It smells familiar—sweat, blood, desperation, victory. A ref sits by thebar, drinking. The bartender materializes at my elbow with a shot glass. Jameson, neat.
I take it without looking, throw it back, and slam the glass down on the nearest table. The whiskey fucking burns, but it’s not enough.
I reach the ring’s edge and grab the top rope, vaulting myself up and through. The crowd goes quiet.
The canvas is stained with old blood, some of it probably mine. My boots hit solid, and I straighten, then roll my shoulders.
I begin to unbutton my shirt, one button at a time, and the crowd falls to a whisper.
I shrug it off, grab a fistful of my undershirt, and yank it over my head.
The roar is instantaneous.
The entire fuckin’ club goeswild.The sound hits me like a physical thing—screaming, stamping, fists pounding on tables.
I toss my shirt outside the ropes, and it disappears into grasping hands.
I turn in a slow circle, bouncing on the balls of my feet to warm up. They can all see it now with the overhead lighting, the scars mapping my ribs, my back. Evidence of who I am, what I’ve done, what I’ve survived.
Prison didn’t soften me—it honed me into something sharper, meaner.
I crack my knuckles and roll my neck. The familiar pre-fight ritual settles over me like a second skin.
“Well, fuck me.”
A low growl of a voice, familiar and unwelcome, cuts through the noise. I know it before I look.
Tommy “The Butcher” O’Sullivan shoulders his way through the crowd, that ugly grin splitting his fuckin’ face. He’s thicker now, running to fat around the middle, but his hands are still the size of goddamn dinner plates.
We’ve got history, Tommy and me. Bad blood that never got properly settled.
Excellent.
“Heard you’ve gone soft inside, McCarthy,” he says, climbing into the ring and stripping off his own shirt. “Heard prison feckin’ broke ye.”
“Do Ilookbroken?” I say to him, then wink. “Come find out, ye thick bastard. Let’s see if your fists work better than your brain.”
The spectators are losing their minds now. They know what this is—old grudges, old violence, coming home to roost.
I don’t respond beyond that. I watch him, let him run his mouth while I measure the way he’s moving. He’s favoring his left side. Knee’s probably shot.
Noted.
“Nothing to say?” Tommy spreads his arms wide, playing to the crowd. “Cat got your?—”
I hit him.
No warning, no preamble. My right fist crashes into his jaw, and his head snaps back. Blood sprays from his mouth. I’ve split his lip.
Good.
The bell rings a second too late, and nobody cares.
Tommy roars and charges at me like a bull. The referee’s behind us shouting, but he knows better than to come between an O’Sullivan and a McCarthy.
Tommy always fought like this, all power, no finesse. He swings wild, and I duck under, driving my fist into his kidney once, twice. He grunts but doesn’t go down.
His elbow catches me in the temple, and stars explode across my vision. The taste of copper floods my mouth.
