“You think your money keeps the lights on, Damon?” Vic said, walking slowly toward the manager. “You think your little five grand a month buys you this gym?”
“It literally does,” Damon snapped. “Brad is the future. This gym is the past. And this woman just jeopardized a fifty-thousand-dollar purse because she wanted to play tough guy.”
Brad, sensing his manager's protection, finally found his nerve again. He stepped forward, rolling his injured shoulder, trying to look intimidating. “She used an illegal grip in sparring. She intentionally tried to injure me. I want her name, Vic. Now.”
Maya pulled the velcro tight on her left wrist. The harsh red of the wraps stood out like fresh blood against her pale skin and faded gray clothes.
She finally turned to face them.
“You don’t keep your chin tucked,” Maya said. Her voice cut through the room, quiet but carrying a strange, resonant authority that made the younger fighters in the back stand up straighter. “You plant your lead foot too heavy when you throw the cross. And you panic when you're on your back. If you fight in six weeks with that technique, the kid from Albuquerque is going to knock you out in the second round.”
Brad’s jaw dropped. “How the hell do you know who I’m fighting?”
“Because I know this sport,” Maya said, walking slowly toward the center of the room. “And I know you. You’re a bully. You beat up on the new kids to feel like a champion, but when someone actually pushes back, you break.”
“Listen to me, you miserable—” Damon started, stepping toward her, raising a hand as if to point in her face.
As Damon closed the distance, the harsh overhead fluorescent lights hit Maya’s face fully for the first time.
Damon stopped dead in his tracks. His pointed finger slowly lowered.
He looked at the small, crescent-shaped scar resting high on her left cheekbone, just under her eye. He looked at the deep, calm, utterly dead expression in her dark eyes. And then he looked down at the intricate, unique way the red cloth was woven between her fingers—a signature style known only to one specific Muay Thai camp in Bangkok.
A camp that had only ever produced one American champion.
Damon’s breath hitched in his throat. The blood rapidly drained from his face, leaving him looking like a ghost in an expensive suit.
“No,” Damon whispered, taking a half-step backward. “No, that’s impossible. You… you left. You’ve been gone for five years.”
“Who is she, Damon?” Brad demanded, annoyed by his manager’s sudden change in posture. “Just call the cops already so I can get back to training!”
Damon didn’t look at Brad. His eyes were locked in sheer terror on the small, quiet woman standing ten feet away from him. He swallowed hard, a bead of sweat breaking out on his forehead.
Ten years ago, before Damon was a slick manager, he was a low-level bookie taking bets on underground fights in Nevada. He remembered a night where he had bet everything he owned against a virtually unknown female fighter taking on a veteran twice her size. He remembered watching the unknown fighter systematically dismantle her opponent with a terrifying, emotionless precision that bordered on surgical.
He remembered losing his entire savings, and learning a name he never forgot.
“Damon?” Brad pushed, stepping up beside him. “What’s wrong with you?”