“Don’t you have something better to do than babysit me, Mackie boy?” I immediately felt bad.
I knew the drill. I wasn’t just a spare anymore—I was the number-one principal, after my father. Once upon a time, I could basically say “What’s that?”, dart into a T-station, and buy myself a solid four hours before Mac pulled me out of an opium den or a strip club or whatever other forms of oblivion I could find at short notice. But ever since Brendan sent us to Vegas, our head of security had been my shadow.
It wasn’t that Mac wouldn’t let me do those things anymore, of course. Mac didn’t let me do anything. But there was an honesty between the two of us that right now, I was finding damned inconvenient. I knew better. He knew I knew better. And I knew that he knew I knew better, which really just made it so I couldn’t do anything at all.
And then there was the reason for my sudden conscious in the first place.
I swallowed as Laney’s green eyes and shy smile came to mind.
Yeah, booze and drugs were out. Other women had become as appealing as an old cigarette butt.
That left one thing.
I lit a cigarette and opened a window. “Just take me to Lopretti’s.”
Mac’s eyes flickered in the rearview mirror. “You got it.”
Twenty minutes later, we pulled up to the curb in a part of Southie even the most adventurous yuppies still hadn’t dared to visit. Nearby, the sounds of train cars unloading the last of their cargo offered familiar music as I approached the entrance to the old boxing gym where my brothers and I had all been taught ourfirst punches. The brick building was crumbling now, and the sign reading LOPRETTI’S in neon letters was half burned out.
It was exactly what I needed.
Inside, the gym smelled like sweat, peeling leather, and something metallic that could have been the rusting weight racks on the far side or fifty years of dried blood.
It was quiet at this time of night, with only the diehard fighters and their trainers left. And Jim Lopretti, of course, sitting behind the counter, sucking on a stogie while he studied the fights in the paper like it was before the internet was invented.
The bell over the door pulled his attention as I walked in, Mac on my heels.
“Ronan fuckin’ Black,” Jim crowed, his voice tinged with the thick sounds of Southie I barely heard anymore. Brendan and Owen had the accent more than I did; Dad even stronger than the two of us. Mine came out occasionally when I was really, really pissed. But I could turn it on when I needed to. Like now.
“Jim fuckin’ Lopretti.” I offered a handshake, which he accepted with his gnarled paw. “How the fuck you doin’?”
“Can’t complain. Business is good. These rich fucks who bought everything around the park like to come in and pretend they’re tough guys. Pay good money for me and the boys to treat them like shit, can you believe that?”
I could, actually. Every kid I knew at boarding school had a secret desire to be poor. It was why they treated places like Lopretti’s like a cruise to the Bahamas—for them, the novelty was the same as a vacation.
Me, I just needed to let the demons out.
“Haven’t seen you in a while,” Jim said. “Thought you might be too fancy for us these days.”
I shook my head as I forked out enough cash to pay for ten sessions beyond the one I needed tonight. “Never too fancy for this place, Jim. You know that.”
He swiped up the cash with a grin that showcased a gleaming silver molar in the back of his mouth. “Tommy’ll be done with the new kid in ten. Get dressed unless you’re planning to ruin that fuckin’ penguin suit of yours. And try not to break anymore of his teeth, all right? I just cleaned the ring. Mac, you want a beer?”
I grinned and headed to the lockers to change from the bag I kept stashed in the Rover. Mac chatted with Jim. When I came out, Tommy Switzer was hopping around Ring Three, tossing his head like a rabid dog.
“Black,” he greeted me without fanfare as I stepped in. “Heard you got married.”
I slid my gloves on over my wraps. Tommy and I had been sparring together since we were kids, before he fought Golden Gloves and when I’d just plain fought.
“Look at you, keeping up with the gossip,” I said before seizing one of the velcro straps with my teeth and tightening it over my wrist. “You on the rag too, Tommy? Something you need to share with everyone?”
“Southie keeps tabs on its own.” Tommy grinned, revealing two missing teeth. “Ready to get your ass kicked?”
“Fuck you, Switz. Let’s fuckin’ go.”
I tried to keep it clean. I really did. But I didn’t come here to fight fair, and Tommy was never one to pull his punches, so it didn’t take long before we’d earned ourselves an audience of the younger fighters and their trainers.
By the third round, I was fighting dirty. By the fourth, I was seeing red. And sometime during the fifth, I gave myself to the beast completely and had become a whirlwind of footwork, blind swings, and lethal instinct.