“You’re such a pain in my ass.” Deacon rested his shoulder against the concrete wall. “Everything in my life is as fucked-up as it can get. My way of dealing with it is to fight. I could go another ten rounds, I’m that wound. So I’m going somewhere where I’m not tempted to beat the living hell out of my friends.” Why did people talk about this shit? It didn’t solve anything.

“Will you be back to teach kickboxing this week?”

The thought of facing Molly in a roomful of people, seeing her hurt and scorning him while his students speculated about their private business, twisted his guts into knots. That’s when he knew the first fucking place he planned to go when he left here was her office. “I can’t. You’ll sub for me?”

“This has to do with her, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah. And no, I don’t want to motherfucking talk about it,” he snapped.

“And I don’t motherfucking care.” Beck ran his hand through his hair. “Bare bones, Yondan.”

“I’m a fucking idiot, all right?”

“Not news to me. What else?”

“Shit from my past came up that I shoulda told her about.”

“And she found out from someone else,” Beck stated.

“Yeah. She walked away from me, man. For good, I think.” What had compelled him to confess that?

“You’re not gonna let that happen, D. We’ll figure this shit out.”

Deacon bristled at the word we. “Did I ask for your fucking help?”

“You are such a prickly bastard. But you show up to talk to her looking like that?” He gestured to Deacon’s bloodied knuckles. “With that wildness in your eyes? She’ll run. Or call the cops. And think about it. If she walked away last night, she ain’t gonna talk to you today anyway. No matter what you do—even if you show up with a truckload of flowers or buy out Tiffany’s. Give yourself time to figure out how to fix it.”

“I hate this.”

“Part of the gig with women, right?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never done relationships. Until her.”

Footsteps stopped at the top of the stairs above them. They both looked up.

Ronin’s cold gaze moved between them. “Deacon. A word.”

“Not in the mood to talk.”

“That wasn’t a request.”

“I don’t give a damn what it was. I said no.”

Sensei’s extreme displeasure pulsed through the air like a poisonous dart.

Deacon caved. He couldn’t go against his Sensei any more than he could go against his Shihan. Softly, he said, “She knows,” and those two words changed Ronin’s demeanor entirely.

“You told her?”

Deacon shook his head.

“Fuck.” Then, “Who did?”

“My cousin Tag.”

Ronin shot Beck an odd look—as if he wasn’t sure he should speak freely. “What happened?”

“After she found out at dinner last night, she broke it off with me.” Deacon pushed off the wall. “Look. Talking about it with you two ain’t gonna change a damn thing. So can we please fucking drop it? I need to talk to her.”

Ronin sighed. “Don’t go to the office until I talk to Amery and find out what kind of shape Molly’s in.”

“That’s crap, Ronin. I need to—”

“Take the rest of the day and get your head on straight. And yeah, I’ve had plenty of experience taking that advice myself. Besides, Amery gave Molly a Taser for her birthday. Don’t give that woman an excuse to use it.”

Beck groaned. “Now you’re just taunting me, Sensei, with the image of Deacon twitching on the floor while Molly keeps zapping him.”

“Piss off. I thought you were on my side.”

“I am. But you gotta admit it’d be funny,” Beck said to Deacon. Then he looked at Ronin. “Since Deacon’s day is done here, I’ll take over his endurance training. I could stand to get out and mix it up.”

“Where you taking him?” Ronin asked.

“We’ll do stadiums.”

Deacon flashed his teeth. “Bring it. We’ll see if you can keep up, old-timer, because I live for this shit.”

“Old-timer?” Beck gave him a nasty grin in return. “You forget I trained with Sensei’s Sensei for four years. Stadiums will be a Sunday walk in the park compared to that.”

“If I didn’t have meetings, I’d tag along to watch,” Ronin said.

“Watch? Blow off your meetings, Sensei, and we’ll show you how it’s done,” Beck challenged.