30. Brady #2
Henderson lands one glancing right high on my head in the last minute of the round, and the crowd gasps. I smile at him through my mouthguard because it told me everything about his power, and it isn’t enough, not for the win.
The horn sounds. I walk to my corner and sit.
Eli crouches in front of me, sponge and water. “Perfect. Nothing changes. He’s breathing through his mouth already. Stay patient, let him drown, take what he gives you.”
“His right hand’s dropping,” I say.
“I saw. Round two it drops more.” His fingers press my cheekbone, checking where the punch grazed, and for a fraction of a second his thumb rests still against my face. Then the stool is gone and the bell rings.
Henderson comes out desperate, and desperation on a brawler only looks one way—forward pressure, big single shots, chin high.
I make him miss and make him pay. Three-punch combinations open him up within ninety seconds; his mouth is bleeding, and his corner is screaming instructions that he’s too tired to follow.
Two minutes in, he does the thing.
He shoots. A takedown born of panic, telegraphed from a mile out, his level changes so slow I could write a letter in less time.
I sprawl hard, chest heavy on his shoulders, hips driving back, and his arms lock around nothing useful.
He tries to adjust his grip, climbs to a knee, gives me his back for half a second while he scrambles—
There it is.
The opening Cruz drilled into me until it stopped being a technique and became instinct.
I take his back in one motion, hooks in before he knows I’ve moved, my arm sliding under his chin like it was measured for the space.
His hands come up too late. My grip is already locked—forearm across the throat, palm to my own biceps, other hand behind his head.
I squeeze.
He tries to turn into me, and I adjust the angle exactly the way Cruz taught me, riding him down, my whole body a constrictor with one job. I feel the moment his defense turns to panic, his fingers clawing at my forearm with no plan, just fear.
Three slaps against my arm. Fast, frantic.
Tap.
The ref dives in and peels me off and the noise arrives all at once—three thousand people detonating—and I’m on my feet with my arms up and my lungs on fire. Rear-naked choke, round two. Clean. Perfect.
Eli is through the cage door before the announcement, hands on my face, turning my head left and right, checking the spot where Henderson’s punch grazed me, and it’s professional, it’s completely professional, except his eyes are shining and his jaw is tight with everything he can’t say.
Cruz wraps me from behind and lifts me clean off the canvas, roaring, and for one moment we’re just three men in a bubble while the announcer makes it official.
“The winner, by submission—”
I find Dakota in the crowd. Can’t help it.
She’s on her feet, both hands over her mouth, and even from here I can see she’s crying.
Happy tears streaking down her face while Jonah pounds her on the back, and everything in me wants to climb the fence and go to her, pull her over the barricade, kiss her in front of every camera in the building.
I look away before anyone can follow my eyes. It costs me more than the whole fight did.
Backstage is a machine that processes me.
Medical check—pupils, hands, the graze on my temple that doesn’t even need ice.
Photos with the promotion staff, my fist raised next to a banner.
A thirty-second interview where I say Henderson is a warrior and I’m grateful for the opportunity and I want to thank my coaches and my team, and I mean every word more than the interviewer could possibly know.
Then the changing room, door closing, just Eli and Cruz and me, and I finally exhale.
“Textbook,” Eli says. “That was textbook. The patience in the first, the sprawl, the transition—”
“The choke.” Cruz is grinning so hard his face might split. “That was my choke. Did you see the angle adjustment? That’s my boy right there.”
The door opens and shuts.
I turn and Dakota is somehow inside the room—credentials around her neck and Dante slides in behind her. The lock clicks, and then there are hands everywhere. Dakota hits me first, arms around my neck, laughing and crying at the same time, kissing my cheek, my jaw, my mouth.
“You were incredible. You were so—God, Brady—”
Cruz’s hand slides down my back. Dante’s palm closes over the back of my neck, warm and grounding, his mouth at my ear. “Watched every second. Every second.”
Eli just looks at me. Says nothing. And that look does more damage than all the hands combined.
The adrenaline is still flooding my system with nowhere to go and my body decides, unilaterally, where it wants to send it.
Dakota’s breath is on my throat. Cruz’s hand drifts lower.
Dante’s chest presses against my back and the small room shrinks to nothing and I want them, all of them, right now, on this bench, against these lockers, and I don’t care—
“We can’t.” Eli’s voice, quiet and strained. “Not here.”
The words are like a glass of ice water hitting my face. People know we’re here. Officials in the hallway, other fighters, and the media. Four teammates in a locked changing room with the winner for ten minutes is a story. Twenty minutes is a scandal.
We break apart in pieces. Dakota steps back and wipes under her eyes, fixing mascara with her thumb. Cruz straightens my shirt with two tugs, jaw tight, hands lingering half a second too long. Dante puts three feet of professional distance between us that might as well be a mile.
“My place,” I hear myself say. “Everyone. Now.”
Eli opens the door. “Staggered. Five minutes apart.”
They file out in intervals, and each departure takes a piece of me with it.
My apartment is a modest two-bedroom near the gym, nothing special, but tonight it’s the only sovereign territory in the world.
Four vehicles arrive within minutes of each other because none of us managed the patience for real staggering, and I’m barely through my own door before the rest of them come through it behind me.
The restraint from the venue shatters.
Dakota’s mouth is on mine before the deadbolt clicks, and Cruz is pulling my shirt over my head, and someone’s hands are at my belt, and we don’t make it past the entryway before half our clothes are on the floor.
Eli’s fingers thread into my hair and pull my head back.
His mouth finds my throat and I groan loud enough that tI wouldn’t be surprised if they heard it on the floor below us.
“Bedroom,” Eli orders, and that authoritative voice, the one that bypasses my brain entirely—moves all five of us down the hall.