Forty thousand people screaming, concrete vibrating underfoot, lights strobing across the cage as the announcer's voice rolls through the speakers. Lorelei is already on her feet in the front row, hands cupped around her mouth.

You've been listening to her talk about this fight for three weeks. Nonstop. Braden Parker this, Braden Parker that. Heavyweight champion. Undefeated in his last nine. Brutally efficient. Apparently her favorite person on earth to watch beat the shit out of somebody.

Braden Parker walks out of the tunnel.

He's enormous. That's the first thing. Not gym-muscle enormous—built enormous. Broad through the shoulders, thick through the chest, heavy arms covered in black-and-grey ink that climbs his neck and disappears under his walkout shirt. Narrow waist, powerful legs. He moves like he doesn't give a fuck who's watching.

His hair is dark and messy and falling into his face. It doesn't hide his eyes.

The overhead screens catch them—pale green, almost unnaturally light, cold, scanning the cage ahead of him with the flat, patient attention of somebody who's about to do something unpleasant.

Something about them pulls at you. Familiar in a way you can't place.

It's gone before you can chase it. The music's too loud, Lorelei's screaming too close to your ear, and Minnie's elbow is in your ribs. You forget about it.

The fight starts.

And Braden Parker is vicious.

Not wild. Controlled. His opponent—some brick-shithouse heavyweight with a longer reach—lands a clean right cross to Braden's jaw in the first minute. The crowd gasps. Braden's head snaps sideways. Then he turns back, and something in his face goes completely blank.

He comes forward. Doesn't stop coming forward. Every time the other man hits him, he gets closer. Every time he eats a body shot, he answers with two. Relentless. Ruthless. Fucking terrifying, honestly.

In the third round, Braden turns to circle away from the cage wall.

And for a half-second, the arena lights catch his chest beneath the sweat-soaked fabric of his shorts. His walkout shirt is long gone.

There's ink across his upper chest. Big black-and-grey work across his ribs and pecs—wolves, or skulls, or something jagged and unreadable at this angle.

Except one. Right over his left pec. Right over his heart.

The three of you look at the cage at the same time.

Braden's chest, sweat-slick and rising hard with each breath, under the raw white arena lights. Just above the black-and-grey work. A single name in clean, simple script.

Y/f/n.

Not initials. Not a nickname. Your full first name, permanently inked over the heavyweight champion's heart.

Lorelei's mouth is open.

And the hair falls back off his face and you see them clearly for the first time—pale green eyes, sharp cheekbones under a healed-scarred brow, blood on his mouth, knuckles split and shining red under the lights.

Thirteen years old. Bruises everywhere. Hair in his face. A bloody hand held out toward you, patient, waiting, while you dug stolen Band-Aids out of your pocket.

Your stomach drops.

Brady.

The fight ends before you can do anything with that.

Braden lands one final clean shot and the other heavyweight folds. The ref steps in. The crowd erupts. Braden stands in the center of the cage, chest heaving, blood dripping off his chin, and the referee raises his arm.

Slow. Casual. The way fighters do after a win—acknowledging the noise without really seeing anyone in it.

Lorelei. Then Minnie. Then you.

He stops.

Doesn't move. Doesn't blink. His arm is still up, the ref's hand wrapped around his wrist, and his eyes are locked on your face, brows drawing together like something about you is bothering him and he can't figure out what.

You barely feel your lips move.

Brady?

Braden goes completely still.

Wyatt—the tall, tattooed cornerman who's been pacing the edge of the cage all night—follows Braden's gaze to the front row. Then looks back at Braden's face.