Chapter 1
The Loss
Luke
Thirteen years later...
I watched the pretty little thing turn and smile at me over her shoulder as she lowered the fruit tray onto the coffee table. We were in one of the holding rooms of the stadium, where we fighters waited for our turn to get in the cage. I continued with my warmup stretches to keep my body limber all while allowing my gaze to travel down her svelte frame. I paused, staring at the long legs that led to the six-inch stilettos she had on. How women could maneuver in those things was beyond me.
“Is there anything else I can get for you, Mr. McConnell?” The seductive lilt of her tone made the implications of her question clear.
“Yeah legs, you can get me—”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Lenny’s question interrupted me as he pushed through the door.
Rolling my eyes at his disruption, I responded with, “For fuck’s sake. You couldn’t wait five more minutes to barge in here?” I gestured with my head to the chick who’d brought the fruit to my room. “I was just about to share with legs here what she can do for me.” I tossed her a half grin.
Lenny grumbled and mumbled something inaudible as he moved further into the room. “Legs, was it?”
She knitted her eyebrows and looked over to me, a question in those brown eyes of hers.
“Yeah, well, Mr. McConnell has a big fight in about fifteen minutes, so he doesn’t need to be distracted. Thank you for the uh… fruit.”
I watched, smirking as Lenny took the woman by the arm and escorted her to the door.
“I’ll catch ya’ later, legs,” I called while moseying over to the coffee table, surveying the fruit tray she left but not touching anything.
“Man, what the hell are you doing?”
I shrugged and folded my arms across my chest.
“Are you sure you want to do this fight?”
I rolled my eyes toward the ceiling and dropped my arms. “You wait until ten minutes before I have to go out there to ask an asinine thing like that?”
“You know this isn’t the first time I’ve asked you this.”
“And what did I tell you all the other times?”
Lenny sagged his shoulders and sighed.
“Yeah, I thought so. I’ll be fine. I’m gonna go out and beat the hell out of this fucker and then go off and bang that pretty little thing who you so rudely escorted out of here. And you’re going to head home to that wife of yours and stop riding my dick about this fucking fight.”
Lenny, didn’t respond, used to my outbursts by now. Instead, he simply grunted before pulling out his phone and typing something into it. Probably texting his wife, Constance.
I didn’t say anything else as I gazed in the mirror, avoiding making contact with my own eyes. I knew what I’d see lurking there and didn’t feel like being confronted with it at the moment. Not when I could hear the dull roar of the crowd in the arena. It was a mid-sized venue I was fighting in tonight, but the fans still showed up.
You’re doing more fights than you need.
Lenny’s words from the previous day continued to echo through my mind, but I shook them off. Sure, most fighters at my level only did about two to four fights per year, but I opted for more. Fighting felt like all I knew how to do sometimes, so that’s what the hell I did.
“All right, so tell me what you know about this guy?”
I inwardly flinched as Lenny walked behind me while we headed toward the main arena minutes later. He, with Marshall, the cutman who’d been assigned to me during this fight, trailed behind me. The question had always been something Banks, my former trainer, would ask me as we headed toward a fight. It was his signal now was the time to lock it in and focus.
Hearing Lenny say it didn’t feel right. I wanted to tell him to shut the fuck up, but I bit my tongue. A testament to how good of a friend Lenny was. As much shit as I gave him, it was still only about half of what I gave anyone else.
“He’s got a mean left hook and loves to use it.”
