Chapter 42
FEINT (LEO)
The bag doesn’t hit back hard enough.
Ray knows it. I know it. The problem is, I can’t make myself care enough to correct it.
One-two. Hook. Roll. Reset.
The chain rattles overhead. The bag swings out and comes back with that dumb, obedient certainty only inanimate things have. I catch it with my glove, let it settle, and start again.
The gym is quiet this late. Not empty. Never empty. But thin enough that every sound carries. A jump rope is snapping somewhere behind me. A speed bag stutters on the far side. The faint squeak of sneakers over canvas.
Home, in other words.
Ray steps closer. “Again.”
I work.
Jab. Cross. Hook to the body. Pivot out.
The bag jumps. My breath stays steady. My feet stay under me.
That’s what matters.
Not the shape of Liz walking out of the apartment with her weekender in one hand and my ring no longer on her finger. Not the red mark rising on her arm on York Avenue. Not the way she said she needed the next thing that happened in her life to happen because she chose it.
None of that matters here.
I put another combination together, tighter this time, less anger, more mechanics. Ray grunts once.
“There,” he says. “That one.”
I roll my shoulders loose.
Sweat runs down the center of my back. My wraps are damp under the gloves. My pulse is elevated.
For ten straight seconds, the world almost makes sense.
Then the front door opens.
Nobody pays much attention at first. People come and go. Then the gym registers that something about this entrance is wrong.
Ray looks past me toward the front and doesn’t move, which is its own warning.
I turn.
Drake stands just inside, one hand in his jacket pocket, like he had to work himself up to crossing the threshold and is angry with all of us for noticing.
He’s in jeans and a dark jacket, dressed for the street, not the gym. Wrong silhouette. Wrong energy. The space rejects him on sight.
He scans once, finds me by the bag, and looks at me like a blade.
I peel the gloves and wraps off slowly and drop them on the bench. Don’t rush. Don’t give him the satisfaction of thinking he changed my tempo just by walking in.
Ray moves closer on my left. “Need something?” he asks Drake.
Drake never looks away from me. “Yeah.”
His voice carries more than he means it to. Too much edge. Too much leftover humiliation still riding under the skin.
“I’m here for him.”
Ray says nothing.
“If you’re looking for an autograph,” I say, “you picked the wrong hour.”
Nobody laughs.
That makes it better.
Drake hears the line land in silence, the color in his neck darkening slightly.
“Cute,” he says. “You rehearse that, or does it come free with the belt?”
Same play as the sidewalk. Same cheap little push for heat.
I lean one shoulder against the post by the bag and look at him the way I’d look at a man trying to bluff his way through a weight cut. “You walked into my gym to talk, Drake. So talk.”
His expression sharpens.
“Fine.” He moves farther in, spreading his arms a little as if he’s the reasonable one in the room. “You and me. No sidewalks. No cops. Just us.”
Ray says nothing. Just folds his arms and watches.
I don’t move. Drake mistakes that for hesitation.
“You got something to prove,” he says. “I got something to settle. Let’s stop pretending this needs an audience.”
He’s still running the same play. I could set my watch by him.
“No.”
His smile flickers. “No?”
“I’m not wasting camp time on you.”
“What, you’re too busy?” he grinds. “Too important to finish one thing right?”
“I’ve got a defense to train for. You’re not on the card, Drake.”
He advances, just enough to show he still thinks proximity is pressure.
“This about the belt? You worried what happens if people see you bleed?”
“No. I’m worried about the smell.”
Ray’s mouth twitches.
Drake ignores it. Or tries to.
“You think you won something the other day because you played nice for the crowd?” he snarls. “That wasn’t winning. That was hiding.”
I stay silent.
He keeps going.
“Lillian is my wife. I’m not gonna let you cut in on my girl.”
That gets my attention.
Drake sees it. His expression shifts.
“There it is,” he says softly. “You can posture all you want, champ. You can stand between us on the sidewalk and play boyfriend.”
The whole place tightens.
He should have stopped there.
Instead he adds, “I let her have her little tantrum. But she’s coming home with me. One way or another.”
That’s when the math changes. Something cold moves through me, sharp as a blade.
Ray shifts beside me, coiled and ready.
I straighten off the post. Drake sees the movement and mistakes it for anger.
It isn’t.
It’s decision.
“You want a fight?”
His smile comes back slow. Victorious. Stupid.
“Knew you had it in you, champ.”
“We’re doing it on the record.”
That checks him.
“Nothing off-book. Cameras. Witnesses. Paperwork.”
His eyes narrow.
“On the record,” he repeats.
“Every second of it.”
He gives a short, ugly laugh. “You hiding behind paperwork now?”
“No. I’m making sure there’s no confusion afterward.”
Then I see it click. Not caution. Ego.
Humiliation makes men like Drake stupid. Vanity makes that stupidity useful.
“You think I need rules to handle you?”
“No. I think you need witnesses.”
A pulse jumps in his jaw.
“So when I drop you,” he taunts, “nobody calls it a story.”
Ray doesn’t move.
I don’t either.
Drake advances again, the swagger back now, rebuilt around the version he wants to believe. “You really want this on camera?”
“I want it where neither of us gets to lie.”
That earns me a grin. Mean. Certain.
He thinks I just made the mistake.
“Fine. Set it up.”
He points at the floor between us, then at me. “And when it’s done, everybody gets to see what your belt is worth.”
“Sign first.”
His grin widens.
“Gladly.”
Cameras. Witnesses. Everything on record.
Drake thinks that’s for me.
Ray doesn’t intervene.
He doesn’t need to.
The space breathes again.
Ray’s gaze is on me now, heavy and impossible to ignore.
“Tomorrow. You go near Liz before then, there’s no fight.”
Drake backs toward the door, swagger stitched back together just enough to walk on. He wants the room to believe this was his idea from the start. That he came here and got exactly what he wanted.
At the door, he stops and points at me with two fingers, lazy and ugly. “No excuses when the cameras roll.”
I look at him and say nothing.
That bothers him more than anything else I could have given him.
The door slams behind him.
Nobody in the gym moves. Then the space starts again in pieces. Someone mutters, “Jesus Christ.”
Ray waits until the noise returns before he looks at me fully.
“You sure?”
“No.”
I grab the towel off the bench and wipe the back of my neck.
“Call Jess. And legal.”
Ray’s already pulling out his phone.