Page 187 of The Clinch
Ray is between us before Drake can slide all the way down.
“That’s enough.”
Drake tries to push off the ropes, stubbornness still twitching where sense should be, and nearly goes over again.
The guy in his corner fumbles forward with the towel, too slow, too uncertain. I glance once at Mickey. “Go check him.”
Mickey is through the ropes before the sentence finishes.
Ray plants a hand against my chest. “Back off.”
I do.
Because it’s done.
Mickey drops to Drake’s side with a towel and gauze, already talking to him in the clipped, impersonal tone of a man who has seen worse and doesn’t care about pride.
“Look at me. Stay with me. Open.”
Drake shrugs him off. It lasts about half a second.
Then the pain catches up with him, and he folds over the towel, blood on his mouth, one glove braced uselessly against his thigh.
Good.
Not because I enjoy looking at him broken.
Because I need him to understand, in the only language he respects, that this is over.
Ray stays in front of me until he’s sure I’m not going back in. Then he lowers his arm and gives me one hard look. “You done?”
“Yes.”
He searches my face, making sure I mean it.
Across the ring, Jessica steps away from the tripod and checks her phone. Her voice is level, almost bored, which is exactly why it cuts.
“We’ve got everything. Admissions on camera. Threats. Refusal to leave her alone. Illegal takedown attempt in a boxing ring. More than enough.”
Drake lets out a wet laugh against the towel. “You think this is gonna?—”
“Don’t.” She doesn’t even look at him. The single word lands with more contempt than yelling would have.
Drake tries to straighten. Fails. Blood smears across the back of his glove.
“This is bullshit,” he mutters.
“No,” Jessica says. “This is evidence.”
Silence follows that. The kind that closes.
Nate is gone. He must have followed them out. Lukas is still near the ropes, arms folded now, looking at Drake the way men look at things they’d rather drag into the East River. Ray says something low to Mickey, who keeps working on Drake’s lip and cheek like none of this is personal.
That’s the part that settles in.
It isn’t personal anymore.
Jessica looks at me. “We’ve got enough to support the order. If he contacts her again after this, he’s in violation.”
