Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
LUKE
Iwake before the alarm, not because I’m rested, but because I never really slept. The apartment is dim and still, the early light barely pushing through the blinds. For the first time in days, there’s no immediate rush of anger waiting for me when I open my eyes.
Just a heavy weight sitting squarely on my chest.
The kind that doesn’t shout.
The kind that settles.
I lie there staring at the ceiling and replay everything without trying to defend myself this time. I see Andi standing at the conference table, reaching for me. I hear her voice asking me to believe her. I remember the moment I stepped back instead of forward.
That’s the part that won’t let me breathe.
It wasn’t my father who betrayed her in that moment.
It was me.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and sit there for a long time before I move. There’s a difference between knowing you were wrong and understanding the depth of it. I’m starting to understand it.
At the gym, the air smells like sweat and leather and familiarity. Mack doesn’t ask about Andi. He doesn’t ask about my family. He doesn’t need to. He watches, his keen eyes seeing more than he lets on. His sharp wit picks up on more than he reveals.
I take my time wrapping my hands, being more deliberate than usual. The last time I sparred seriously, I hesitated. Just a fraction. But that fraction was more than enough, and it cost me.
Only two weeks have passed since Mack said twelve. I’ve stopped counting days and started counting damage instead.
When I step into the ring, Tyson comes at me with the same swagger he always carries. Quick jabs. Flashy combinations. He provokes me to react. He needs me off-balance.
I don’t give him that.
I feel the movement instead of forcing it. I read his rhythm and adjust my course without overthinking. When the opening is there, I take it and make the most of it. When it isn’t, I wait instead of rushing it, as the old me would. There’s no static in my head today. No drifting.
Mack’s voice cuts through from the corner. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
I don’t answer. I’m not fighting for praise. I’m fighting to feel steady.
By the time the round ends, my ribs are tender, and my lungs are burning, but I didn’t pause. No hesitation this time. Not even once. The difference isn’t aggression. It’s clarity.
After training, I sit on the edge of the ring and stare at the canvas while everyone else moves around me. Mack drops down beside me.
“You get it now?” he asks quietly.
“Yeah,” I answer.
“You can’t hesitate when it matters. You don’t have that luxury. Everything is on the line.”
I nod. Because this conversation isn’t just about boxing anymore.
Later that afternoon, my phone lights up with my father’s name. I look at it for a long time before I silence it. Not because I’m angry. Because there’s nothing left to say right now.
Another message comes in an hour later about the development deal and lawyers asking questions.
I respond with one sentence:
Remove my name from anything connected to it.
There’s a strange calm that follows when I hit send. It’s not a spike of adrenaline or a surge of righteousness. It’s simply something settling into place, like the last puzzle piece that completes the picture.
That night, I sit at my kitchen table with a legal pad in front of me. I don’t even know why I pulled it out. Maybe I needed to see the lines written in my own handwriting.
No financial dependence by staying on at my father’s business.
No leverage for anyone to use against me.
No conditions to make me jump through any hoops.
If my father’s business fails, it fails honestly. I won’t let it be propped up by threats against the woman I love.
I lean back in my chair and close my eyes. The memory of her song from the club surfaces again, but this time, I hear it differently. Not as anger. Not as an accusation.
As a boundary.
She doesn’t need me to rescue her. She needs me to stand steady on my own two feet and to remain the same, with or without her.
I’m six weeks in now.
That means I’m halfway to the fight.
It’s too late to undo what I’ve done.
But it’s not too late to decide who I’ll be when the bell rings.
It’s three weeks until the gala, when Andi’s life will take yet another major turn, another significant transformation that changes everything.
For the first time since everything exploded, I’m not thinking about how to win her back. I’m thinking about how to show up for her without flinching. I’m thinking about giving her what she needs regardless of what it costs me. Because she does that reflexively for everyone in her life.
If she never forgives me, that’s mine to live with.
But I will not hesitate again.