Another buzz. My hand twitches but I keep my eyes forward.
Remy nods slowly. “The development pipeline. No one builds fighters like we do.”
“Exactly. We’re not just throwing bodies into a ring. We’re creating careers.”
I spread the financial projections across my desk—numbers I calculated at four this morning while my body still hummed from Theo’s touch.
A knock cuts through the meeting. Marco doesn’t wait for permission. He pushes the door open with the look he gets when the news has already gotten worse.
“Got a minute, boss?”
“Whatever it is, say it here.”
He hesitates, then doesn’t. “Hartley signed with Dawson last night. It’s in writing.”
The room stops. Hartley’s twenty-two, two years of solid development behind him. Quiet kid. Never the loudest in the room, never the one I’d flagged as a flight risk. That’s exactly why it lands harder than Jenkins’s wavering or Alvarez’s hesitation could. The quiet ones aren’t supposed to walk.
“And Reynolds was at Dawson’s place yesterday afternoon. Just a meeting. But.”
Reynolds. Who’s never taken a meeting outside this gym in his career?
I keep my face flat. Cruz mutters something under his breath. Jonah’s leg has stopped bouncing.
I should have seen Hartley coming. Should have been paying attention this past week instead of letting Theo crawl into my head and stay there—my whole industry moving around me while I stood with my eyes shut.
This is the cost. Hartley is the cost.
I close the file like nothing’s wrong.
“Reynolds gets a sit-down with me today. Personally. And I want every line of Hartley’s contract pulled apart before noon—I want to know what Dawson offered that we couldn’t match.”
Marco nods once and is gone. I turn back to the room.
The third buzz makes me clench my jaw so hard it aches. I catch Jonah watching me, his expression too perceptive for comfort.
“That’s the plan,” I conclude, straightening papers I don’t need to straighten. “Questions?”
Everyone shakes their head, and they leave with purpose in their steps.
Jonah, however, hovers and falls into step beside me in the corridor, past the workout area where weights clang, and men grunt with exertion. He says nothing at first. Then, glancing at my pocket where my phone sits like a live grenade:
“Whoever she is, she’s got you good.”
He doesn’t press, but that look of his slices through my defenses. I don’t deny it. Can’t. Something about the silence between us feels more honest than anything I’ve said all morning.
I grunt. “Did you talk to Jenkins about staying? I can have Ray draft an improved contract this afternoon.”
Jonah nods, taking the hint, and heads back toward the mats.
I watch him go, then turn and walk the length of the corridor to my office, closing the door behind me. Three notifications from Theo sit on my screen. Three reminders that I’m not who I thought I was.
With a growl, I pull out my phone. Not texts this time. A voice note.
My thumb hovers over the play button. I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t.
I hit play.
Low, sinuous bass fills my office—something with dark intention layered beneath electronic pulses. The kind of track that belongs in the smoky corners of Eclipse at 2 AM. Then, cutting through the music, a sound that makes my blood rush south: Theo’s voice.