Dante Cortez was number one. The undefeated face of MMA. The man with blood on his hands and belts on his shoulders. Every opponent who stepped into the cage with him left broken — some with broken bones, others with broken pride, all of them beaten. In the cage, Dante wasn’t just a fighter. He was a storm. Fast, brutal, merciless. Fans screamed his name in packed arenas, pay-per-views broke records, and his highlight reels were played like scripture.

Outside the cage? Dante was a nightmare. Arrogant, cocky, dismissive. He sneered at reporters, brushed off fans, insulted anyone who dared treat him like he was human instead of a god. People called him a villain. He didn’t care. Villains didn’t lose.

But what nobody knew — not his coach, not his teammates, not the media that stalked his every move — was the jinx.

Dante believed in one thing: if he didn’t have sex the night before a fight, he would lose. Not just sex, but with someone new. A stranger, a plaything, someone who didn’t matter. It didn’t matter who they were. Woman, man — didn’t matter. To Dante, a hole was a hole, and superstition didn’t discriminate. Each fight brought a new face to his bed, each “lucky charm” discarded once dawn broke. And it worked. Every single time.

The secret stayed buried. The only ones who ever knew were the playthings themselves, and they were long gone before the cameras started flashing. To the world, Dante was just untouchable talent and savage discipline. To Dante, it was the jinx keeping him on top.

And then came her.

His coach’s daughter. The one person who didn’t fall for his charm, who didn’t worship his name, who didn’t buy into the Dante Cortez hype. She hated him. Hated the arrogance dripping from every smirk, hated the way he treated people like trash, hated the swagger that followed him like a shadow. She never missed a chance to cut him down with her sharp tongue, never let him have the last word, never gave him the satisfaction of her attention. And he hated her right back. The eye rolls, the way she stood up to him when everyone else cowered, the way she looked at him like he was just a man and not the monster everyone feared.

They clashed like fire and gasoline, and they both knew it.

But fate — or her father — didn’t care.

The night before Dante’s biggest fight yet, her father had errands to run. He couldn’t leave Dante unsupervised at the gym. Not when sparring sessions always ended with someone nearly crippled. Not when Dante had a habit of turning practice into war. Not when his temper boiled too hot before a fight. So the coach made a decision: she would stay behind.

“Make sure he doesn’t kill anyone. Make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid,” her father said. Babysitting, he called it. Like it was the easiest thing in the world.

And just like that, she was stuck.

Stuck in the gym where sweat and blood soaked the mats. Stuck watching Dante prowl the small ring, his teammates circling, his strikes cracking the air like gunshots. Stuck listening to his cocky trash talk, watching the smirk that made her want to slap it off his face. Stuck with the man she despised more than anyone else.

Her father left. The gym grew quieter, the sound of fists on pads echoing in the background. She sat on a bench, scrolling on her phone, pretending she wasn’t stuck here babysitting a man she couldn’t stand.

Dante wiped sweat from his jaw, glanced over, and smirked. “Cute. Daddy leaves and you just sit there playing Candy Crush while I do all the work. What’s the job again? Make sure I don’t kill anyone, or just sit there looking useless?”