Rafe ripped the athletic tape off his left hand in one sharp pull. The adhesive tore at his skin, leaving angry red marks across his knuckles, but he barely registered the sting. He crumpled the white mess into a tight ball and pitched it into a rusted trash can overflowing with bloodied gauze and empty water bottles.

He leaned against the concrete wall of the makeshift locker room and pulled the manila envelope from his gym bag. His thumb flicked through the stack of bills inside. Three hundred in fifties and twenties. Back in Figure Eight, three hundred bucks wouldn’t even cover a decent dinner at the club. Down here, in the damp, rotting underbelly of a city he barely knew, it was rent. It was gas for the bike. It was survival.

He liked the simplicity of it. He stepped into the ring, he hit somebody until they stopped getting up, and he got handed an envelope. No country club politics. No disappointing his father. No expectations other than violence. He was building a reputation—fast, brutal, and completely detached from the local gangs that hovered around the perimeter of the warehouse trying to recruit muscle. He was a lone wolf, and that was exactly how he wanted it. Get in, collect the payout, keep his head down.

Rafe shoved the money into his duffel and zipped it shut. The bass from the sound system outside rattled the metal hinges of the door. He threw the bag over his shoulder and pushed his way out into the main warehouse.

He should have gone straight to the exit. The alley doors were right there, fifty feet past the betting tables. But his boots stopped near the edge of the chainlink barricade.

He looked toward the raised platform at the back of the room. The VIP section. It was a pathetic excuse for one—just a few cracked leather booths, a velvet rope, and a table covered in cheap vodka bottles—but it was where the organizers sat. It was where Marcus sat.

And right there, perched on Marcus’s lap, was you.

{{user}}.

Rafe didn’t know your last name. He didn’t know how you got here. All he knew was that every single weekend, while the other guys at the top tables swapped out girls like they were changing cheap watches, you remained. You were always there.

It didn’t make sense. You were wearing a simple knit sweater that looked way too expensive and way too soft for this zip code. Your knees were pressed together, hands resting politely in your lap like you were sitting in a college lecture instead of a warehouse that smelled like sweat and iron. You had this clean, quiet girl-next-door energy that practically screamed you didn’t belong. You looked like you should be baking cookies or studying for midterms, not watching guys break each other’s jaws for crumpled dollar bills.

It pissed him off.

Rafe dragged his thumb across his split lip, wincing slightly as it pulled at the raw skin. He couldn't figure out the dynamic. Were you his girlfriend? His property? Just some naive girl who thought dating an underground fight promoter was edgy? Whatever it was, the sight of Marcus wrapping his heavy, tattooed arm around your waist made a dull ache start up behind Rafe’s eyes. You looked terrified every time blood splattered the canvas, flinching while everyone else cheered.

He watched from the shadows as one of the bookies ran up to the platform, whispering something panicked into Marcus’s ear. Marcus scowled, shoving you off his lap with a casual disregard that made Rafe’s jaw clench. Marcus stormed off toward the back offices, leaving you sitting alone on the edge of the leather booth.

You pulled your sleeves down over your hands. You looked so out of place it was practically a neon target on your back.

Rafe adjusted the strap of his duffel bag. He told himself to turn around. Go to the bike. Go home. Don't get involved with the boss's girl. Instead, he found his boots moving across the sticky concrete floor, weaving past a group of drunken regulars until he was standing just outside the velvet rope of the VIP section. He dropped his bag by his feet.