“Lucky shot, rat,” Hunter hissed, his face flushing red with sudden venomous anger.
He lunged forward, throwing a furious one-two combination.
Tommy caught the jab on his glove and stepped backward, keeping the distance perfectly measured.
Hunter was swinging at air, expending massive amounts of energy.
From the corner, Ernest watched Hunter’s feet.
They were heavy.
The kid was dragging his back foot.
He was loading up.
“Now,” Ernest whispered to himself.
In the center of the ring, Hunter grew frustrated.
He wanted the knockout.
He planted his feet, dropped his left shoulder, bit down on his mouthpiece, and threw a monstrous right cross aimed squarely at Tommy’s jaw.
It was the exact punch they had watched on the laptop ten thousand times.
Tommy didn’t retreat.
He stepped forward and to the left, dipping his knees.
The huge red glove sailed over his right shoulder so close Tommy could feel the wind off the leather.
Hunter was entirely exposed.
His right arm was extended, his ribs stretched tight, the right side of his torso completely undefended.
Tommy planted his feet, twisted his hips, generating power from the floor just like Ernest taught him, and drove a vicious left hook directly into the soft flesh just below Hunter’s rib cage.
The sound was sickening.
It didn’t sound like a crack.
It sounded like a wet sandbag being hit with a baseball bat.
Hunter froze.
The human liver, when struck with precision, does not simply register pain.
It sends a shock wave through the nervous system.
The brain forces the body to shut down to protect the organ.
It paralyzes the diaphragm.
It steals every ounce of oxygen in the blood.
Hunter’s eyes bulged out of his head.
His mouth opened in a silent, desperate gasp for air that wasn’t there.
His legs, thick and muscular, suddenly turned to wet noodles.
He didn’t fall backward.
He crumpled straight down, dropping to his knees.
The ballroom went deathly silent.
The clinking of champagne glasses stopped.
At the ringside table, Richard Cole stood up so fast his chair tipped backward and crashed onto the polished floor.
Hunter was on his hands and knees, staring at the canvas, strings of saliva dripping from his mouth.
He was trying to breathe, emitting a high-pitched rattling wheeze.
“Neutral corner!” the referee shouted, pointing Tommy away.
Tommy backed into the white corner, his chest heaving, his eyes locked on the boy on the floor.
“One,” the referee counted, kneeling beside Hunter.
“Two.”
Hunter looked up.
His face was a mask of pure, unadulterated terror.
He looked past the referee.
He looked into the crowd.
He looked for his father.
Richard Cole wasn’t offering encouragement.
He wasn’t yelling for his son to get up and fight.
Cole’s face was twisted in a snarl of profound embarrassment.
His investment was failing in front of his board members.
