Actually, I’ll probably like it more than I’m willing to admit. And I know if it’s a Pitch fight, the pay is going to be pretty damn sweet too.

I toss my bag in the passenger seat and get in, pulling out as soon as I see Bill’s black Tahoe in front of me. I follow them down Lakeshore for the twenty minutes it takes to get to our highway, then manage to find their car again on Roosevelt after losing them in traffic. We stop near sixteenth, where the roads are packed with BMWs and Porsches parked illegally. I’m not sure who else is on the card, but if Pitch is going, I have a feeling a lot of these people are here for him. I hope they’ve come to drop some cash, and I hope like hell I can make it four rounds.

I find a spot near the exit reserved for the crew and Bill holds up a badge when one of the club owners tries to give me grief for parking there. He nods and waves me forward to join them.

“Thanks,” I say.

“Sweet ride. I’d park that shit somewhere close, too,” Bill says.

The back rooms are swelling with people, half of them women all waiting to get with one of the fighters for the night. They drag their hands over my body as I pass through the narrow, crowded spaces behind Harley and Bill until we slip into a training room near the main hallway to the ring. Most of the fights I’ve done have been in front of dozens—maybe a hundred people at the most. The crowd I hear through the brick and concrete walls sounds like it reaches close to a thousand.

“All right, here’s the deal,” Harley says, already running through texts and numbers on his phone. “You need to make it to four. You understand? Four.”

I nod. Shit, I hope I’m standing after four. My heart is pounding with the force of a boxer trying to break out from inside, and my body is drenched with sweat already. How ironic. I keep my game face on though and get to work, changing and prepping myself for whatever I’m about to step into.

“You go four, and we’re looking at eight K for the night, you feel me?” I don’t react on the outside much, just nodding that I hear him. Inside is a different story, because eight thousand dollars is about four times the amount I normally make at one of these. That also probably means my face is about to take four times the force from Pitch’s fist.

Tuition. Paid.

Insurance for six months. Paid.

Three months rent. Paid.

Shit, maybe with the money I make from coloring with kindergarteners in the mornings, I can take Lindsey out for a real date, like dinner and a movie or something.

Or…not take Lindsey on a date.

Not take Lindsey anywhere, and just disappear because I can’t take Emma somewhere. I don’t want to take Emma anywhere, but I also can’t let go now that I’ve found her. Fuck! I’ve managed to go the entire day without thinking about my problem—I’m stringing along a really nice girl I have absolutely no interest in. Of course, it all comes racing into my head now—minutes before I’m about to intentionally thrust myself into mayhem.

A good time for a distraction.

I pull my phone out and click it to check the time, but am greeted by nothing but a blank screen. Still dead. No music, nothing to read—only my fucked-up thoughts left to keep me company while I stand in a yellow-painted brick room that’s big enough to house a training table and a locker, but nothing else. The room starts to feel smaller with every minute that passes, and my heart begins to race more, sweat threatening to drip from my brow as my eyes dart from corner to corner, my ears perked and waiting for the knock to come. I need out. This room—it looks like Lake Crest.

I need out. I need out now!

I lie back and hold a towel over my eyes, the weight of my arm closing over one ear and blocking out any other light.

“You like getting hit, boy?” he says. “You like the way it feels? I’ll hit you again. I’ll hit you so hard you’ll fuckin’ cry yourself to sleep for a month, wishing you had a mommy and a daddy who gave a shit and didn’t send you to a place like this with a guy like me. I’ll set you straight. I bet you’ll never try shit like that with me again! When I give you a job, you do it!”

The voice in my head feels real, and I fling the towel away from my eyes and sit up swiftly, looking around at the bare walls. It’s only a memory, but the fact that it was real once—that a man who was supposed to protect me did exactly the opposite—is enough to bring it back to life as I sit here waiting in this tiny yellow room.

The pound on the door comes seconds later, and I race to my feet, welcoming the escape.

“You ready?” Bill asks. His expression is worried, which isn’t one he usually makes at me. I respect it, but I also can’t let it get in my head, so I hold my gloves out for him to pound and then push them into my temples and chest a few times to prime myself for Pitch’s worst.