Page 80 of Ignite

“You didn’t tell me it’s Keller Russo, though. Did you? You never seen him fight? I brawl, he punches to kill. I’m about to have my head knocked clean off my shoulders.”

Finn laughs beside me and I turn to face him.

“I can’t stitch that back on. Neither can Hallie,” Finn replies with a straight face.

Great.

As Keller approaches with an outstretched hand, another beast walks through the doors, followed by a curly haired guy that looks like he’s ready to run at me with a right hook.

“Honor to meet you, Keller.”

I shake his hand, and I swear to God it feels like my bones are crunching from his grip.

What a dream. Wait. Am I fangirling my idol?

“I’ve heard a lot about you, Conan. I’ve had Grayson here knock me into shape to fight you. Can’t have you caving my skull in. I got a lot of kids to get home to.”

There it is.

I might faint.

Keller fucking Russo thinks I can KO him.

“We aren’t underground anymore. No one dies in the ring,” the blonde one cuts in and holds out his hand for me to shake.

“I’m Grayson. I’m here to kick your ass until you’re fight ready. And this here is Jax. If you can keep up with him and take Keller's blows, you’ll be unbeatable.”

A smirk creeps up on my lips. Now it’s clicking into place.

“The King of Chaos? We’ve met before, right?” I ask him.

How didn’t I realize? I was probably too busy trying not to get shot in Russia.

“Yeah. We didn’t really have time to catch up, though.”

He clicks his tongue piercing against his teeth and cracks his knuckles.

Now isn’t the time to talk about our recent Russian mission to save Declan’s wife and kid.

From what I’ve heard, Jax is similar to me. He can switch to become a killing machine in the ring.

“So we’ve got three days?” Grayson asks.

“Yep.”

“And why did your last trainer quit? Declan was a bit sparse on the details.”

I scratch my head.

“I might have knocked him the fuck out.”

Jax sniggers and Grayson turns to Keller.

“You’re up first with him,” he tells Keller, who simply shrugs, unbothered.

“We’re doing boxing rules only first. That’s why we’re here. Your opponent is first and foremost a skilled boxer. The other parts, we know you got that down. We need to make sure if this asshole starts pulling professional boxing moves, you can handle it and return it.”

“Sounds good. I used to primarily just box as a kid. It’s not until I got older that I thought the cage was less rules, more kicking, so I went to that.”

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