Prologue
Tony
The scent of menthol and sweat is heavy in the locker room as I test the firmness of the wraps my coach, Seth Isles, has secured around my hands.
“All good?” he asks.
“Feels like it.” I stand and shadowbox a few times. “Yeah.”
He claps me on the shoulder and turns to Leo, one of my training buddies, who’s hovering nearby. Leo doesn’t have a fight tonight, so he’s here to support me. “Leo, will you take him through some pads while I do Gabe’s hands?”
“Got it.” Leo nods and grabs a couple of focus mitts from a bench along the side of the room.
We find a small area out of the way, and Leo holds the mitts up and calls for various strikes. I throw them, keeping the impact relatively soft. Right before a fight isn’t the time for hard training. I just need to warm up my body and get my muscle memory firing. At the end of the day, less than half of the things I do during a fight are conscious choices. For the most part, mybody simply repeats movements I’ve drilled into it thousands of times before.
“Tony!” a woman calls over the murmured background noise.
I wince. I’d recognize that voice anywhere, and while I’m usually glad to see her, now isn’t the best time for my mother to make an appearance. I need to be fully focused, not distracted by the chaos that always follows in her wake. Gia Romano may be vivacious and charming, but she’s also a hurricane in human form. And where she goes, my sisters are sure to follow. They haven’t yet realized the effect five loud and opinionated Romano women have on their surroundings.
“Hi, Mamma,” I say, indicating to Leo that I’ll be back in a moment. I greet her with a kiss on the cheek. But then I come to a stop because it isn’t one of my sisters standing behind her. It’s a man. A tall, handsome devil who’s gazing at her with adoration. That in itself is nothing new. Much as I’d prefer not to admit it, Mom is a beautiful woman. My friends used to tease me about it mercilessly. But what’s different is the way she glances up at him and her expression softens. She’s always been a cynic when it comes to romance. After her roller-coaster marriage to my father ended in disaster, she never gave her heart away fully again. But now something seems to have changed, and I don’t like it. Who is this guy, and why is he here?
“Are you going to introduce us?” I ask.
“This is Kevin.” She grabs his hand and takes a deep breath. “My fiancée.”
My stomach drops. “Yourwhat?”
She shows me her left hand, upon which a massive diamond ring sparkles. I have no idea how I didn’t notice it previously because now it’s all I can see. I look from the ring to Kevin’s reserved but proud face to Mom’s own glowing smile.
“We’re getting married! Isn’t it wonderful?”
“Are you serious?” All I can think is that she’s playing some kind of joke, but much as I wish that were true, her level of excitement tells me she’s not. My mother, who vowed never to be a fool for love again, has decided to remarry. And I hadn’t even met her husband-to-be until now. In a strange way, it’s predictable in its unpredictability. Mom has always been the type of person to act first and deal with the consequences later. “How long have you been seeing each other?”
She pulls a face, her eyes telling me all I need to know. Their relationship is still new. Once again, she’s rushing fearlessly into something that’s bound to cause trouble. “Only a couple of months, but when you know, you know.” She bounces happily—quite a feat in the heels she’s wearing. “We don’t want to waste any time.”
I narrow my eyes at Kevin, who has remained silent. I want to demand to know what his game is. I refuse to see Mom get hurt again. It was bad enough the first time around. I was only twelve, but I remember it vividly. The tears, the screaming, the way she became a wreck of a human. Now here she is, lining up to do it again.
“Nice to meet you, Kevin,” I grit out, barely able to handle the nicety. Her actions, I understand. She’s impulsive. Reckless. But why the hell would he propose to someone after only a few weeks? “I’m Tony.”
For the first time, Kevin smiles. He reaches for my hand and shakes it firmly. “Gia has told me a lot about you. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”
He’s a little too smooth. I don’t like it.
“It’s a shame I haven’t heard anything about you.” I can’t resist the barb. My emotions are in turmoil. I can’t believe Mom would spring something like this on me right before a fight. I need my head to be clear, but now, any thoughts of my fight plan are long gone, smothered by questions and concerns.
“I’m sure we’ll have plenty of opportunities to remedy that.” He nods firmly, as though the matter is settled.
“Well.” Mom claps her hands. “That’s our exciting news. I was going to wait to share it until after, but I wanted to see you.” She smiles warmly, and I melt a tiny bit in response. Her enthusiasm for life is hard to resist. “You know how I like to wish you luck ahead of time.”
“Come here.” I scoop her into a hug, eyeballing Kevin over her shoulder.
When I let her go, she pats my cheek. “We’ll see you later, Antonio. Go do what you do best.”
I force a smile. “Ciao, Mamma.”
They leave together, and I return to where Leo had been, only to find Seth has replaced him.
“Who was that?” Seth asks, nodding toward the exit.
