He finished just as the bell rang. Temple immediately went for my face, forcing me to keep my guard up. After a while, he worried more about my face than his own body and I got him again in the torso with a hook. It wasn’t a direct hit. It wasn’t even a good punch but his liver had taken such a blow the first time that even the judges had to see him flinch in pain.

Round ten was an all-out street brawl. This was my wall, the point where I was fatigued and my body wasn’t doing what my brain was telling it to. We were both flagging. The body shots had cost him heavily on points but I was still making up for the early rounds. At this point, nobody could call it, so we both just kept hitting.

My right jab caught him square on the jaw, but I dropped my arm doing it, and he caught me solidly with a right hook. Fuck! My face was probably a fucking mess by now, and my eye felt like it was about to explode. We staggered and were unsteady on our feet, but the ringing of the bell saved us both. I sank onto my corner stool and closed my eyes as Danny cleaned me up and Kier hydrated me. The sound of the crowd was ringing in my ears when I heard her voice. I must have been hit in the head harder than I realized.

“I’m here, I’m here! O’Connell, I made it.” The voice was getting louder. I whipped my head around to see a red-faced Em being ushered up the steps by Kieran.

“Quick, he’s got seconds,” Kieran warned.

“I made it. Baby, I’m here,” she said, laying her palm against my cheek through the ropes.

“You okay, Sunshine?” I asked her through the gum shield, the coppery taste of blood still filling my mouth despite the water.

“I’m fine,” she answered with a laugh, though there were tears in her eyes. “How we doing?” she asked me, looking toward Temple.

“Killing it,” I said, making her smile. Danny climbed out of the ring as she removed her hand.

“I love you,” she told me. Just like when I was doing hanging sit-ups, she was like a shot of adrenaline to my system. My girl was here. She’s made it, and there was no way I was losing now. If I had to bring everything in me to the table, so be it. I wanted to be the only man she saw in this ring, the only one she saw, period.

The bell rang, and I stood in time to see Rico Temple make his fatal mistake. He looked over at my wife, then turned to me and licked his lips. From that moment on, it was all over. Stupid fucker just didn’t know it. I had wanted to win this for Em. Now I wanted to end him for me.

He was expecting me to come at him with all guns blazing, but I didn’t. I shook out my shoulders, bounced around the canvas, and looked like I didn’t have a care in the world. Temple came at me after a few seconds of dancing and threw a jab, followed by a fairly decent hook, or it would have been if it had connected. I was gone before the punch landed.

Switching to fighting left handed, like the boys from Southside had taught me, I completely disorientated him. My combinations before now had probably been as predictable as his. Now I had him against the ropes, and there would be no rope-a-dope this time. His core was taking an absolute pounding. After disrespecting my wife, hell, after even looking at her, I was gonna make him piss blood for a week. There was no break and no letup. I hammered him with every single fucking thing I had.

Sweat and blood dripped down from my eye, but I didn’t pause. This guy was an absolute fucking machine, but so was I. It was a tossup between whether the referee would pull us apart or the bell would ring, when I saw it. That magical opportunity that Danny was always talking about. There were few things in this world that I was good at. Loving my wife was one and boxing was the other. The control I had over my temper was shit, but between those four posts, it was like I could slow everything down and see those gaps in a defense that anyone else would miss.

That was how I knew that my left hook to his body would make him drop his guard to protect his liver. As soon as he did that, I brought my fist up in an uppercut to the face that lifted him off the floor. I stood back, knowing what I’d done.

Temple bounced off the ropes and staggered across the ring before landing on the canvas. From the outside, he looked in much better shape than me, my face bearing most of the cosmetic damage. But where I carried my pain on the exterior, he carried his inside. That last uppercut was enough persuasion for his body to surrender.

As I watched the referee count, I thought of Danny telling me that it didn’t matter if I went down, only if I stayed there. I’d been to that point where you feel like you can’t get any lower. What defines the person you’ll become is whether you get back up when everyone thinks the fight is over. It didn’t matter how many times I went down. I would always get back up because I was a fighter, like Em.

I used to think that being a boxer and a fighter were the same thing. Now I know different. Being a boxer is what I did. Being a fighter is who I was.

When the referee reached seven, Danny stood on the ropes, with Kieran pressed up behind him. By eight, I knew that Temple was done. When the referee reached nine, the whole arena held its breath, and at ten, it erupted. It was over, and the only thing I could think about was having my wife in my arms again.

It amazed me how quickly the ring filled up as soon as the fight was over. People seemed to pour through the ropes like ants, and it pissed me off. Television cameras and microphones were thrust in my face, and despite how I felt about winning, I was going to knock a second person the fuck out if I didn’t get to my wife and the guys soon.

Kieran got to me first, and we threw our arms around each other. “You did it! You fuckin’ crazy Irish bastard!” he screamed.

“We did it,” I told him, and he hugged me again.

From over his shoulder, I could see a shock of blond hair from behind some guy that made me smile. When Em got to me, she held my face in her hands and, with tears streaming down her face, kissed me fiercely. “I’m so proud of you, O’Connell. I knew you could do it!” she said. Throwing my sweaty arms around her waist, I lifted her high so she had to lean down to kiss me again. Then Liam, Tommy, and Earnshaw tackled me so hard that I nearly took Temple’s spot on the canvas. “Where’s Danny?” I asked, but they didn’t know. Kieran removed my gloves, and all six of us held on tight as we made our way to the center of the ring. Rico Temple was on his feet now, looking dazed and more than a little pissed off. I’m betting he’d never lick his lips at another guy again. I didn’t bother trying to keep the enormous grin from my face as the emcee’s booming voice echoed through the microphone.