Page 20 of Main Event

“No ID.”

“Nothing that would survive scrutiny. The name he gave at intake doesn’t match any existing record.” Bill lets that sit. “Which means we have no way of knowing who he was, who sent him, or who had a reason to make sure he didn’t talk.”

I look at the hallway. Andi is still asleep—the concussion protocols mean rest, and I haven’t woken her.

“She got to him,” I say.

“That’s my read,” Bill says. “She sent professionals. When one of them failed and ended up in custody, she removed him before the police could establish an identity or begin questioning.” He waits a heartbeat before the next part. “Luke. This isn’t a woman who sends people to frighten. She sends people to complete objectives. When they don’t, she completes a different one.”

I think about the second man driving away from the gas station. The decision he made when he looked at me, looked at his partner, and calculated the cost.

He made the right call.

“The second man,” I say.

“Also unidentified. The plate on the compact was stolen. The car was found abandoned in Cobb County this morning.”

I stand in the kitchen in the quiet of a house where Andi is sleeping with a concussion and a swollen knee, and I think about what it means that the woman who sent those men to that gas station also has someone with access to a hospital pharmacy.

She doesn’t just have positions on governance boards.

She has people everywhere.

“Bill,” I say.

“Yes.”

“We need to move faster.”

A silence. Then, “I know. I’m already working on it.”

I hang up, and I stand in the kitchen for a long time.

Then I walk to the bedroom and take a seat in the doorway, watching Andi breathe, and I think about everything that has been aimed at her and everything that is still coming, and the absolute certainty that I am not moving from this doorway until she wakes up.

CHAPTER SIX

LUKE

Bill calls with the Commission’s official position on Thursday morning.

I’m in the gym, but I’m not training. My next scheduled fight is the big one, and it’ll be announced soon, assuming the Commission doesn’t expel me completely. In the lead-up to this one, there are different rules. There’s no room for error. No room for guessing. No room for hesitation. For a title eliminator bout, Mack brings in a specialist. Diego Reyes, a former World Boxing Council contender with twelve years of professional boxing, has been on the wrong end of a championship fight and learned exactly what that costs. He is here to teach me what Mack can’t: how to think like someone who has actually stood where I’m trying to go.

Reyes has me on active rest after the gas station incident, which means movement work and nothing that requires the hands. He doesn’t say it’s because of the footage. He doesn’t have to.

“They’re not suspending you,” Bill says. “Not yet. The self-defense argument is holding because the police report supports it, and Andi’s statement is on record. But they’ve opened a conduct file.” He gives me a moment to get there myself. “Which means anything else that happens between now and the title fight goes into that file.”

“Understood.”

“Luke.” He waits a beat. “The man died.”

“I know.”

“You’re not legally liable—the death occurred under medical care, which is a separate act that results in a broken chain of causation. No prosecutor touches that.” Paper moves on his end. “But the conduct file doesn’t reflect the full picture yet, and if the connection between the gas station and the hospital surfaces in the press before it surfaces in the official record⁠—”

“It changes the story,” I say.

“It changes every story simultaneously. The footage. The conduct file. The Commission’s position. All of it gets reframed around a dead man whose identity no one can verify.” He pauses. “Which is either very bad for you or the thing that proves what actually happened. I don’t know which yet.”