Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
There was a last fight. It just wasn’t in the Ring.
It was in Dublin—in my old neighborhood, actually. But just when I thought the fight was over some asshole came at me with a crowbar. He was goin’ for the knee, but he got the foot because I was mid-kick. There was a moment there, when I was on the ground, when I thought, That’s it. It’s over now. You can let go, Eason. He brought that crowbar down on my foot three more times before Davis got him from behind and pulled him off me. Then, on one foot, I put that crowbar right between that man’s eyes and we left.
Actually, Davis and Wade had to carry me out. Which was a little embarrassing, but everyone but us was dead so I didn’t really care.
The foot though. What a fuckin’ mess it was. Couldn’t walk, not for months, even though I had surgery and they put it all back together with pins and plates.
These days the foot is doing much, much better.
It is. It really is.
“Well, Eason, some might say you’re trying to convince yourself that’s the case there, brother. But you’re still fuckin’ limping, aren’t ya?”
I got into the habit of talking to myself during recovery because I spent so much time alone. After I got out of hospital, I stayed in a private physical therapy resort in the Bahamas while Davis and Wade came to Miami to start a gym with the money we stole.
Which, again, had nothing to do with that last fight.
I didn’t really plan on making Miami home, it was just close by. And where the fuck else was I gonna go? Certainly wasn’t going back to Ireland.
Not after how I left it.
So. Here I am. Seven years later, still talking to myself, still dwelling on things I swear to God I’m not dwellin’ on, and I’ve still got no fuckin’ clue where the hell I’m goin’ in this life.
Maybe nowhere.
On that fateful day seven years ago we had a choice, Davis, Wade, and me. There was a fork in the road, so to speak. But for me, the damage was done. And that fork really only went one way.
They took everything from me. In a matter of hours, everything was gone.
Not a single fuckin’ reason to live.
And ya know what they say about men who’ve got nothing to lose?
Well, I don’t really know what they say, but I’m pretty sure it’s got something to do with zero fucks.
Davis owns two gyms. This one in South Beach, down the street from my penthouse, where I train—it’s a private gym meant for me alone—and another one across the bay where he sees actual clients.
He was my trainer when I was part of the Ring. Still is, I guess. Though there won’t be any more fights. I could make a name for myself in UFC, maybe. Even with the foot. But there are no Ring fights in my future, that’s for sure.
I have a sneaking feeling Davis only puts up with me these days because of the guilt.
Which he earned, so I’ve got no thoughts about that at all.
Wade was a paper-pusher. Still is. And ya might think he’s got no place with guys like Davis and me. But it turns out an accountant with access to your owner’s money comes in handy when said owner dies, and you’re all the way across the world—safe and out the way—and ya decide to steal billions of dollars from the Saudi royal family on your way out of a life of death-fight slavery.
Yeah. Wade really came in handy.
And that’s when shit got interesting, to say the least.
I don’t really understand why I’m still alive. But I don’t really care, either.
Zero fucks.
When I come into the gym Davis is in his office. I can see him through the glass. He’s on the phone, so I don’t bother him. I put my shit down in the locker room, then take myself and my wraps out to the training room, sit on a bench, and go through the routine.
It is a routine. Davis has been saying this for six months. “You’re just not invested anymore. The injury—all of it—has fucked you in the head. You need to retire, or go all in. Like Maart’s fighters.”
The cynical part of me understands that I’m his meal ticket. Davis has the other gym, and he runs all kinds of classes, but he’s teaching kids, and middle-aged men who think they can buy their way into a black belt, and wannabes who will never, ever make it.
He’s got no reputation in the real world. He’s got no winners to show off because, obviously, he can’t point to me and say, “Look at our boy Eason here. Been fighting death matches since he was nine. Three turns through the Ring. And I’m the one who taught him how to do that.”