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“What is this?” Jason leans back in his leather chair. He laces his fingers together over his stomach.
“Coincidence.” I meet his stare, forcing my heart rate to remain steady. “We were both hungry. It’s a popular steakhouse.”
“Is that so.”
Jason doesn’t believe me. He waits for me to keep talking, to give him something he can pull apart. I keep my mouth shut.
He turns the laptop back around. “Get to work, Zane. You have a legacy to uphold.”
The real warning comes the following afternoon.
I finish a grueling sparring session with Reyes. My ribs ache. My knuckles throb. I retreat to the locker room to escape the noise of the floor. The space is empty, the long rows of gray metal lockers lit by fluorescent lights.
The door swings shut. The lock clicks.
Jason corners me at the far end of the aisle. He boxes me in against the metal benches, leaving me nowhere to go. I can barely breathe.
“I don’t know what is going on with you.” Jason drops his voice to a lethal murmur. He invades my personal space, forcing me to hold my ground. “But whatever it is, it ends now. You have one job. Destroy Rivera and keep that belt. Everything else is a distraction.”
I lock my jaw. I stare straight ahead.
A long, agonizing pause follows. Jason steps a fraction closer. The danger in his eyes sharpens into a blade.
“Don’t make me remind you what happens to fighters who embarrass this gym.”
The threat hits the exact target Jason aimed for.
I know the history of Ironside MMA. I have witnessed the fallout firsthand. I saw what happened to fighters who fell out of favor, men who brought scandal or shame to my father’s pristine mats. Careers ended overnight. Reputations destroyed in the press. Doors closed permanently, locking them out of the sport they bled for.
I worked my entire life to avoid that exact fate. I sacrificed my truth, my sanity, and my youth to keep the golden boy image intact. I could lose all of it.
Fear floods my system. The instinct to survive screams at me to cut ties, to block Micah’s number, to retreat behind the concrete walls of my penthouse and never look back.
But when I picture giving up Micah, a violent revolt erupts inside my chest. I picture returning to the hollow, hidden existence I lived for twenty-eight years. The cold bed. The silence. The utter lack of warmth. The idea of living without his hands on my skin sickens me more than Jason’s threats.
I sit in my car that night for forty-five minutes.
The engine idles in the parking garage beneath Micah’s hotel. My hands grip the leather steering wheel so hard my knuckles turn white. I almost put the car in reverse. I almost cancel the entire night and retreat into the suffocating safety of my closet.
I kill the engine instead.
By the time I reach the twelfth floor, I’ve rehearsed three excuses for leaving.
Micah opens the door before I settle on one.
“Hey.”
Such an ordinary word. I’ve spent forty-five minutes downstairs trying to earn it.
He steps aside, and I walk in.
“I almost went home,” I tell him.
Micah closes the door. “Do you want to?”
I shake my head.
He waits. No questions about why I’m late, no attempt to pull an answer out of me.
