Page 50 of Mean Machine

“I’m not making that decision. Take it to ISU. If he does end up fighting Thorne, I’ll get him ready. But make sure his insurance premium’s paid. Because there’s a big risk that Thorne will fuck him up.”

“Can we get him ready in four months?”

Les looked Brooklyn up and down. “Make it four and a half. The man just broke his hands.”

“Gotcha.” Cash slapped Brooklyn on the shoulder as if he didn’t realise Brooklyn was now a pariah.

Brooklyn couldn’t bring himself to smile or banter. He focused on the bag.

“What’s wrong with Brook?”

“He’ll get back into it.” Les stepped closer to him, and Brooklyn lost his rhythm on the bag. “His high-society lover has dropped that silly lawsuit. Seems Nathaniel Bishop either played Brook or his so-called evidence is too thin.” Les sneered. He stepped away from the bag and closer to Brooklyn. “No easy way out for you.”

Cash winced. “Why’s that?”

“He wouldn’t do that.” Brooklyn knew immediately that had been a mistake. He’d been baited, lured, and now he’d receive the killing blow. Les had tried for weeks to get a rise out of him, but Brooklyn had never given him an opening, not out of self-preservation but because he had no emotions left that could be exploited. This, though, went against everything he knew about Nathaniel—he’d never seemed like a man who’d go off half-cocked, making promises he couldn’t keep.

It can be done. And if it can be done, I can do it.

Yes, he’d said it could be months or even years, but it was unlike Nathaniel to simply give up. He probably should have looked away sooner, broken eye contact with Les, returned to his focus on his bag work.

“Nathaniel Bishop is one of your shareholders, Brooklyn. He owns twenty-five percent of you, and we know which parts he’s been using.”

Nathaniel had said as much, but the spite in Les’s voice said Les didn’t know that. But Brooklyn couldn’t feel relief about that. The most alarming thing was how flat his emotions were. He should feel more than a hollow ache; maybe despair, rage, indignation—all of those feelings would be better than that emptiness.

The facts spoke for themselves. Nathaniel was gone. Maybe that was all Brooklyn had been—an investment, some fun, and a fool’s errand. Maybe Nathaniel had decided he wasn’t worth the effort, or that he was an uncontrollable killer who should never be set free again. And he had a point, hadn’t he?

NOT BEINGallowed anywhere near the media had its advantages. Brooklyn assumed people were going crazy over the fight, but none of that reached him, locked away in the gym for those four and a half months.

They didn’t beat him, not while he was training. Casual brutality was just icing on the cake. Curtis, the coward, didn’t give him any chance to lash out.

He’d go out there and throw the fight. Even if that meant being the whipping boy, even if that meant using all his strength to keep Thorne fit. Rose had been too proud, but Rose wasn’t in his situation. He missed the Cubans, but he knew he was on his own. All he had to do now was face the world champion and play tomato can.

Cash touched him on the shoulder.

Brooklyn nodded and stepped off the exercise bike, stretched out, and tapped his gloves together. “Let’s go.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Like a man about to get hit a lot.” Brooklyn huffed.

Cash laughed. “It’s good to see some of the old Brook again.” He patted his arm, but Brooklyn didn’t comment. He wasn’t sure himself what the “old Brook” was. Or who. All he had was grim determination to get through this.

He stepped into the hall and the flashing lights, blinked against the cheering people waving Union and St George’s flags—worse than a royal wedding. People screamed and shouted, and he made out the occasional word. His name.

Near the ring, twenty or thirty women and a few men shouted his name at the top of their lungs, repeating it over and over. He was glad Cash was guiding him. His vision blurred with tears. Hardly the entrance of the bad boy, the killer, and he bit his lips to guard his face. Something about crowds scared him, yet still transferred so much energy to him he felt like he was about to burst. Like he couldn’t possibly contain it all.

He focused on his fight song—“One on One”—and kissed his gloves, briefly, a gesture for those in the hall who supported him, despite everything they’d read or thought they knew about him.

He climbed into the ring, and Cash, poor old Cash, who struggled so hard with his bad hip to follow him inside, took his robe off. Les was already in his corner, alongside various hangers-on. Brooklyn ignored them.

Then a big electric guitar riff ripped through the hall, and Dragan Thorne’s trademark air sirens howled. The part of the audience that had been booing Brooklyn now jumped to their feet and cheered their hero. The sirens blared out, and a thick rapper voice sang, “Fight like a man, or die like a dog.”

Brooklyn listened to the first verse—while the music was always the same, Thorne actually paid that rapper to write new lyrics for every one of his fights.

In its own way, a stroke of genius. Like being dissed by the entire hall while Thorne marched into the ring, now even larger than life.

When the robe came off, Brooklyn stared at a mass of glistening muscle. Three inches taller than him, Thorne had weighed in at just twenty pounds heavier—the man was cut to the basics, which was always an impressive display.

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