Page 57 of Her Unending Horizon

“There’s no official regulation, if that’s what you mean. No paper trail, no athletic commission, no emergency physician waiting in the back with a clipboard. You break something, you get it fixed on your own time. You get seen seeing a doc? That’s on you. But don’t think this is to the death or some such shit. That’s in the movies. But this is bare-knuckled brutality—that keeps the customers coming.”

Medical oversight: zero. Liability: one hundred.

I hated how interested I was. Hated the way part of my brain was already calculating how much cash we could use to pay down medical bills, maybe do IVF, fund Chloe’s manga printing without touching our savings.

Our.

I swallowed that down.

“Sounds like a great way for a guy to end up with a permanent limp,” I said. “Or worse.” He had one hell of a sales pitch, and I was tempted. Really fucking tempted.

“A guy who doesn’t know what he’s doing, sure,” Maurice said smoothly. “You’re not that guy.”

He said it like a fact, not a compliment.

“You’re a firefighter and an EMT,” he went on. “You know what your body can do and what it can’t. You know how to take a hit. You know when to tap instead of letting your shoulder explode on principle.”

I went very still.

“How do you know I’m a firefighter? An EMT?” I asked.

Maurice’s smile didn’t change, but there was a flicker in his eyes. “Small state,” he said. “You fight in gyms long enough, word gets around.”

“Word gets around that I ride a truck in Jasper Creek?” I asked.

He held my gaze for an extra beat, then lifted both hands, palms out. “Hey,” he said lightly. “I do my homework. That’s all. Gotta know who I’m talking to.”

Bullshit.

My skin prickled under my jacket. If he knew that much from “homework,” what else did he know?

Had he pulled my name from gym waivers and gone looking? Run my plates in some friend’s database? Followed me home from Cappy’s, seen the house, the neighborhood, the way I parked in the driveway alone.

“You’re a local,” he said, like he was making an observation about the weather. “Got roots. Family. That’s good. Means you’re not gonna do something stupid and blow up your own backyard just to make a little cash.”

The phrase scraped across a nerve.

You’ve got roots. Family.

Chloe hadn’t been living with me for months. She should’ve been out of the line of fire by default. But the rest? The Averys? My crew at the station? All the people who somehow counted as mine?

This guy didn’t have to know their names to hurt them. He just had to know they existed.

My jaw tightened. “You said something on the phone,” I said. “About guys like me. About knowing when we’re not done.”

He shrugged again, casual. “I’ve been in this business a long time. You get a feel for people. You can see it in their eyes when they’re hungry. When they’re fighting themselves harder than the man in front of them.”

“That’s all you meant?” I asked. “Or were you hinting at something else?”

He lowered his hands, folded them on the table, and leaned forward just slightly. The light flickered above us, buzzing.

“I’m not threatening you, Post,” he said, tone smooth. “You’re misunderstanding my meaning.”

I stared him down, heartbeat thudding slow and heavy in my chest.

Bullshit, my instincts said. Loud and clear.

Maurice let the silence stretch. Then he shifted, changing gears like he’d finished making his point and saw no need to belabor it.