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“I don’t know if you’re up for it. But a lot of the guys who lost on that last fight are looking to see you in the ring again.” He smirks. “Probably want to win some of their money back.”
Gabriel swears behind me.
“Alistair, we have a meeting with the partners at nine fucking AM tomorrow?—”
“Who’s the fight with?”
Antoine grimaces. “Big Joe.”
So, yes, the idiots who lost money on me are definitely trying to get it back. Big Joe is a heavily tattooed Samoan dude closing in on seven feet tall, probably weighs twice as much as me, and has a fist like a fucking freight train.
But after what Gabriel’s just told me, I’m a fucking nuclear bomb waiting to blow.
…In short, Big Joe is the perfect opponent for me right now.
“Listen, Alistair,” Antoine makes a face. “You don’t have to. Let me see who else?—”
“Nah, set it up. Let’s get this party going.”
I turn away from a stunned Antoine and slip my watch back off, handing it to my brother.
“Hold this, will you?”
Gabriel grimly takes the watch and pockets it.
“Real talk, right now,” he growls quietly. “The money is potentially phenomenal. But if you say no?—”
“Let’s take the meeting.”
He eyes me carefully. “C’mon, man. There’s facing your demons, and then there’s whatever the fuck this is?—”
“Massimo Carveli is not my demon,” I growl.
“No, he just fucking married your demon!” he snaps back at me. “Which is exactly why I’m worried about?—”
“I’m a professional, Gabriel,” I say in a slow, measured tone, resting my palms on his shoulders. “So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to walk into that ring and put Big Joe in a big hole in the ground. Then I’m going to go home, have a shower, call someone I don’t care about to come over and bounce on my dick. Then I’m going to kick them out, get some sleep, and in the morning, I’m going get dressed, walk into our offices, and have yet another business meeting with yet another mafioso tough guy who needs us to keep the law at bay for a sizable markup on legal fees. That’s it.”
With a nod, I take my hands from his shoulders and start to turn away.
“What if she’s there?”
I freeze for a moment, my pulse thudding in my ears. Then, slowly, I turn to level my gaze at Gabriel.
“If she’s there,” he continues, “then what? Because I—we—can’t have World War Three going down in a conference room on Tuesday morning.”
“She won’t be.”
“But if she is?—”
“If she is,” I snarl, my teeth bared, my temper throbbing, and my blood scorching my veins. “If Eloise is there, she’ll be as dead to me as she was ten fucking years ago, okay?!” I snap. “And that’s the fucking end of it.”
I whirl away from my brother and storm over to the ring with so much viciousness on my face that even Big Joe looks worried as I hurdle the ropes and level my gaze at him.
Except, that was a lie. This isn’t the fucking end of it.
It’s only the beginning.
The first punch hurts the most.
