The referee walked over to Tommy, grabbed his right wrist, and raised his cheap leather glove into the air.
Tommy didn’t smile.
He just lowered his arm, ducked through the ropes, and walked back to his corner.
Ernest was waiting.
He didn’t cheer.
He just wrapped his large arms around his son, pulling him tight against his chest.
Tommy buried his face in Ernest’s shoulder, his small frame finally beginning to shake as the adrenaline started to leave his system.
“You did good, kid,” Ernest whispered into Tommy’s damp hair.
“You did perfect.”
Across the ring, Richard Cole stepped through the ropes.
He completely ignored his son, who was still sitting on the canvas while the trainer wiped the blood from his face.
Cole marched straight toward Ernest’s corner.
Cole’s face was a mask of rigid, barely contained fury.
The veins in his neck were thick and corded.
Two security guards trailed nervously behind him.
Ernest turned, keeping Tommy behind his broad back.
He began unlacing his son’s gloves.
“You think you’ve proven something?” Cole hissed, his voice low, strictly for Ernest’s ears.
He refused to yell in front of his peers anymore.
He was trying to reclaim his sterile authority.
“You think you won?”
Ernest finished pulling the left glove off.
He started on the right.
“The referee seemed to think so, Richard. Or do you want to dispute the count?”
Cole reached into his tailored jacket.
He pulled out the slim leather checkbook and his platinum pen.
His hands were shaking slightly, not from fear, but from the sheer toxic humiliation of having to write this particular draft.
He slapped the checkbook against the padded ring post, uncapped the pen, and began to write.
The scratching of the nib was loud in the quiet room.
“A million,” Cole said, his voice dripping with venom as he signed his name with violent slashing strokes.
“It’s pocket change to me. A rounding error. Tomorrow morning, I will make this back in interest before I finish my first cup of coffee.”
He ripped the check from the book and shoved it toward Ernest’s chest.
“Take it. Take your blood money. Go pay off your pathetic mortgage. Fix your rusted truck and pretend you’re a king in whatever dirt-patch neighborhood you live in. But understand this.”
Cole leaned in closer, his eyes cold and dead.
“You will never belong in this room. Your son will never belong in this world. Money doesn’t change your blood, Ernest. You’re still just a grease monkey.”
Ernest didn’t flinch.
He reached out and took the slip of paper.
He looked at it.
One million dollars made out to Ernest Penhallagan.
