Page 121 of Restless Hawke

Through the ringing, Isaac’s warning echoes through my head.

I don’t want him to be careful.

This is what I deserve, an ass beating to end all ass beatings.

And despite it all, even with as angry as he might be, I know Atlas and trust him. He will never use his full force against anyone who isn’t at his level—which means none of us. He may want to hurt me, but he won’thurtme.

Atlas bounces on his feet. “Come on, Coen.” He mumbles the words around his mouth guard, then gives up and spits it out. “Let’s go. It’s just you and me now.”

But it isn’t.

It’s not just the two of us in the ring.

It’sallof us.

Atlas is every one of the Hawkes I betrayed, everyone I lied to, who I’m still lying to since I haven’t told anyone but Bishop about the truth Allegra laid out for me.

Guilt claws at my chest as I push off the ropes and advance on him with renewed purpose.

He wants me to put up a fight, so I’ll at leasttry.

I throw out a combination, hoping to sneak one past his guard, but he’s too good, anticipating every move and easily blocking, only to land a blow to my shoulder and chest.

The pain renews my purpose—give him what he needs.

Pushing through it, I swing, dancing around him and looking for any opening. I somehow manage to land one to his shoulder, but in the process, I expose myself to a right uppercut that lands squarely in my rib cage.

Fuck.

Pain explodes.

All the air rushes from my lungs.

My vision goes completely black.

I double over, crumpling to my knees.

“Enough!”

Astrid’s voice cuts through the cloud of agony. Forcing my eyes open, I see her climb into the ring and put herself between me and her brother. She pushes on his sweat-slicked chest, his breaths heaving in and out of him as he glares at me.

“Atlas! Stop!”

He stares down at me. “If my new championship belt isn’t enough, maybe that proved to you that I’m not the fucking pussy you thought I was.”

I gasp for breath, struggling to get to my feet again, and swaying unsteadily. Isaac slides into the ring and wraps his arm around my waist, helping me stand.

Wincing at the icy-hot, shooting pain through my ribs, I shake my head. “You know…it…wasn’t…like that.”

Atlas’ eyes meet mine. “It was. You dug yourself into a hole, and you thought my weakness was your way out of it.”

That much is true.

But it isn’t that I doubted how good he is. It’s that I saw how much damage that bullet had done to him, how he wasn’t fully recovering. His struggles tore all of us apart, but in the end, it was too tempting a proposition. An easy way to get back to even.

Atlas rolls his shoulders and finally releases a long, heavy breath, as if he’s resigning himself to something. “But it’s over now…”

“What is?”