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I warm up with a run, then strip down to my shorts, pull on my boots, tape up my hands, and hit the canvas to shadowbox myself into a steady sweat. Loosen my muscles. Get that thrust, jab, hook, and muscle memory underway.
Bouncing from foot to foot, my mind drifts to Kaya. To the fire. To the entire ordeal. And, fuck, I’m just not able to invoke the vision of her lighting it. Not with those manicured but effete nails. And for what purpose? Clay mentioned she was blackmailed, but I was too thrown to ask to what end, and by whom?
Who fucking blackmailed her?
“Your fists are open.”
My father’s voice carries severity, reaching me in the ring as he strides across the training room floor, the eyes of other boxers tracking him as he moves with a confident, powerful gait.
He’s a legend—TheLegend.
Luca—The Butcher—Butcher who remains undefeated in his weight class, so, of course, they gawk at him with boxer boners.
I lower my fists to my sides, my skin slick, glistening with beads of perspiration. Using my forearm, I wipe at the beads that track lines of sweat down my brows.
“From now on,” he adds, grabbing two blue rubber dumbbells from the gym floor, “you shadowbox with one in each fist. Keep your hands closed, my boy.”
He’s right.I hadn’t noticed, my mind on my scrapper and that fucker who forced her to do something she wouldn’t usually do. My forehead is tight, my teeth ache from being clenched, and I realise that I’m pissed about that. More pissed than is rational, given she’s practically a stranger.
Not a Butcher.
Not a priority.
That’s how it goes.
Dad places the blue bells on the canvas, and I unquestioningly retrieve them from the edge but observe him as he moves around with his back to me.
I haven’t seen him since the night I carried his heavy arse to the sofa. Since he murmured that he loves me. He’s usually in the gym with me each morning before dawn…
Frowning and uneasy, I still in the centre of the ring. I hadn’t expected to see him for a while, even prepared myself for his absence. Thought he’d leave the country, which is his usual way of dealing with sentiment too large to conclude in one afternoon.
I lift my chin at him. "How you doing, Dad?"
He busies himself, grabbing pads and rope for my next training set, not looking my way. "Back to it, my boy.”
"You just want to focus on this, then?”
"Onyou, se."
Righto.I nod, wipe my brow again, and continue to shadowbox a phantom opponent across the canvas, grasping the dumbbells in each controlled fist.
Working myself hard, steady jabs, ducks, I still keep my dad in my peripherals, unable to ignore that he’s here.
Jab. Jab.
Here,with me.
Jab. Jab.
Instead of trudging around Sicily, getting fucked or drunk or whatever it is that my old man does when he leaves us for months at a time. Used to, that is.
Jab. Jab.
I remind myself heusedto leave us behind, but he’s a changing man. He’d miss his grandchildren too much to be that version of himself again. Nevertheless, it must feel strange for him to be in the District while carrying all that grief and emotion. Like a Butcher, I say nothing more about it, because a Butcher man would rather die with his pride than live and show his vulnerabilities.
All Butcher men.
Except me.
