I’ve been MIA for five years, since… since the death of my father, the burning of my home, and the defilement of our youth. My only regret is that I wasn’t able to communicate with Reign and help her through the trauma; contacting anyone after my supposed death was forbidden. The revenge I’m bringing down on them requires me to be the phantom they already believe me to be, and I know she’d approve without communication.
Jay, my father’s head of security, worked hard to prepare me for the fight of my life. We’d originally planned to enact our revenge together, but cancer took him before we were ready. He’d held on until the very end. Until I knew how to handle myself solo. He taught me everything he knew. Until I was ready.
Now, with my burned skin covered in tattoos, hair dyed from its natural blonde to purple streaked, sky-blue eyes concealed by shit-brown contacts, I resemble nothing of the teenybopper I once was the last time I was here. Yet, somehow, they still consider me a Cupcake. Hence, the new fight name that’s being summoned to the stage.
Just like always, the haze of rage creeps into the edges of my vision, bleeding red into everything I see. It’s familiar now—an old friend that’s kept me alive through the worst of it. My body is tight with tension, every nerve crackling like a fuse burning toward detonation. The fuel for my fire is a storm of emotion—grief that’s never softened, loneliness that’s clawed into my bones, and fury so consuming I feel it hum beneath my skin. I miss my best friend like a phantom limb. I ache for my guys, for the warmth of their touch, their voices, their safety. My chest tightens when I think about my dad—my anchor—left dead. And underneath it all, a relentless, gnawing fury at the men who took everything from us. The ones who lit the match and watched me burn.
They’re going to meet the reaper. Soon.
Until then, I’ll settle for the mouthy little bitch standing in front of me, the one who hasn’t shut up since I walked in. She’s ruining my internal monologue, grating on my last nerve, like an off-key violin screeching through a funeral dirge. Her voice is nails on a chalkboard, dragging me from my grief-tinged rage into a very present, very physical need to silence her.
Let them all come. One by one or all at once. I’ll take them down. But for now? She’s first.
“What’re you? A teenager?” She huffs, smirking at her own attempt at pathetic humor.
The announcer’s eyes flash with dollar signs because he and a handful of others are the only ones that’ve seen me fight. He knows my opponent has underestimated me because of my size. Clocking in at a whopping five-two frame and a buck-ten, soaking wet, doesn’t do much in the way of intimidation. She’ll find out, just like the rest.
The Janitor—which is a stupid fucking name, by the way—flinches back from mythat’s right, bitchglare, even though she’s looking down on me from several inches. Her throat works harder to swallow her nerves when the announcer steps out of the ring with glee, closing the metal cage around us, locking her into her fate.
A wicked smile tugs at the corner of my lip as adrenaline pumps through my veins, fueling my body with the energy it’ll need to wipeThe Janitoroff the floor.
This peach of a discovery is thanks to my guys… well, not my guys anymore. After watching them for the last few months, it’s clear they’ve moved on. A pang cracks what I thought was a cold, dead heart, thinking about them. Of course, I’ve tried to follow Reign over the years, even though I knew the risk, but she announced boarding school shortly after the fire and went silent. Jay warned that attempting to dig into which school may tip off Dean, and I want him and Bryce to die with shock frozen on their disgusting faces.
When I figured out that Ronan frequently fought here, it solved questions about their hobbies and provided an outlet for the rage coiling inside me every second of the day. It was quite interesting when Rowen fought in his brother’s place and no one but me noticed. I was a good thirty yards away, but the pitch black of his eyes gave him away instantly.
My sweet boys have grown into sexy tattooed devils that fuck anything that moves. The glimpse that I caught of Rowen fucking some random club bunny in the bathroom dug the rest of my blackened soul out with a spoon, all dull edges.
The warm skim of my opponent’s knuckles grazing my cheek jolts me out of my thoughts like a slap on the face. It’s a subtle reminder—unwelcome but effective—that I don’t have the luxury of drifting into the past. Not now. Not here. The past is dead, scorched to ash and buried beneath the weight of too many sins. It has no place in this ring, where blood and pain are currency, and hesitation costs more than I’m willing to pay.
I shift left in a tight canter and snap my arm out, landing a sharp jab straight to her throat. The impact is satisfying, a brutal, precise hit that sends her reeling. She clutches at her neck, choking and sputtering, the wheeze of her strained breathing like music to my ears. It’s a picture-perfect opening. One clean hit and she’s done.
But that’s not enough.
A single shot to the neck won’t come close to purging the demons clawing at my insides. Not tonight. Not with my guys standing somewhere in the shadows, dragging memories and old emotions back to the surface with just their presence. They’re pulling me apart without touching me, undoing every stitch I’ve sewn to keep myself together. I can feel the cracks spiderwebbing beneath my skin, even though I promised Jay I’d stay focused. He warned me this might happen—that seeing them again would tear me in ways a fist never could. I thought I was stronger than that.
It turns out I was wrong.
I’m rarely wrong. But when I am, I own it. And right now? I’m over my head with the guys. All three of them.
The crowd starts booing, restless from the lack of motion. Two fighters stand in the center of the ring—one hunched over, wheezing like she’s dying, and the other—me—stone-still and visibly unimpressed. I’m sure I look bored. But boredom has nothing to do with it. This isn’t about fighting anymore. It’s about control, about unleashing what I’ve kept caged for too long.
And if the crowd wants blood?
I’ll give them a show they’ll never forget.
When she finally rises, her legs wobble beneath her like she’s standing on stilts made of paper. She swallows hard—once, twice, three times—before lifting her chin just enough to meet my eyes. There’s fear swimming in hers, wide and glossy, and Ican feel the buzz of it rippling off her skin from where I stand. A soft giggle escapes my lips before I can stop it, high and breathy, but there’s nothing amusing about it. It slithers through the air, manic and electric, an unspoken warning that I’m not finished. Not even close. I can only imagine how I look to her—eyes wild, body loose but coiled like a predator waiting to pounce. And judging by the way her lip trembles, I’m right.
But she straightens her shoulders anyway, trying to summon something—courage, maybe. Pride. Whatever it is, it’s laughably thin. Confidence doesn’t hang right on her frame. It slips and slides like an ill-fitting costume she never learned to wear. She wants to pretend she’s ready to fight, but her body gives her away. That single hit to the throat wasn’t just physical—it disarmed her. She’s not thinking tactics or counterstrikes now. She’s thinking about breathing, thinking about survival.
She shuffles more than she moves, feet unsure and too slow to be useful. She’s an open door. A target with a blinking red light over her head. And the thing is, she did this to herself. Most fights are won long before fists are thrown—won in the mind, where intimidation takes root like rot. The throat punch sealed her fate, not because it hurt, but because it told her the truth.
She misjudged me.
She underestimated the wrong girl.
We circle each other like wild animals, her eyes darting, searching for an out while mine stay locked and focused. She’s skittish, shuffling, twitching, retreating with every faint step I take. The crowd’s energy pulses around us, their chants building like thunder, but I tune them out. All I hear is the rhythmic beat of my heart and the ragged panic of her breathing. It’s only a matter of time.
I grow bored with her games. The moment she hesitates, I pounce—closing the distance in a breath and striking with precision, fast and deadly like a cobra uncoiling. She predictably ducks to her right, trying to slip away, but she telegraphs her movement. I’m already there. My fist lands square on her left side, just above the hip. A perfect, brutal kidney shot. She sucks in a sharp gasp and instantly curls toward the pain, hand flying to her side.