Chapter 2 Collateral

"Tear it up," Mara said.

The lawyer did not blink. Alan Pruitt held out a gold pen. "Miss Vance, page four of your own management agreement lets your father pledge your purses as loan security. The pledge is valid."

"Keep the pen," Mara said. "It's probably worth more than the gym."

He slid a printout across the bench. NOTICE OF SALE, it read, over her father's name. Monday, nine a.m. She had four days. Rourke leaned on the lockers behind him. Dante Kane stood by the door, watching her.

"There are also conditions about residence at Titan, the lien properties and a monitor," Pruitt said. "They are in section nine. The terms are written down. The eliminator is day sixty. Win it, and the belt fight is provisionally day eighty-five. Win both inside ninety days, and the pledge is void. Lose, and Titan keeps your purses for three years or until the debt is paid. The sale is suspended for the ninety days."

"That leaves five days of room after the belt fight," Mara said.

"Then nothing had better go wrong," Rourke said.

"Give me six months and my next three purses," Mara said. "I'll pay it down."

"No." Rourke did not look up from his phone. "Ninety days."

"Who is the eliminator against?"

"Valentina Cross," Pruitt said. "She is number one in the division. You are provisionally number five, because the commission updated the ratings this morning."

"I asked for the matchup," Rourke said. "Worry about Monday, not about her."

"I have a broken hand."

"Then heal fast."

Mara took out her phone. She called two promoters she knew. The first hung up when she said Titan. The second said, "Nobody will touch a Titan pledge, Mara. I'm sorry."

The third did not pick up. She put the phone away.

"He asked for you, you know," Rourke said. "Two weeks ago. Eight years that man would not say the name Vance. Then he picked you out of every fighter in the state."

Mara turned to Dante. "Why would you train a Vance?"

"Win first," Dante said. "Then ask." He did not look away.

She hated how calm he sounded.

"Tonight you may enter the Fulton Street gym, in writing, to collect your father's belongings," Pruitt said. "Sign or don't. The offer closes tonight."

She could walk out and lose the gym on Monday, or fight ninety days to keep it. The agreement ran forty-one pages. She read the part about ninety days. She signed with her left hand, because her right would not close. Rourke took the page and left without a word.

The gym on Fulton Street was dark at midnight. A red lien notice was taped across the glass door. Mara tore it off. Across the street, a car idled with its headlights off. She watched it for a minute. Nobody got out. She reached behind the loose brick by the frame, found the spare key where it had always been, and let herself in.

The gym smelled of leather and floor wax. Her father's chair stood by the ring with a towel still draped over one arm. She could almost hear him. Hit what you see. Photos covered the wall: her father at twenty, her father holding a belt. The one photo missing was the fight that ended him. He had never hung it.

She switched on the office lamp. Her father's reading glasses lay folded on the desk. The shelf behind it held his fight notebooks, thirty years of them, in his small handwriting. She did not open them. She switched the lamp off.

She went straight to the heavy bag. She hit it with her left hand until her knuckles bled and her shoulder burned. The chain groaned. Again. Again. Tears ran down her face and she hit harder, because crying was not allowed in this gym.

"Left hook's good," said a voice behind her. "Your feet are sloppy."

Mara spun and swung.

Dante caught her fist in his palm without moving his feet. His palm was wide and warm. She pulled her fist back, and the bag was still swinging.

"Your right hand is cracked," he said. "Fourth knuckle. You hid it for three rounds."

She yanked free. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Since the second hook."

She wiped her face with her sleeve. She hated that he had seen.

"Your back foot turns too early," Dante said. "Plant it before you throw."

"I didn't ask."

"Do it anyway."

She threw the hook again. Her back foot planted. The bag swung harder, and the chain rang. Dante nodded once and said nothing.

"You flinched every time you closed that hand," he said. "Your father taught you to hide pain. He never taught you to hide it from a coach."

"You are not my coach." Her voice shook. "You are the man who ended him. Get out of his gym."

"I'll go." Dante set a sealed gym bag on the bench. "This is yours. Get that hand X-rayed before training. My doctor, not Rourke's. Be at Titan at five."

"I'll pay for the X-ray myself."

"Titan covers it."

"Then I'll pay Titan back."

"Fine," Dante said.

"Why do you care?"

He did not answer. He looked at the wall behind the chair. His own face stared back from the faded poster, a red X slashed across it. Then he walked out into the dark.

When his footsteps faded, she crossed to the bench and tore the seal. Inside lay a pair of red gloves, cracked at the seams. The letters F.V. were stitched in white thread on each cuff.

They were the gloves her father wore for his last fight. She had searched the whole gym for them after the funeral. She held them against her chest. They smelled of liniment and old leather.

Something slid out of the left glove and landed on the floor. A folded piece of paper. She opened it. Her father's handwriting. Five words. The ink was blue. The V in Vance tilted the same way as on page twelve.

Trust the man who hit me.