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“You been sleeping alone those nights?”

“Yeah. And I keep thinking. He knows I train. He knows MMA gyms are findable. My name’s going to end up on a fight card eventually, and fight cards are public, and then he just... shows up. At the gym. At my door.”

“Why didn’t you tell us you were struggling?” Cruz asks.

“Because you’d all lose your minds. Eli would want to install cameras. Brady would sleep in my hallway.” She looks up at me. “And you’d offer to kill him again.”

“I am absolutely offering to kill him again,” I deadpan.

“Cruz.”

“One name. One address. He stops being a problem.” I mean every word—she knows I mean every word, and that’s exactlywhy she’s shaking her head before I finish. “There are people from my old life who owe me favors. It doesn’t touch you. It doesn’t touch the gym.”

“It touches you.” Her voice cracks. “You’d be throwing away everything you built. Five years, your record, this whole life. Over a man who isn’t worth the gas money to Florida.”

“You’re worth it.”

“I’m not asking you to prove that by destroying yourself.” She reaches across the table and grips my forearm, right over the eagle on my sleeve. “I fought him off. Twice. I broke his nose and left him on the floor of my bedroom. I don’t need you to be my weapon, Cruz. I need you to just be there.”

I turn my arm over and take her hand. “Okay,” I say. “Okay.”

We sit like that for a minute. Then she tilts her head at me, studying.

“You said your old life. You never talk about your old life. Not really. You gave us the highlight reel that night at Eli’s. Bad temper, Victor saved you, happy ending.”

I shrug. “That’s the long and short of it.”

“I just gave you my nightmares. Give me the rest of yours.”

Fair trade. I get up, grab two glasses of water because neither of us should be drinking for this conversation, and sit back down.

“Nashville,” I say. “I was bouncing at clubs from twenty-two on. Big guy, mean look, they hired me on sight. And I liked it. That’s the part nobody wants to hear. I liked having a reason to hurt people. Every drunk who swung on me had permission.”

“I know that feeling,” she says.

“I figured you might.” I turn the glass in my hands. “The temper wasn’t a thing I had. It was a thing that had me. It went off whenever it wanted, and I built my whole life around feeding it. Bar fights on my nights off. Drinking to slow it down, whichnever worked, just made it sloppier. My twenties were one long fuse.”

“The assualt?” She asks.

I nod. “Yeah, I sat in a holding cell at three in the morning looking at felony assault. Years, potentially, with my record of stupid. And the thing I remember clearest is realizing I wasn’t surprised. Some part of me had been waiting for that cell my whole life. Like I’d finally arrived somewhere I had a reservation.”

“And Victor,” Dakota asks.

“Victor shows up at four AM. I barely knew the man. He’d seen me fight a few amateurs; that was it. Pays my bail, drives me to a Waffle House, orders us both hash browns, and tells me I have a decision to make and he’s only offering once.” I can still see it. Victor’s dark eyes over a coffee mug, my knuckles split and stinging. “Put the violence somewhere with rules and purpose, or keep going and end up dead or locked up. He said he didn’t care which one I picked, but he wasn’t going to watch me waste it.”

“Waste what?” Dakota asks.

“That’s what I asked. He said,Whatever it is you’re carrying. It could build a life instead of ending one.” I laugh. “Sounds like a fortune cookie now. At four in the morning with a court date pending, it sounded like the only true thing anybody ever said to me.”

“The charges?” Dakota asks.

“Pled down to misdemeanor assault. Community service. The other guy had a record longer than mine, and Victor knew a lawyer who fought for context.” I shake my head. “But the plea deal didn’t save me. The gym did. And I want to be honest with you, sweetheart, because everyone thinks it’s a clean redemption story. It wasn’t. That first year I almost quit a dozen times. I almost walked back to the bars because chaos was familiar anddiscipline felt like drowning. Taking coaching from Victor made me want to put my fist through a wall. Following the rules made my skin crawl.”

“What kept you?”

“Victor kept showing up. I’d blow a session, mouth off, storm out. Next morning he’d be there like nothing happened.You’re late, Bennett. Bag work, four rounds.Never punished me for the day before. Never brought it up. Just kept the door open until I got tired of walking out of it.”

Dakota’s quiet for a long moment. Then she trades me. Piece for piece, the whole ugly ledger.