Chapter 3 Five A.M.

At 4:59 A.M., Mara locked her bag and her father's gloves in Locker 14 and walked into a gym that was already awake.

Forty fighters. Eight rings. Dante Kane stood in the middle with a stopwatch, his shirt already damp from an earlier workout.

"You're a minute early," he said.

"I'm not late."

Dante did not look surprised.

"Good. Dr. Ames takes your X-ray first. Then jump rope. Left hand only. Thirty minutes."

Dr. Ames was a quiet man with a bad knee. He held the film to the light. "Who told you to fight on this?"

"Nobody."

"Then nobody tells you to fight on it again." Hairline fracture, no displacement. Three weeks to heal. No punching with the right.

Dante watched her rope work and said only, "Wrists." Mara had jumped rope for twenty minutes when a woman in a Titan jacket stopped beside her and began to slow clap.

"Look at that," said Valentina Cross. Mid-twenties, braids pulled tight, a gold 1 on the back of her jacket. "The debt girl is learning to skip."

"Valentina," Dante said. A warning.

"Rourke called me last night. Me against you, day sixty." Her voice was steady, but she was breathing hard. "Six years with you, Coach, and every year it was next year. Four of them winning, and Rourke promised me the next shot at Delgado. Now I fight a girl with one win to keep what I already earned. I am not giving it to someone who cannot close her hand."

"I said you were close, Val," Dante said. "I never said next year. And I didn't pick this."

"I heard what I heard." Valentina turned to Mara and smiled with all her teeth. "Spar me."

"No," Dante said.

"Is she afraid?"

Mara looked at Dante, who was shaking his head. Then she looked at the gym watching her. If she said no, she would lose them before the fight even began.

"I'll spar."

Her wrapped right hand stayed tucked against her ribs. Dante exhaled. "Two rounds. Left jab and head movement only. Your right stays behind your chin. When I say stop, you stop."

The bell rang. Valentina jabbed twice, slid left, and cracked a hook into Mara's ribs. Mara tasted blood. Valentina fought with her chin tucked and her elbows tight. Mara watched her feet. Valentina shifted her weight before every hook. She recognized the movement and still failed to react, because she was angry. Mara landed one jab in round one. It was the only thing that landed.

"Feet, Vance!" Dante called from the ropes.

"You're slow, debt girl," Valentina said.

Round two. Valentina stopped playing. She trapped Mara's right glove, twisted it, and slammed a short hook straight onto the cracked knuckle.

Pain shot up Mara's arm to the shoulder. She dropped to one knee, eyes watering.

"Oops," Valentina whispered.

Mara came up swinging. A left hook caught Valentina's mouth, and blood hit the canvas. The fighters around the ring shouted.

"ENOUGH!"

Dante was between them in one stride, one hand on Valentina's chest, the other on Mara's shoulder. His face was still. His voice, when it came, was low and hard.

"Out," he told Valentina. "That grab was illegal and you know it. Jabs only. You're out of sparring for a week. I'm filing a report with the commission."

"You're going to report me?"

"Yes."

She went, wiping blood from her lip. Rourke watched from the balcony with his tablet and typed something.

Mara shook him off. "You let her do that."

"I stopped it."

"After!"

"I could have taken her."

"You could have broken your hand. You fight angry," he said. "She knew you'd swing. She wanted you to. Office. Now." He was already walking.

In the office, Dr. Ames's report lay on the desk. Dante knelt in front of her and began to unwind her wrap. "Here is the plan. Weeks one to three, legs, left hand, defense, head movement. Week four, if the doctor clears the bone, the right hand does light work. Full power waits until week six. That leaves two weeks to build it back before you fight."

"And if the commission doctor says no?"

"Then you don't fight. I won't send you in broken."

"Why did Rourke book it for day sixty?"

"Because he wants you to fail."

He pressed once on the swollen knuckle, and she hissed.

"Breathe," he said.

She froze. That was her father's word.

"Don't say it like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you knew him."

"I knew him."

"You met him once. In a ring."

Dante said nothing. He wrapped the tape, one slow loop at a time, his thumb brushing her knuckles with every pass. She hated that her body didn't care who he was.

"Why did you sit in my corner?" she asked.

"Because it was empty."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one you get today."

He tied off the tape and held her hand a second too long. Their eyes met. Close enough to see the gray in his dark eyes. She should have looked away. She didn't.

"Your pulse is racing," he said quietly.

"Because I hate you."

"I know." He almost smiled. "Hate me all you want. Just don't swing with it."

Mara pulled her hand away so hard the chair rocked.

She went straight to the locker room. Locker 14 hung open a few inches. The latch had not been forced. Whoever did this had a key. She checked the hallway. It was empty.

Her gym bag was on the bench with her father's red gloves on top of it. She picked them up. Both palms had been sliced open, clean, from thumb to cuff. White stuffing spilled out. A strip of paper was tucked into the cut. Block letters:

QUIT BEFORE THE NEXT CUT IS YOUR HAND.

She thought of the car across from her father's gym. Someone had planned this.

Somebody in this gym had walked into her locker. They knew exactly what those gloves meant.