“Five.”
Hunter grabbed the middle rope with a trembling glove.
He pulled himself up, his legs shaking violently.
He was up at eight, but the arrogance was entirely gone.
The bully had been evaporated by a single perfectly executed law of physics.
The referee wiped Hunter’s gloves and looked into his eyes.
“You want to continue?”
Hunter nodded weakly, terrified of his father’s wrath more than the mechanic’s son.
“Fight.”
There were forty seconds left in the round.
Tommy didn’t rush in wildly.
Ernest had drilled discipline into him.
He walked forward calmly.
Hunter put his guard up high, terrified of getting hit in the body again, which left his head wide open.
Tommy stepped in and threw a blistering three-punch combination.
Jab to the nose. Cross to the cheek. A brutal right uppercut that snapped Hunter’s head back, spraying sweat and a mist of blood into the air under the halogen lights.
The crowd was stunned.
The wealthy elite were watching a demolition they hadn’t paid for.
The poor kid, the kid with the cheap trunks and the bruised face, was systematically dismantling the billionaire’s golden child.
Hunter backed away, his hands dropping, his footwork completely shot.
He was stumbling, swinging blindly just to keep Tommy away.
Tommy slipped a wild hook and countered with a straight right hand that landed flush on Hunter’s nose.
Cartilage crunched.
Blood immediately poured down Hunter’s chin, staining his chest.
He looked toward his corner, his eyes pleading with his trainer.
“Help me!”
The bell rang.
Hunter practically fell into his trainer’s arms.
The massive man dragged the boy back to the stool.
In Tommy’s corner, Ernest didn’t cheer.
He didn’t smile.
He just handed Tommy the water bottle.
“He’s done,” Ernest said quietly, wiping the sweat from Tommy’s forehead.
“He’s in deep water now, and he doesn’t know how to swim.”
Across the ring, chaos had erupted in the Cole corner.
Richard Cole had bypassed the security and was standing on the ring apron, screaming at the trainer.
“Fix his nose! Tell him to stop fighting like a coward!” Cole spat, his pristine suit jacket flapping as he gestured wildly.
Hunter sat on the stool, blood leaking into his mouth, crying openly.
“I can’t breathe, Dad. It hurts. He hits too hard.”
“You do not quit!” Cole roared, leaning over the ropes, his face inches from his son’s bloody visage.
“I did not pay for this spectacle to watch you embarrass me in front of my partners. You go back out there and you break him or you don’t bother coming home.”
