved with lethal efficiency.
This was my stepfather. The man who raised me. And I was getting hard watching him fight.
The kid was slippery enough to roll out before Declan could sink in the hooks. He got back to his feet, breathing harder now.
They traded shots for another minute. Declan ate a few to the body that made me wince, made my own ribs ache in sympathy. But he didn't flinch or back up. He just absorbed the hits and kept pressing forward, patient and methodical.
The kid was breathing harder now and getting frustrated. He threw wider, sloppier punches that telegraphed his intentions.
Declan wasn't even breathing hard yet.
He stayed calm and focused, like he could do this all night if he had to.
I watched the sweat drip down his temple, slide down the side of his neck, and disappear into the waistband of his shorts.
I watched the way his chest rose and fell, steady and controlled.
I watched the way his thighs flexed when he checked a low kick, the way his abs tightened when he threw a body shot that made the kid grunt.
My senses were on overload. I could hear every breath Declan took. Every grunt. Every impact of fist on flesh. I could feel the vibration of the crowd in my chest, the heat of the lights, the tension in the air.
And all I could focus on was him.
The way he moved. The way he was completely in control of everything happening in that cage. The way violence sat on him like a second skin, natural and right, like he was finally showing the part of himself he kept locked away from everyone else.
Including me.
Declan threw a combination. A jab to set up distance. A cross that the kid blocked. A hook to the body that landed clean and made the kid's guard drop for just a second.
Just long enough for what came next.
Declan threw another low kick, harder this time, and the kid's leg buckled again. He was favoring it now, trying to stay off it, trying to protect the damage that was accumulating.
Declan saw it. I could tell by the way his eyes narrowed, the way his stance shifted slightly, setting up for the finish.
The kid came in again, was desperate now. He threw a wild overhand right that had power behind it but no setup, no strategy, just the last gasp of a fighter who knew he was losing.
Declan slipped it easy and made it look effortless, his head movement minimal and precise.
And then I saw his opening.
The kid dropped his left hand when he threw the right hook. Just like Declan must have studied on tape. Just like he had been waiting for the entire fight.
Declan slipped the hook, stepped inside, and the distance between them closed so fast I almost missed it. His knee came up hard and brutal, drove into the kid's liver with the precision that came from years of knowing exactly where to hit and how hard to make a body fold.