1
Jacob
My opponent’s body hits the cage floor like a bag of wet cement. Blood speckles the canvas beneath him, some his, some mine. I stand over him, chest heaving, sweat dripping onto his unconscious face. The crowd roars, but the sound barely breaks through the pounding in my ears. Another win. Another night I prove I’m exactly who they call me: The Brickhouse, unbreakable, unstoppable. But as I raise my fist, my shoulder sends a knife of pain straight through my skull that makes my vision blur. I don’t flinch. The crowd can’t see it. No one can.
The ref grabs my other wrist and yanks it up. The roar intensifies, beer cans hitting the cage. The smell of sweat, blood, and cheap liquor hangs in the air like fog. This should feel good. It always feels good. Tonight, it just feels necessary.
“Brickhouse! Brickhouse!” They chant my ring name, but I’m already walking away.
The Red Corner’s back hallway is narrow and dim. Concrete floors stained with decades of blood and spit. Men who were in my place once slap my back as I pass. Each hit jars my shoulder, but I keep my face stone. Don’t even blink. The Brickhouse doesn’t feel pain. The Brickhouse doesn’t lose. The Brickhouse doesn’t fucking break.
But god damn, my shoulder feels broken. The adrenaline that carried me through the fight starts to drain, and the pain grows sharper. A red-hot nail being hammered deeper with every heartbeat. I press my palm against the wall to steady myself when no one’s looking. Breathe through it. Push it down.
By the time I reach the locker room, I’m walking straight again, but the sweat on my forehead isn’t just from exertion anymore. I push the door open with my good arm and step inside, ready for the quiet routine that follows every fight. Unwrap. Shower. Leave.
Instead, I find Renata standing by the bench with a man I’ve never seen before. Some guy in a button-up shirt that screams he doesn’t belong here. He looks too clean for this place, like he’s never seen blood outside a test tube.
“What the fuck is this?” I ask Renata, ignoring the stranger completely.
Renata crosses her arms over her chest. “Nice fight. But that right hook in the second round was sloppy.”
“Answer the question.” I move to my locker, turning my back on both of them. My gym bag sits on the bench, and I start pulling out my things. “Who’s the suit?”
“You’re in pain,” Renata says, ignoring my question just like I ignored hers. “I brought someone to see you.”
I peel off my sweat-soaked shirt, biting my tongue to keep from making a sound as the movement pulls at my shoulder. “I don’t remember asking for a doctor.”
“You didn’t have to ask. I could see it from the way you favored your right side in the third round. Your opponent was too concussed to notice, but I wasn’t.”
I turn to glare at her. “You brought a stranger into my locker room based on something you think you saw?”
“I don’t think, Jacob. I know.” Her voice softens a fraction. “You’re hurt. You’ve been hurt for months. And you’re getting worse.”
“I’m fine.” I start unwrapping the tape from my hands, focusing on the motion to distract from how bad it feels to raise my arm. “I won, didn’t I?”
“You won against a kid who’s had three professional fights. Next month, you’re up against Reyes.”
“And I’ll destroy him too.”
“Not if you can’t lift your right arm above your shoulder.”
I rip the last of the tape from my hand, but a sharp spasm shoots from my shoulder to my fingertips, and I can’t hide the flinch. Fuck.
The stranger chooses that moment to step forward. “I’m Dr. Riley Shepard,” he says, extending his hand. “Sports medicine specialist.”
I look at his outstretched hand, then back at his face. Really look at him for the first time. He’s taller than I first thought, nearly my height but half my width. Lean but not weak-looking. The kind of body that’s built for distance, not impact. His strawberry-blond hair is artfully tousled, as if he spent an hour in front of a mirror making it look effortless. But it’s his eyes that catch me off guard—olive green, cool and steady. Not intimidated. Not even slightly.
I don’t take his hand.
“I didn’t ask for a doctor, and I don’t need one.” I turn back to my locker. “I need a shower and for both of you to get the fuck out of my space.”
But Dr. Shepard doesn’t budge. Instead, he steps closer. “May I?” he asks, nodding toward my shoulder.
Before I can tell him to back off, his hands are already moving toward me. Not touching, but hovering close. There’s something in his certainty that throws me. Something that makes me hesitate just long enough for him to take my silence as permission.
“I’m sweaty as hell,” I warn, a last attempt to drive him back.
“I’ve seen worse,” he says simply, completely unfazed.