Saint stared me down, never blinking.
I thought about Melissa, about the kid that might be alive because I didn’t blink. I thought about the club, the endless parade of bastards and burnouts who’d called me brother. I thought about my own death, and realized I wasn’t scared. Not really. Just alive, all the way, every nerve burning with the clarity of fuck-it-all-now-or-never.
Cutler’s voice carried across the circle. “Ready—”
The world shrank to the space between me and Saint.
“—fight.”
He came at me like a truck. I was ready for it.
The universe disappeared into fists and bone and the taste of blood.
The first hit was a fucking masterpiece.
Saint didn’t waste time. He closed the space in a blink, swinging a right so clean it should’ve been in a museum. I saw it coming—saw the set of his hips, the coil in his shoulders—but I was a hair too slow. His fist hit my nose with a sound like a firecracker in a mailbox. White light. Pure pain. I staggered, almost dropped, but the last sliver of ego kept me upright. Blood gushed down my face, hot and slick, pooling in my mouth before I spat a string of red onto the dirt.
The circle howled. Leatherbacks hollered, Scythes barked back. The noise was feral, a dogfight with all the dogs off-leash. Saint grinned, his teeth red, and did a quick shuffle step like he was showing off for a girl.
“You got soft, Williams!” he bellowed. “Shoulda brought your little whore—maybe I’d take it easy!”
I let him have the sound bite, but I was watching his legs. He had a subtle hitch—left knee taped, maybe from an old job. I circled, keeping my feet light, waiting for him to over-commit. Saint stalked me, arms wide, chest gleaming with sweat and the blood splatter from my nose.
He closed again, a bull rush. I sidestepped, caught him in the ribs with a quick jab, but it was like punching a tank.His body was all power, all forward momentum. He took the punch, shrugged it off, and countered with a left hook that barely missed my temple.
He kept pressing, backing me toward the edge. Every hit he threw was calculated for maximum pain, minimum effort. It wasn’t pretty—no fancy moves, just pure brutality. I blocked what I could, ducked the worst of it, but every second punch got through. My ears rang, my teeth went numb, and I tasted iron every time I breathed.
Saint didn’t stop talking. “This all you got? I heard Melissa likes it rough. Maybe she’ll show me after you’re dead.”
That one stung, and he knew it. He ramped up the pressure, alternating between head shots and gut punches. He slammed a knee into my thigh, then raked his elbow across my eyebrow, splitting it wide. More blood, more cheers. I almost lost my balance, but the roar of the Scythes behind me kept my feet moving.
I had to change the rhythm. I faked a stumble, let him close in, then snapped a low kick into his taped knee. There was a satisfying pop and a grunt as he buckled, but it wasn’t enough. He recovered instantly, grabbed my arm, and hip-tossed me into the ground.
The wind left my lungs. I rolled, expecting him to follow with a stomp, but instead he waited—tauntingme to get up. I did, slow and shaking. My right eye was swelling shut, and the pain in my nose had gone from sharp to dull and back again.
From the sidelines, I heard Damron bark something. Seneca was silent, but I caught his eye—just a flash, but enough to say don’t you dare fucking quit.
Saint came at me again, this time with a wide left meant to end things. I ducked under, came up inside his reach, and hammered three quick body shots into his ribs. I felt one of them give, a satisfying crunch. He roared, more in rage than pain, and caught me with an uppercut that rattled every tooth in my head.
I went down, but not out. The dirt was cool against my cheek. I clawed back to my feet, legs shaking. I was leaking blood from at least three different places, but I was still here.
Saint spat at my feet. “You don’t know when to quit, do you?” he said.
“Bad habit,” I croaked.
He circled me, arms loose, head cocked like he was already bored. But I saw the hitch in his breath, the way his left hand was curling a little slower. I’d gotten to him.
I feinted with my left, then lashed out with a right kick straight to his kneecap. This time it folded. He dropped to one knee, and I smashed an elbow into the back of hisskull. He went flat, but not for long. He rolled, grabbed my ankle, and wrenched it hard. Pain shot up my leg, but I used the momentum to stomp down on his hand.
I heard the knuckles break. Four clean pops. He howled, tried to get up, but I kneed him in the face, a full follow-through that drove his head back into the dirt. He looked dazed, but not done.
The crowd was frenzied now—Scythes and Leatherbacks both screaming, the line between enemies blurred by the need for blood.
I caught a glimpse of Melissa, standing at the front of the Scythe pack, her face white as bone, knuckles locked around Seneca’s forearm. She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t blinking. Just watching, breathing for me.
I tried to smile, but my lips wouldn’t work.
Saint spat blood and used his good hand to get up. He was a mess—nose broken, eye puffy, ribs definitely cracked. But he was smiling, a lunatic grin. “You fight dirty,” he said.
