Page 36

The arm around my waist tightens slightly. Micah shifts in his sleep, his chest expanding against my back. His skin burns like a furnace.

I stare at the baseboards. Zane Butler. Undefeated champion. In a bed with the man challenging for his belt. Micah’s arm is around my waist, and I’m trying not to lose my fucking mind.

The adrenaline burns off, leaving a toxic residue in its wake.

Then the fear catches up. I want this. I stayed. There’s nobody else to blame.

Fear floods my veins. I think of going back to the gym. What have I done? My father’s ghost looms in the shadowed corners of this cramped room. Jason’s voice echoes in my skull, demanding a brutal knockout, demanding an heir that fits the mold.

Ironside will chew me up and spit out the bones. The sponsors will vanish. The media will turn a title defense into a circus act. A bloodline of champions built on traditional, suffocating masculinity—I just put a match to the entire empire.

My chest constricts. The air in the room thins. I need to leave. I need to retreat to my concrete walls, rebuild the armor, and pretend none of this happened.

I shift my weight, inching my hip toward the edge of the mattress. I carefully lift the heavy arm draped over my side, intending to slip out from underneath it. My clothes lie in a heap on a solitary wooden chair near the kitchenette. Three steps. That’s all it takes to reach them.

A hand snaps out. Fingers wrap around my wrist like an iron vise.

I freeze.

Micah’s grip is unyielding. He doesn’t open his eyes immediately. His chest rises and falls against my back, a slow rhythm contrasting the frantic jackhammer in my ribs.

“Don’t.” His voice is a rough, sleep-heavy rasp that vibrates through the mattress.

I keep my eyes fixed on the baseboards. “I should go.”

“You should stay.” Micah shifts, propping himself up on one elbow.

His dark eyes trace the side of my face, sharp and entirely awake. He sees the panic tightening my jaw. He knows I’m about to bolt.

“Running didn’t work last time.” Micah brushes the prominent vein in my wrist with his thumb. “What makes you think it’ll work now?”

I turn my head. He looks devastating in the morning light. The tribal ink on his arm stands out starkly against his deep brown skin. The scar splitting his eyebrow softens under the messy tangle of his bedhead. He wears no mask. No guard. Just Micah.

I pull my wrist free, sit up, and swing my legs over the edge of the mattress. The cool floorboards bite into the soles of my feet. I drop my head into my hands and drag my palms down my face. My breath shudders out in a jagged exhale.

“I don’t know what I am doing.” The admission tastes like ash. I stare at the floor between my knees. “Any of it. Dating. Being out. I don’t know how to look at you, want you, without hating myself for it.”

The mattress dips. Micah moves closer. His knee brushes my hip, a fleeting touch that sends a jolt straight up my spine.

“It’s a process, Zane.” He rests a hand flat between my shoulder blades. The heat soaks straight through my skin, melting the ice in my veins. “You spent your whole life burying this deep. You can’t expect to dig it up in one night and not get dirt under your fingernails.”

I let out a harsh breath, keeping my gaze locked on the scuffed wood. “Ironside will destroy me.”

“Ironside only has the power you hand them.”

I snap my gaze to his. He doesn’t flinch at the sudden movement.

“My father built that gym.” The edge returns to my tone, defensive and sharp. “Every square foot belongs to his ghost. My entire existence is a monument to a man who would have considered me a disgusting failure if he knew.”

Micah doesn’t pull away. His expression softens, the hard lines of a professional fighter giving way to concern. I expect him to argue. To tell me my father is dead and his opinions no longer matter. To point out the obvious absurdity of letting a ghost dictate my future.

Instead, he meets my fear with his own history.

“I came out at eighteen.” He stares at the far wall, a shadow crossing his features. “My dad found out. He sat me down at the kitchen table. He didn’t yell. He just looked at me like a stranger had broken into his house. Told me I wasn’t the son he raised. He told me to pack a bag and get out. I left, and he never called.”

My chest tightens. He says it like he’s stopped waiting for a call. The idea of a parent abandoning their child with such cold detachment turns my stomach. My father was brutal, demanding, and impossible to please, but he never left. He stayed and made damn sure I became the fighter he wanted.

“Five years.” Micah drops his voice to a murmur. “Five years of silence. No phone calls. No birthdays. I lost him completely.”