Page 181 of The Clinch
The space breathes again.
Ray’s gaze is on me now, heavy and impossible to ignore.
“Tomorrow. You go near Liz before then, there’s no fight.”
Drake backs toward the door, swagger stitched back together just enough to walk on. He wants the room to believe this was his idea from the start. That he came here and got exactly what he wanted.
At the door, he stops and points at me with two fingers, lazy and ugly. “No excuses when the cameras roll.”
I look at him and say nothing.
That bothers him more than anything else I could have given him.
The door slams behind him.
Nobody in the gym moves. Then the space starts again in pieces. Someone mutters, “Jesus Christ.”
Ray waits until the noise returns before he looks at me fully.
“You sure?”
“No.”
I grab the towel off the bench and wipe the back of my neck.
“Call Jess. And legal.”
Ray’s already pulling out his phone.
43
THE COUNT (LIZ)
By the time Nate turns off Van Brunt and eases the SUV up to the curb, I’m vibrating so hard I can feel it in my teeth.
The block sits half dark, half sodium-orange, the kind of Red Hook industrial stretch that looks forgotten until you notice how many people are watching without seeming to. Tonight even the building feels braced.
Nate parks and kills the engine.
Nobody moves.
Then I tear off my seat belt so hard it snaps back against the pillar.
“Liz,” Eden says from the front seat.
I lean forward between the seats, fury already climbing my throat. “You do not get to ‘Liz’ me right now.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“You let me walk around all day while my ex-boyfriend and my ex-husband cooked up some entitled macho nonsense behind my back, and you thought that was information I didn’t need?”
“I found out last night. By accident.”
Nate interjects without turning. “That’s not what this is.”
I laugh once, sharp and joyless. “Good to know they’re not deciding which one of the deranged idiots gets to keep me.”
“No,” Nate says.
