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It’s not my best punch. My arm isn’t straight, my center of gravity is all off, and when my knuckles slam into Sy’s jaw, he looks deeply disappointed.

“What the fuck?” He drops his stance, deflating. “Lavinia, that punch was embarrassing. Your posture’s all wrong, you’re dropping your shoulder, and your elbow is a fifth-grader’s geometry drawing of an obtuse angle.”

I scowl, dropping my own stance. “Don’t train me while I’m fighting you!”

He leans to look over my shoulder, sniping at his brother, “What did you even train her to do, Nick?! Because I taught her to throw a punch forever ago. It’s like youun-trained her to?—”

His words clip off when my second punch—a flawless uppercut—slams into his chin, snapping his head back. The satisfaction I feel when he staggers a step back swells proudly in my chest.

Just like Nick and I planned.

Behind me, Nick applauds, whistling. “Atta girl, LB! Fucking perfect!”

Sy blinks, eying me with a glint of disbelief. “He taught you to trick me into thinking you were bad?” He seems to composehimself, gathering that stoniness back into his eyes as he regains his stance, shaking off the punch. “Fine. You wanna play dirty? Let’s go.”

But despite the words—the way he’s watching me suspiciously as we circle one another—I still see the flash of pride on his face.

Nick and I decided long ago that I’d only get one chance for that play, and we were right. Sy is on high alert now, dodging my third punch, and then swooping away from my kick. I know the crowd is there, cheering and shouting, but I block it out. The whole world is narrowed down to the three-hundred square feet of the ring and the man within it.

The first punch he throws is easily dodged, and I send him a glare. “You’re holding back.” His eyes drop to my body, and I square my shoulders. “Yeah, you’re at least three times my size. But I’ve been around the gym and DKS for a long time now, so there’s something I know.”

Nick was wrong about one thing.

First blood or not, Sy’s not afraid to let me get close. “What’s that?”

I push my whisper, feather-light and moist, into the shell of his ear. “Size isn’t what matters, baby.”

I feel his shudder more than I see it. Against my chest. Across my skin with his sharp inhale. And mostly on the tip of my forefinger, which I use to aim a hard flick right into his balls.

Immediately, Sy reaches down to protect his groin, bending over.

“It’s instinct, Little Bird. A man’s whole body reacts to a threat against his assets, whether he wants to or not. Use it.”

As Sy doubles over, I take that flash of moment to bring my knee upward, slamming it into his chest. Behind me, the crowd pulls in a collective gasp, but to my annoyance, Sy hardly seems fazed, bouncing back to arch an eyebrow at me.

“The balls? Really?”

“There were no rules against going below the belt,” I reply, regaining my footing.

“I know.” Sy swipes another punch, but I duck around it easily. “I just didn’t figure you to be so cliche.”

Behind me, I hear Nick’s sharp, swooping whistle.

A signal that it’s time for phase three.

Thefury.

I lunge forward, striking out and landing a hit to his cheek. It’s not a hard hit because that’s not the point of ‘the fury’. The point is the relentlessness of spirit, feinting backward only to strike out again. And again. And again.

Sy dodges most of these, his blue eyes tracking my every movement, but I meant what I said before. Size isn’t everything. He’s big, but that makes him slow. I’m small, but that makes me fast.

I dodge out of an attempted hold just to lay a barrage of hits into his stomach.

Naturally, it barely fazes him.

But he’s on alert now. Tracking. Calculating. Every time I swoop in for another swipe, I can see the wheels turning in his head, wondering if he should dodge it or take it. They’re not hard enough to draw blood, but they also don’t stop. He has to take a hit to draw back his fist for his own move.

I begin to sense when he decides to take one rather than evade it.