Page 72 of Risk

“Is he still in prison? In Canada, I’m guessing?” Since that’s where Kaden is from.

“Yeah. But he got life with the possibility of parole.” A bitter laugh leaves him.

I don’t know what the Canadian laws are or how long someone must serve before being considered for parole. I make a mental note to look it up.

“How old were you when it happened?”

“Eight.”

My eyes briefly close at the painful ache I feel in my chest. Old enough to know what was happening.

“He murdered her in front of me.”

Jesus, fuck.

“And I did nothing to help her.”

“You were eight.”

“I was big for my age.”

“Kaden, you were just a child.”

“That’s where I get my size from—him.” He continues like I didn’t even speak, “He was a big motherfucker. Six-four, like I am. My mom was tiny. Five-two and a hundred pounds, soaking wet. She was so small. I knew he’d kill her one day. I remember times when she used to sit so still, like she was trying to disappear into the chair she was sitting in.

“You know, he beat her once because the phone rang during dinner. A phone call that was for him—probably one of the whores he used to cheat on her with—and because she got up to answer it during dinner, she got a broken arm in return.”

I’m used to schooling my features, but it’s impossible to do so now. Not when I’m hearing this come from him. He says it so matter-of-factly, but with so much hurt and anger in his voice that it’s making me ache.

“Kaden—”

But he’s not done.

“That’s who you’re living with. Who you’re having children with. The son of an abuser and murderer.” He removes his cap, tossing it onto the counter between us, and stares into my eyes. His are swimming with so many emotions that it’s hard to pin a single one down. “Do you know why I became a boxer?”

I have an idea what he’s going to say, but I shake my head and softly say, “No.”

“Because I was an angry kid. I was in fights all the time. Even before everything happened.”

“It’s understandable.”

“But not excusable.”

He stares at me like he’s challenging me to disagree with him. In any other instance, I would, but right now, there’s nothing I can say that will make him think differently.

When I don’t say anything, just hold his eyes, hoping I’m showing care and love in mine, he continues, “As I got older, the fights got worse. I was picking fights with more than one kid at a time. One-on-ones had become boring, too easy, because I was bigger than most kids, even the kids older than me. Then, after one particularly bad fight, I was arrested—I’d beaten up a cop’s kid. Not my smartest moment.” He does that laugh, the self-deprecating one I don’t like.

“I was heading for juvie, but I guess the judge saw something in me—that, or she felt sorry for me. Her dad used to be a professional boxer in his younger days, and after his career ended, he opened a gym to train other fighters. She gave me community service there. For two fucking hundred hours, I wasthere to clean and basically be her dad’s bitch. Her parting words to me were that I needed an outlet for my anger, and a punching bag was a better place to put my fists than in someone else’s face. Her dad turned out to be Henry Duval.”

I know who he is. Everyone knows who he is. He was one of the best boxers our country had seen, and then he retired and became a trainer. He used to be Kaden’s trainer, but he died of a heart attack—two years before the fight Kaden had with my brother. The one that almost ended his life.

Everyone has always said if Henry had been there, it wouldn’t have happened. He would have called time on the fight. Which was what his manager at the time and the corrupt fucking officials should have done.

“He took all that anger inside of me and turned me into a fighter—in the right sense.”

“I didn’t know him, but Zeus has always said he was a good man. One of the best in the business.”

“He was.”

---