Chapter 9 - The Masterclass
Derek tried. To his credit, the stubborn, pathetic remnants of his pride forced him onto his hands and knees. Barbecue sauce from two days ago was gone, replaced by drool and blood from a split cheek.
“Derek, stay down!” Marissa cried out from the ropes, tears in her eyes. “Mom, tell him to stay down!”
Diane was trembling, clutching the steel turnbuckle. “Derek… get up… hit her…” Her voice was barely a whisper, robbed of all its venom.
Derek hauled himself up using the ropes, his knees shaking violently. He turned around, his guard held high, but his eyes were completely broken. He was looking at a phantom. He was looking at Evelyn Carter, the woman who disassembled killers for sport.
“Marcus…” Derek choked out through his mouthguard. “Call it…”
“No,” Marcus said, his voice thick with embarrassment. “You wanted this, Derek. Defend yourself.”
I closed the distance in two gliding strides.
I didn't knock him out immediately; that would have been mercy. Instead, I gave him a clinic.
A lightning-quick jab snapped through his guard, snapping his head back. A low calf kick chewed through his lead leg, buckling his knee outward. When he swung a desperate, blind left hook, I ducked under the arc, took his back, and secured a standing rear-naked choke.
I didn’t sink it deep enough to strangle him unconscious; I squeezed just enough to let him feel the dark curtain falling over his vision, then released it and spun him into the center of the ring.
Derek stumbled backward, gasping for air, clutching his throat. “I quit! I quit!” he screamed, waving both arms frantically. “Marcus, stop it!”
Marcus stepped between us, his face dark with fury. “Fight’s over. TKO.”
The silence in the Iron Vault was absolute. Nobody cheered. Nobody moved. The thirty fighters who had laughed at me five minutes earlier were now staring at their own shoes, terrified to meet my gaze.
I turned toward the ropes where Diane stood paralyzed.
Her pristine trench coat seemed to hang limp on her shoulders. Her face was chalk-white. She looked at her golden boy curled into a fetal position on the canvas, whimpering and clutching his ribs, and then she looked at me—untouched, unbreathed, pristine.
“You said Ryan needed to control his wife,” I said, stepping right up to the ropes, looking down into Diane’s terrified eyes. “You said I was a monster.”
Diane took a trembling step back, bumping into Marissa. “You… you’re psychotic…”
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“No, Diane,” Ryan’s voice rang out from the gym floor. He stepped up beside his mother, standing taller than she had ever seen him. “She’s a world champion. And you just spent three years treating her like a doormat because she chose to be kind to you.”
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