Page 15

AJ

I had two options. Walk away from Raven and live a boring life in Japan, or show this country exactly what a real champion fighter looked like.

And I had never been one to miss an opportunity to take some smug bastard down a peg or two. And looking at Kaito, the guy who ran this whole show, I thought he could be humbled.

I cracked my neck and rolled my shoulders. I hadn’t expected to fight tonight, but I already felt the adrenaline pumping its way through my veins. It’d been too long since I’d had an actual fight.

I twisted my torso and stretched my back muscles as Kaito walked over to her.

She faced him, her arms folded in front of her body. “We need some additional time for my substitute fighter to warm up.”

Kaito’s eyes narrowed as his sneer grew. “Not happening. We have an agreed-upon time for this match to begin. Either your substitute is in the ring in two minutes or you forfeit. If he needs to warm up so badly, he can do it in the ring.”

“That’s not fair. You know that,” Raven said.

She was holding herself back from saying more. I could tell she wanted to lay into him. But seeing as how this guy was always surrounded by bodyguards, I got why she didn’t.

She glanced back at me, and I barely shook my head in acknowledgment. I kept my eyes on him, but the bastard never looked in my direction. He kept his dark, deadly eyes on her. I figured fucking with her mind was a favorite pastime of his.

“Fine,” Raven finally said as she turned to him again.

He walked away, laughing to himself, and I stepped up next to her.

“Don’t worry about it, baby girl. I don’t need to warm up to be on my A game. Just enjoy the show, and I’ll see you after I win,” I said as I stretched my arms in either direction before I walked over to the ring.

I stood by the doors on one side, where someone gestured for me to wait. I watched as the announcer, who had talked to Raven earlier, stepped out into the center of the ring with a mic, and the music level lowered.

He spoke loudly in Japanese, but I figured out what he was saying, more or less. It was his job to hype up the crowd leading up to a fight. And I only needed to listen for him to say one word. My name.

I watched as Raven walked up into the box with him .

She took a seat on his left side, and her eyes locked with mine.

I gave her a nod, smirking under my mask.

I wasn’t nervous about this fight. I was used to people trying underhanded methods to win since the first year I’d stepped into an arena. This was no different.

Then the announcer pointed at the doors opposite of mine and shouted a name. “Kaaanjirooou!”

And the gate swung open, and the fighter, whose name was Kanjirou, stepped into the ring. He stretched his arms out at the crowd and did a slow circle as the room lit up with cheers and whistles. Then he stopped and bowed at Kaito.

And I felt all eyes turn in my direction as the announcer pointed at my doors.

“Heroooo!” he shouted, and my gate opened as well.

That wasn’t the name I’d expected her to give, but, hell, whatever worked.

I lazily strolled out into the ring and chuckled as I heard the overwhelming boos. I always loved being an underdog. The victory felt extra good when I took it from someone who didn’t deserve it.

The crowd quieted as the announcer held his hand in the air. He beckoned the both of us to the middle of the ring.

Kanjirou bowed at me, his smirk large on his face. He was a cocky one. I nodded in reply, and the announcer stuck his arm out between us. I got into position as his eyes flicked between the two of us.

Suddenly, he shouted, “Begin!” and jumped out of the way, running toward the edge of the ring.

Kanjirou lunged at me, throwing a right hook with a fuck ton of force behind it. I sidestepped it easily enough, feeling the air whip past my cheek. He didn’t stop, following up with a left kick, then another jab. I dodged them all, slipping out of reach each time.

My body was starting to remember how it felt to fight—my feet light and my breath steady as I put some distance between us. I circled him, bouncing from foot to foot, feeling my blood pound through my veins, my muscles loosening.

Kanjirou smirked at me. “What are you doing, gaijin ? Are you scared?”

I looked past him and right into the eyes of Kaito, speaking to him instead of the man in front of me.

“Nah, just warming up,” I said with a chuckle as I rolled my shoulders in circles and cracked my knuckles.

“Oh, you think you’re a funny guy, huh, American?” Kanjirou snapped at me. He began to move and closed in on me. “Then laugh at this!”

He swung a wild haymaker that could’ve taken my head off if I hadn’t seen it coming from a mile away. The guy wasn’t the fastest. I ducked, letting his fist sail over my back, then stretched out my leg, tripping Kanjirou in the process.

He collided with the ground, and the crowd gasped and booed. I chuckled and glanced at Raven, giving her a wink as I heard him get back on his feet behind me.

I pivoted as he swung again, narrowly missing this hit, but the frustration building on his face was worth it. Every time he tried to hit me, I wasn’t there. The crowd began to notice, murmurs rising through the ring. I wasn’t throwing punches back—I was making a statement.

Kanjirou’s frustration hit a peak. He started coming at me harder, punching and kicking back-to-back in a barrage of blows, but it didn’t matter.

He was big, strong, but slow. His movements were more predictable than I’d anticipated, but the guy had a rhythm to his style, a punch, followed by a kick and three more punches. Then, rinse and repeat.

Before I knew it, the announcer hit a bell, and the round ended. I hadn’t even realized they did rounds here.

We had gone ten minutes without him landing a single blow on me. His breaths were heavy, his last few swings were sluggish even. Meanwhile, I was fresh, all warmed up and bouncing on my toes like I’d just stepped into the ring.

He took a drink from the guys standing by the doors he’d entered in, but I walked right up to the edge of the ring next to Raven, determined to rub it in a little more.

“You’re unbelievable, you know that?” she said in a hushed tone to me.

I placed an arm on the ring’s edge and looked up at her, my smirk growing. “Think I’ve had enough time to warm up now, don’t you?” I asked her.

I knew I was pouring out arrogance, and I could see from the corner of my eyes, Kaito was attempting to remain unbothered in appearance. But his eyebrow twitched at my words.

Raven stifled a smile but nodded. “Yes, that should do it.”

“Hang tight. I’ll be sure to finish this up soon,” I said as I pushed off the wall and made my way back to the center of the ring, where the announcer stood waiting.

Kanjirou took another drink and then walked over as well. Man was dripping sweat. He was angrier, his fists clenched. I could see it in his eyes—he knew he’d been made a fool of in round one. He was going to try his best to not let it happen again.

This time, when the ref dropped his hand and jumped out of the way, I let him hit me.

First blow, that’s all I gave my opponents. But damn, his fist smashed into my ribs like a damn sledge hammer, knocking the breath from my lungs for a moment. A solid hit. The crowd roared around us, thinking their favorite would win now that he’d landed a blow. Thinking that the tides had turned.

It hadn’t.

That was the only hit I was giving him. I decided that as soon as I saw the smirk on Kaito’s face as he turned and said something to Raven that made her entire body stiffen.

I stepped in fast, before he could even retract his fist fully, and cracked him with a clean left hook to the ribs, the same spot he’d hit me.

His body jerked sideways, and I didn’t give him time to recover.

I followed up with a right jab to the jaw, catching it just enough to make a nice snap sound.

He stumbled back, trying to regain his composure.

I pressed him, feinting left, making him raise his guard high, then slammed a brutal knee blow to his ribs again. He grunted, his stance breaking for a second. But that was all I needed. I grabbed the back of his head and brought my knee back up into his stomach a second time.

He choked, but before he could stumble, I shoved him back and came in with a one-two combo—right hook, left cross. His head snapped to the side, sweat and spit flying in the air, his knees buckled.

He was breaking, his body folding under the pressure. He rubbed his midsection before he swung again, a desperate look in his eyes. I saw the glint of metal barely in time to step aside instead of blocking it. I grabbed his wrist and spun, tossing him over my shoulder and onto the ground.

He groaned, and I knew he wasn’t done, but I saw the thin metal rod with a pointed tip on the ground near me and I kicked it off to the side.

Dirty it right. Should’ve brought my brass.

He had staggered to his feet while I’d removed his weapon from an easily accessible location. He shook his head, probably trying to clear the stars he was seeing.

I chuckled as he came at me again. I dodged his jab and swung my counter—a vicious uppercut straight to his chin.

His jaw clacked shut, and he flew backward, barely remaining on his feet.

But I didn’t want to take the chance he’d recover fully, so I pivoted and delivered a final blow to his temple, which sent him reeling to the side.

He fell like a sack of potatoes. His body was limp before he even hit the ground.

This guy wasn’t a champion; he was a fraud and a cheat.

The crowd was silent as he lay still.

The ref ran over and checked on him. He stood up and extended his hand to me.

“Winner, Heroooo!” he shouted.

The crowd erupted around me. I thought it would be mostly boos, but those came from the seats at the end of the area, where a certain yakuza sat. I could feel his hated glare from here.

But I didn’t give a single fuck.

I had stepped into the ring and won. I still had it. And now that I’d found this spark in Japan, I had to decide if I wanted to stay in it.

I was swarmed by people as soon as I exited the ring. Most of them offered me a more enticing offer than the last. Interesting how fast the tides could turn when you walked out of a ring as a champion.

“I will pay you double what you make right now fighting for her.”

“A fighter of your caliber should be aligned with a dojo that has the prestige to match your skills, not the dojo you fought for tonight. That woman’s dojo has fallen into destitution.”

“I’ll pay you triple whatever he just offered you.”

“I can make you a star here in Japan.”

I stopped to search the crowd for Raven, and I saw her across the room, but she wasn’t alone. Kaito was talking to her, and she looked uncomfortable.

And one thing was for damn sure: I wasn’t going to let some pretentious prick who was a sore loser go and pick on a woman because he wasn’t man enough to speak to me himself.

“I fight for no one but myself,” I said to the surrounding men, hoping they’d get a fucking clue and back off.

But instead, they only grew more insistent. One literally even shoved a stack of cash in front of my face.

“Fuck off!” I shouted as I glared at the men around me, and they immediately shut up.

I pushed past them and stalked over to where she was, coming to a stop right behind her shoulder.

The man narrowed his eyes at me as I interrupted them.

“You good?” I asked Raven as I stared at him.

She turned her attention to me, and her eyes went wide.

But before she could speak, the two bodyguards on either side of the man she was in a confrontation with made to step forward.

“Try it. I could go for another fight,” I growled at them.

Kaito held up his hand, and they stopped in their tracks. Looking at him to see what his next command was.

“Let’s not escalate this beyond what it needs to be tonight,” Kaito said as he smirked at me.

It’s men like this that could really use a crossover to the nose. Too bad we aren’t alone, or I’d be happy to smack some sense into him.

I wasn’t about to back down. I didn’t give a fuck who this guy was. Besides, Raven said she needed someone to be her rock tonight. Well then, call me a boulder because I wasn’t moving.