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“There’s a fight,” he said.
I felt Chloe’s breath hitch.
“When?” I asked.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “You need to be at a pickup point in Knoxville by four p.m. I’ll text you the address. You won’t drive yourself to the venue—transport’s arranged.”
Classic.
“And the purse?” I asked.
He chuckled. “Straight to business. I like that.”
He named a number.
Even knowing it was coming, it made my stomach flip.
“That’s… a lot,” I said carefully.
“I’m moving you up to the big leagues,” Maurice replied. “You do well, you can play again. Doesn’t that amount of money sound nice a second time?”
“Yeah.”
And here I thought the first envelope I’d received had held a shit-ton of cash.
“Be ready,” he said. “Comfortable clothes. No phone. We’ll handle the rest.”
“Wait a minute, why no phone?”
“That’s the rules. For this much cash, you didn’t think everything was going to go your way, did you?”
“But—"
The line went dead.
For a long moment, none of us spoke.
Then Simon exhaled. “Them picking you up so early is a problem,” Roan said. “The fight probably starts about nine. The cities that are four or five hours from Knoxville are endless.”
Chloe looked up at me, her eyes steady despite the fear I knew was there. “They’re coming for you. Through me.”
I tightened my arm around her. “They already tried.”
“And it worked,” she said quietly. “At least enough.”
Simon’s voice cut back in. “We’ve got what we need. Now we plan.”
I looked down at Chloe, felt her warmth, the weight of her trust.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s plan.”
And deep in my chest, beneath the fear and the anger and the need to protect what was mine, something settled into place.
They thought they had leverage.
What they didn’t know was that they’d just invited me all the way inside their operation.
And this time, I wasn’t walking in blind.
