Ben had sent me out late, a punishment run, miles farther than usual. My lungs burned, sweat blinding me, when headlights cut across the service road ahead, turning into a rundown trailer park.
A little girl was in the yard of one of the trailers, Lord only knows why at this time of night, and the truck stopped. A man with greasy hair and a cigarette dangling from his mouth tried to coax her over.
I’d slowed instinctively and dropped low. If that little girl took one step in his direction, I’d have to step in. My father wouldn’t approve of my getting involved, but there was no way I could stand by and do nothing.
Then I saw movement from behind the truck.
And Beck Maddox stepped out of the shadows like he’d been there all along…watching.
Maybe he had been.
Maybe the whole thing was a set-up.
The little girl saw Beck and turned, quietly heading into her house.
Beck approached the man and, without warning, jerked him out of the truck. The sound of flesh meeting flesh was loud to my ears.
I crouched there, frozen, watching until my thighs burned.
The punches grew stronger and stronger until I knew what the outcome would be.
I took a deep breath, willing my pulse to slow back to normal.
The crowd roared as the older man went down once, then scrambled back up, pride forcing him upright when sense would’ve kept him on the mat.
Beck watched him rise, no expression on his face.
When the man swung again, wild and desperate, Beck caught his wrist and twisted. Bone popped. The sound turned my stomach.
Beck drove him back into the ropes, forearm crushing his throat, then released just long enough to land a punch that snapped the man’s head sideways. Blood sprayed—dark, arterial.
The man went down again.
This time, Beck followed him.
Fists came down like hammers. Controlled. Relentless. No wasted motion. The crowd’s noise shifted—from excitement to something sharper, uglier. Even they could tell when a beating crossed into something else.
“Murder that fucker, Beck,” someone shouted.
He didn’t even look up.
Beck kept hitting until the older man stopped trying to cover his face. Until his hands fell away. Until the body beneath him stopped reacting, lying there like a slab of meat on a butcher’s block.
Then—and only then—Beck stood.
Silence spread outward in a ripple.
The ref—I used the title loosely—hesitated before stepping in, checking for breath, pulse, and movement. He looked up at Beck and shook his head once.
Not dead.
But close enough that tomorrow was questionable.
Beck wiped his hands with a towel hanging over the ropes, then stepped out of the ring as if almost killing a man were normal. And for him, it might have been.
That was when I moved.
I knew which bike was his. I’d been observing him closely ever since that night.
