Page 99 of Main Event

I think about it—the precision of the last three minutes—every shot with a reason, every movement with a purpose, the accumulated twelve weeks of work all arriving in the same place at the same time.

“Like I knew exactly where I was,” I say. “No guessing. No reacting. Just knowing.”

She’s quiet for a moment.

“Reyes is going to be insufferable,” she says.

“He already is.”

“Good.” She puts her head on my shoulder. “He earned it.”

The room service cart is still in the corner—the remnants of dinner, three different things we ordered because we couldn’t decide, the small extravagance of a night that feels like it deserves it. I reach over and steal the last piece of bread from the basket because it was the best part, and I haven’t had enough of anything I actually wanted to eat in twelve weeks.

Andi watches me eat the bread.

“That’s your third piece,” she says.

“I’m aware.”

“Reyes is going to have opinions.”

“Reyes is in his own room,” I say. “He doesn’t get opinions tonight.”

She laughs. It’s the full version—the one that arrives when she’s tired enough to stop managing it, the laugh that’s been one of my favorite sounds since the first time I heard it. I feel something loosen in my chest that I didn’t realize had been tight since January.

“Andi,” I say.

“Mm.”

“We’re going to win.”

She looks up at me. She knows I don’t mean the fight.

“Yes,” she says. “We are.”

“The story breaks Monday. The documentation is complete. The FBI has the case now. The man who died at Grady had his fingerprints linked to deaths in four other states. Everything we’ve been building toward is in motion, and there’s nothing she can do to stop it.”

“She’ll try,” Andi says.

“She’ll try,” I agree. “And it won’t matter.”

She’s quiet for a moment, looking at my face. The swollen eye, the cut on my chin from a jab I didn’t slip fast enough in round six. The twelve weeks of effort are visible in what it cost me.

“Does it hurt?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say. “But I don’t care. It’s worth it.”

She reaches up and puts her hand against the side of my face that doesn’t hurt. Just holds it there.

“I watched you in round twelve,” she says, “and I kept thinking—that’s who he’s been becoming. The entire camp. I could see it happening, and tonight it was just—there. Complete.”

“Reyes,” I say.

“You,” she says. “Reyes pointed at it. But what I watched tonight was you trusting the work you’ve already done.”

She meets my eyes.

“The win tonight is just the confirmation. The real win happened long before you stepped into the ring.”