Chapter 13 #2
"What I'm not going to do is frame it as guilt before you've had a chance to speak. That's not how I work." She pauses. "If you're honest with me, I'll be fair with you. That's the only deal I can offer."
I look at her for a moment.
"I'll take it," I say.
The producer counts them in. The cameras go live.
Lindsey Blair's on-air presence settles into place like a second skin—the same person, slightly elevated, the warmth calibrated rather than performed. She introduces the segment, lays out the context of Luke Woods emerging from Joe Caruso’s training facility as a legitimate heavyweight contender, and then turns to me with the ease of someone who does this effortlessly.
"Let's start with the Commission review," she says. "Because I think the audience deserves to hear it from you directly."
"I appreciate that," I say. "The review is procedural.
An anonymous complaint was filed referencing fights I was involved in before I turned professional.
Fights that weren't sanctioned. I'm not going to pretend they didn't happen.
They did. That was a part of my life, and it made me the fighter I am, and I'm cooperating fully with the review. "
"You're not disputing the history."
"No. I'm disputing the framing. There's a difference between a young man fighting in unsanctioned bouts to survive and a professional athlete with integrity problems. The complaint is trying to collapse that distinction. I don't think it holds."
Lindsey nods. Not agreeing—registering. "Who do you think filed it?"
"I don't know. I'm not going to speculate on camera."
"Fair." She shifts slightly. "The timing is interesting to a lot of people. Your fiancée is dealing with her own regulatory situation. Your license review escalated at roughly the same time as the youth center audit. People are asking whether that's a coincidence."
"It's not a coincidence," I say.
She waits.
"I think they're coordinated," I say. "I don't have proof of that.
But I think someone understands that attacking both of us simultaneously is more effective than attacking either of us alone.
If I'm fighting for my license, I'm not standing next to Andi.
And if she's fighting for her center without me publicly beside her, she looks more isolated than she is. "
Lindsey Blair looks at me for a moment. Something shifts in her expression—not surprise, something more specific than that.
"That's a serious allegation," she says carefully.
"It's an observation," I say. "The allegation is the anonymous complaint. I'm just telling you what I see."
"And what do you see when you look at your situation right now?"
I recall Andi in our Atlanta kitchen, especially that single red tulip she sent me a photo of this morning.
It sat in a glass on the kitchen table, as she wanted to bring a touch of life into the house for Valentine's Day.
The way she carries herself—not through overt strength, but simply by having presence.
"I see someone they underestimated," I say. "And I see the consequences of that starting to catch up with them."
"You're talking about Andi."
"I'm talking about Andi. She’s the reason none of this works the way they planned."
"How is she?" Lindsey asks. And the question has a different quality from the ones before it—not an interview angle, something closer to genuine.
"She's the most capable person I've ever met," I say.
"And she's on a tour bus somewhere on the East Coast, doing what she does, which is building something out of whatever she's been handed.
She does that. It's who she is." I pause.
"She doesn't need me to defend her. I just don't want anyone to mistake her for someone who can be managed. "
The corner of Lindsey Blair's mouth moves. It might be a smile.
"Last question," she says. "The fight. After camp. What do you want people to know about what you're building toward?"
"I want them to know I'm serious," I say.
"Not the paper version of serious—I've been serious my whole life, and nobody saw it because I was doing it in the wrong places.
Joe Caruso saw it. Mack Weaver has been seeing it for years.
The Commission will see it when the review closes in my favor.
" I lean forward slightly. "I'm not coming to Vegas to prove something to the people who doubted me.
I'm coming to finish something I started a long time ago. "
Lindsey Blair lets the silence hold for a moment.
"Luke Woods," she says to the camera. "Watch this one."
Syndi is waiting in the green room when I come off set.
She hands me a bottle of water without speaking, which is the Syndi version of a standing ovation.
I take it and sit down and feel the release of a performance completed—not the gym kind, this other kind, the kind where the audience can see you the whole time, and the only thing between you and what they think of you is what you say.
"You went off script twice," she says finally.
"I know."
"The coordinated attack observation—"
"Was true."
"—was true and also unvetted and also potentially actionable if the wrong person decides to push it." She sits across from me. "I'm not saying you were wrong to say it. I'm saying it changes the next news cycle, and I need to prepare for that."
"Then prepare," I say. "I'm not taking it back."
She looks at me for a long moment. Then she makes a note on her tablet. "The Andi answer was good," she says. "Really good. Don't mistake her for someone who can be managed. That's going to run."
"I meant it."
"I know you did." She looks at her tablet. "That's why it'll run."
She pulls up something and turns the screen toward me. The Commission review notice—a copy of the original filing, which I've already seen. Beside it, a second document I haven't seen.
"This came in while you were on set," she says.
"Another supplemental. Still anonymous. This one references a specific fight, a specific venue, a specific date in 2019.
" She holds the screen steady. "Whoever is filing these knows your history specifically.
This isn't someone working from public records. "
I look at the date on the filing.
"Same day as the follow-up to the youth center," I say.
"Yes." Syndi's voice is even. "I noticed that too."
I hand the tablet back.
"What do you want to do?" she asks.
"Nothing yet," I say. "I want to talk to Andi tonight, and I want to talk to Brandon in the morning."
She nods. Files something. Stands.
"The spa debrief starts at four," she says. "Joe wants you there for at least the first session."
"I'll be there."
She's almost at the door when she stops. Doesn't turn around entirely—just pauses, which from Syndi means she's deciding whether to say something.
"For what it's worth," she says to the middle distance, "what you said about her in there. About not mistaking her for someone who can be managed." A brief pause. "Whoever is coming after her made that mistake a long time ago. You're right about that."
She leaves before I can respond.
I sit in the green room with the water bottle and think about a twenty-eight-year-old woman on a tour bus somewhere in the mid-Atlantic who bought a single red tulip this morning because it was Valentine's Day and she was going to put something alive on the table.
The machine picked the wrong person.
That's the thing they haven't figured out yet.