Prologue Two
Connor
T he gym smelled like sweat and vomit, one of the things I knew better than my own reflection.
Not vomit. That was for the kid dry heaving into a trash can by the water fountain.
I finished wrapping my hands, the tape biting into my callused skin with the kind of familiarity that comes from a decade of punching things that punch back.
Across the ring, Adrian adjusted his top, dark blue and cropped, while eyeballing the rookie like a hyena circling wounded prey.
“Fresh meat,” he said, grinning like he’d just found a winning lottery ticket in the dumpster. Something I wouldn’t put past him.
“Think he’ll last longer than the last one?”
I didn’t glance up. The kid’s wheezing breaths sounded like a busted accordion, and I already knew the kid would be running out of here later.
“The last one cried about his knee,” I muttered, needing this kid to shut up.
“Hurry it up,” Jax called to the kid, scrolling through his phone like he wasn’t standing in the middle of a bloodstained ring, fully shirtless like the egotistical fuck he is. His voice was all lazy amusement, but I saw the way his eyes tracked the kid’s shaking hands.
Adrian snickered. “Bet he taps out in five.”
I yanked the tape tighter, the stretch of it biting further into my skin. “Don’t bet on strays.”
He barked a laugh, loud enough to make the kid flinch. “Says the guy who was a fucking stray.”
The kid—fuck, he couldn’t be older than nineteen—stumbled into the ring, knees buckling under the weight of his own desperation. His gym bag hung off his shoulder limply, and his shoes squeaked against the floor like mice begging to be crushed.
I hated this already. Coach had a death wish for making us scare this kid off.
“You gonna puke again,” I growled, “Or you ready to bleed?”
He swallowed hard, Adam’s apple bobbing like a buoy in a storm. “I’m good.”
The kid was not good.
With his proud blond-born confidence, Jax tossed his phone onto the bench and cracked his neck, the sound screaming danger in our quiet private gym.
“Get in here, princess.”
The kid climbed into the ring like his bones were made of glass, all shaky and nervous.
Adrian patted his back hard enough to make him stagger. “Don’t worry, kid. Jax hasn’t killed anyone… this week.”
I dropped onto the bench, the metal protesting under my bulk as I leaned forward to watch. I knew exactly what Adrian meant, and it had nothing to do with boxing.
Jax circled the kid like a shark, all predatory patience and lazy amusement. “You ever been in a real fight?”
“Uh… schoolyard stuff?”
The kid was fucked. Jax would kill him .
Jax’s fist connected with the kid’s ribs before he finished the sentence, and the crack of knuckles on bone reverberated through the room. The kid folded like paper, gasping as he hit the mat.
“Wrong answer,” Jax muttered, shaking out his hand like he touched something gross.
Adrian whistled. “Two minutes! New record!”
I scoffed, but didn’t enjoy seeing some kid stomped into the canvas the same way those two did.
He crawled to his knees, spitting blood out. “I’m not—fuck—I’m not done.”
Jax raised an eyebrow, the fucker glancing at me like I’d find this funny. All I found was that it was fucking sad.
“C’mon, Connor,” Adrian teased, slinging a heavy tattooed arm over my shoulders. I shrugged him off. “Bet you a hundred he gets up again.”
“No.”
“Two hundred?”
“No,” I growled.
The kid lunged at Jax with a roar that sounded more like a sob.
Jax sidestepped him easily, sweeping his legs out from under him. The kid’s head smacked the mat hard enough to make my own teeth ache.
"Sad,” I muttered, standing abruptly. The bench screeched against the floor, and Adrian frowned.
“Where you going?”
“Air.”
“Why?”
“Air,” I repeated, shouldering past him.
On the way out, I jerked my chin at Coach Miller, who’d been lurking in the doorway sipping coffee like he was watching a fucking comedy.
“Save the kid before Jax kills him.”
The lot behind the gym reeked of piss and takeout, but at least it was quiet. I leaned against the wall, letting the cold seep into my skin until it matched the ice in my veins. My breath got lost in the air; each exhale a ghost of the restlessness I couldn’t shake.
Weakness was everywhere. In that kid’s trembling hands, in the way Jax toyed with him like a cat batting at a half-dead mouse, in the fucking smell of this city, rotting from the inside out.
The door creaked open, and Adrian strolled out, strutting his blue fucking cropped top. He only wore it since it showed off his inked body and his horrible taste.
“You’re missing the show. Kid just puked again.”
“Why’d Coach bring him here?” I grumbled, pinching my eyebrows to rid of the thought.
Jax came out after and leaned against the wall beside me, still shirtless.
Adrian shrugged. “Same reason he brought you.”
I shot him a glare.
He held up his hands. “Relax. I’m not comparing you to puke-boy. Just saying… everyone starts somewhere.”
“I didn’t start here.”
“No.” Adrian’s grin faded. “You started lower.”
The memory faded through me; a different alley, a different life. Sixteen years old, fists raw and bloody, a man twice my size dead at my feet. The taste of blood and adrenaline on my tongue, the hunger in my veins, sharp and sweet.
Only Jax and Adrian know of my fight to reach boxer stardom.
“He’s weak,” I said finally.
Jax cut in. “So were you.”
I shoved off the wall, crowding into Jax’s space to give him shit until he had to tilt his head back to meet my eyes. I was one inch taller than he was, and I reveled in it.
“Never.”
Jax didn’t flinch, only crossing huge arms and grinning. “Bullshit. You just hid it better.”
Adrian snorted, wiping blood off his wrists with a rag, and then smirked like the brute he was .
“Wanna hit the diner?
“No.”
They knew I’d come. I always did.
Jax shook his head. “You’re worse than my niece. And she’s five.”
I rolled my eyes.
“I’ll meet you there,” I grumbled, shoving my hands in my pockets. They left, their laughter echoing down the alley, and I waited until their voices faded completely before heading back inside.
The gym was empty now, save for the kid’s abandoned bag and the stench of his vomit. I stalked to the ring, climbing through the ropes with a decade of familiarity. The canvas sank under my heavy weight, and the ropes bit into my palms as I gripped them.
I’d always been alone in the ways that mattered most.
I threw the first punch at nothing, the force of it rattling my bones. The second punch followed, then the third, until the world narrowed to the burn in my muscles and the static in my skull.
Rich and strong, on a winning streak, and famous, but none of it meant anything without something to live for.
The kid’s bag caught me, and I stumbled, catching myself on the ropes. My reflection stared back from the foggy mirror across the room, a monster draped in shadows, eyes dark and hollow, mouth twisted into a snarl.
This was who I was.
We looked like oversized children in the diner booth that shouldn’t have been able to hold the three of us.
Adrian slid a beer across the table, already on his second. “Drink. You look like you’re plotting murder.”
“That’s usually you,” I muttered.
Truthfully, my head was empty. It’s usually a toss-up between anger and emptiness. Both feelings fucking sucked.
Jax snorted, stabbing a steak. “Plotting’s his love language. ”
Adrian nodded and then leaned back, arms spread like a preacher. Whatever he was about to say was going to be horrible.
“Speaking of love, there's a book signing tomorrow. Lots of freaky hookup options. Free snacks.”
Adrian had a thing for novels. Specifically, romance novels.
I sipped the beer, letting it burn the edge off my temper. “Fuck no.”
“C’mon,” Adrian pressed, kicking my shin under the table. “You need culture. And by culture, I mean watching you glare at romance novels.”
Jax smirked, no doubt glad that Adrian hadn’t told him to join us. He was a fucking Easton, and would be recognized much quicker than Adrian and I in a crowd. “I’d pay to see that.”
We ate and bickered with our usual camaraderie before parting ways.
When I got home, my penthouse was precisely how I’d left it, bare walls and expensive furniture picked together from a catalog. It felt empty, void of life.
My phone lit up with a text from Adrian:
Adrian
Wear something nice tomorrow.
Connor
I’m not going.
Adrian
Yes you are!!!
Connor
Fuck you.
Adrian
Love you!