Jameson knew he didn’t look like a fighter. He was the leanest of his brothers, his muscles sinewy, his limbs long. His default expression read as cocky. He looked like a privileged little prep school boy.
He didn’t move like a fighter, either.
In the ring, Jameson stripped off his jacket and shirt, and if the audience noticed any of his scars, if anyone had the foresight to wonder how he’d gotten them or how high his tolerance for pain was, they gave no indication of it.
All except for Rohan, who cocked his head to the side and assessed him anew.
Jameson slipped his shoes off, then bent to pull off his socks. Bare feet. Bare knuckles. Bare chest. He stood staring straight ahead as blood and sweat were mopped off the floor of the ring.
The house fighter across from him took a swig of water and shook his head. Little fool doesn’t stand a chance. The guy couldn’t have telegraphed the thought any more clearly.
Jameson didn’t let himself smile. Life’s a game. A familiar buzz of energy began to build inside him. And all you get to decide is if you’re going to play to win.
“You may begin.”
Jameson didn’t circle his opponent. He mirrored the man’s moves, anticipating each one with eerie accuracy, right down to the angle at which the guy held his head. Was mocking his opponent the smartest way to start a match?
Maybe not. But Jameson excelled at pissing people off, and he’d always been taught to play to his strengths.
He stopped mimicking the moment the house fighter threw his first punch and switched to dodging instead. The more times the guy tasted air, the angrier he got. Jameson slid into the white space on the man’s weak side. Another punch came, thrown harder than the rest.
Hard enough to leave his opponent off balance.
When you see your moment, the old man’s voice whispered all around him, you take it.
Jameson did. He spun, then went airborne, driving the lower part of his shin into the side of his opponent’s head.
The house fighter went down and stayed down. Jameson straightened. He turned back to the crowd and hopped up to balance on one of the posts that held the ropes. “Looks like we have a winner,” he said, preempting Rohan’s line. “Do we have a challenger?”
Looking out at the crowd, his gaze found Avery’s immediately. Behind her and to the left, making a concerted effort to blend into the crowd, was a man with slicked-back white hair. Gone was the salt-and-pepper beard, but he still held the cane.
The moment Jameson’s eyes met his, the Proprietor stopped trying to blend. He hit his cane against the ground three times, hard.
I’ve got your attention now, Jameson thought. He stayed on the post, perfectly balanced, not even winded, as the crowd went silent. The Proprietor offered pointed applause. One thundering clap. Two. Three. And then he lifted his cane and angled the platinum handle toward the ring.
“Rohan,” the Proprietor said pleasantly. “If you please?”
Jameson looked to the Devil’s Mercy’s number two. The expression on Rohan’s face was impossible to read as he slipped off his black tuxedo jacket and began unbuttoning the rest of his shirt.
Jameson jumped back down into the ring, and as he did, he caught the look in the Proprietor’s eyes and thought suddenly of his grandfather, of all the times he’d thought he’d earned the old man’s approval and realized, almost too late, that what he’d earned was another lesson.
