Page 88 of Mean Machine

“Do you think there will be a rematch?”

“Well, there’s been noise around it. Seemed he’s been telling the press he wants to fight me again, but my team hasn’t heard anything from him personally yet.” Which was possibly worrying. Maybe Thorne just put up a brave front for image’s sake and focused on getting over the last defeat before he stuck his head out again. After that beating, nobody could begrudge him some rest.

“He’s probably waiting for the best time to announce anything. Right now, people are talking much more about you than him, so he’s waiting his turn.” Em sounded calm and relaxed, always the steadier, more thoughtful of the brothers. “Did you want to talk to Rose?”

Was that a small teasing tone? “I’m happy to talk to you too. It’s not like you guys have secrets.”

“You’d think.” Em laughed. “I’ll hand you over.”

“Thanks, Em.” So wherever they were, they were in the same room. He waited for a moment, then, “Hey, Brook! What a fight! Now I’m pissed off that we missed it.”

“I’d have invited you to the afterparty, but I know you’re getting ready for your shot at me.”

Rose paused, maybe taken aback because their banter about it was getting more serious. They both knew they were now on collision course; if Rose wanted the titles, he’d likely have to take them from Brooklyn. Unless somebody got to Brooklyn first, that was, but there wasn’t much quality in the division—Brooklyn assumed people were already talking about that very fight he was dreading. “I’ll focus on Harrison first. Still earning my spurs. They might decide I don’t have the right to challenge you yet. I might have to go through Thorne first, but I’m not worried about him.”

“Maybe.” In the end, it would be boxing association politics, which could be messy, and then Cash and Santos coming to an agreement, and everything depended on Brooklyn getting cleared to fight again and Rose continuing his winning streak. Those were some ifs that meant the worst-case scenario just might not happen. “I likely won’t make it to Manchester, after all—there’s all kinds of offers here and negotiations that Cash figures I should be here for.”

“Don’t worry about it. You’re in the big leagues now. There will be plenty of fights after this one.”

“You’re not upset?”

“Nah.” Rose sounded quite happy and content, in fact. “I’m happy for you, brother. You deserve that time in the limelight. You’ve proven everybody wrong, and you’re saving heavyweight boxing single-handedly.”

“Well, maybe not quite that….”

“It was a great fight, though. Brutal. At times I thought it was up there with Hagler versus Hearns.”

“Wow, high praise.”

“Deserved.” Rose’s voice indicated he had to be grinning. “People are talking about it, and it gets people back into boxing. Mind you,someof us have decided to desert and do something else.” The intonation indicated who he was talking about.

“Not Em? What?”

“Yeah, he’s decided he’s had enough of boxing and is now training for MMA fights. Cage fights! Like a dog.” While it sounded like good-natured teasing, there was an edge of hurt in Rose’s voice—enough that Brooklyn winced.

“Why?”

“He said he never wants to fight me. Which is nonsense—I’ll never fight him, whatever they offer. He also says he wants to do his own thing. That’s… also nonsense. He’ll always be part of boxing, for as long as I fight.”

“That’s quite a surprise.”

“And financially it’s stupid. If you fight professionally, at least get paid properly for it. There’s no money in MMA.”

“Chances are, he’s not doing it for the money.”

“Yeah.” Rose sighed. “But he’s my brother. I’ll support him whatever he does. Even cage fighting.”

“Even that.” It was definitely the painkiller-spiked alcohol that made Brooklyn’s thoughts drift away and gave him the sense he was floating; less like nothing else mattered and a lot more like life was finally good. Of course he missed Nathaniel, but just the fact that that money thing no longer stood between them helped. Nathaniel had hemmed and hawed about the money—even weirdly seemed a little upset to get paid back in one go, in cash, as if Brooklyn would ever have accepted a gift of that size—but now that was resolved.

Financially, Brooklyn stood on his own two feet. Fuck, they’d rolled the whole crew into a bloody Rolex store in Manhattan and bought everybody a watch, to be engraved with “Team Mean Machine” and the date of the Thorne fight, all paid then and there. The sales lady likely thought they were a crew of British rappers or something, and Brooklyn hoped she’d earned a nice commission for being so helpful and unfazed.

“Well,” Rose said. “Enjoy New York. Let’s see that we can meet up sometime soon.”

“And Santos?”

“Well, we’ll have to do it in secret, then. That’s more fun anyway.”

“Sneaking out on your trainer? As if he won’t know where you’re going.”

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