My hero wasn’t exactly happy with the position he’d put himself in.

I guess I couldn’t blame him. Going up against Louie Davonte wasn’t the smartest decision if you wanted to keep your head on your shoulders or at the very least your fingers and toes intact.

But I wasn’t sorry.

I was desperate.

And desperate people clutched at the smallest blessings.

The sound of retching echoed in the small shitty apartment.

The place was a rat-hole, typical of a fighter’s pad. A weight bench took up a corner of the bedroom. A heavy bag hung from a retrofitted support beam with duct tape shoring up the most abused areas.

The smell of dirty gym socks rivaled the lingering odor of stale food.

No pictures, no sentiment anywhere.

It was all about training, getting harder, using every spare moment to get faster, more agile.

The man was thick, roped with muscle.

Tattoos crisscrossed his trunk and climbed his back.

Everything about him was big and intense.

I pulled the blankets closer, shivering, not because I was cold but I sensed everything about my life was about to change.

Damon.

The only reason I knew his name was because it’d flown out of Louie’s startled mouth right before Damon’s fist had crashed into his smarmy face.

God, that’d been beautiful. I would play that moment in my memory for years to come.

Assuming I lived that long.

That fucking pig had made my life a living hell since the day he set eyes on me.

Louie Davonte ran The Underground and he lorded his power over everyone beneath him like a spoiled king using the backs of peasants so his feet didn’t have to touch the dirt.

The biggest mistake I’d made was thinking he wouldn’t notice me when my brother Tommy started hanging out The Underground.

I was an idiot.

And Tommy’s death was on my shoulders.

I choked back the wave of anguish that always followed my grief over Tommy’s death.

I hated fighting, hated The Underground but I reserved the whitest, most dangerous hatred for Davonte.

I wanted him dead.

Someone had to make him stop ruining innocent lives.

And that someone had just appeared, bringing righteous fury with two clenched fists.

No one ever stood up to Davonte. Or, maybe I should clarify, no one had ever stood up to Davonte and lived to brag about it.

But there’d been fear in Davonte’s eyes when Damon had come for him. That was worth gold.

I needed this man. Whether he wanted to help me or not. He was already hip-deep in shit and the only way out was to fight to survive the hell that was coming.

I couldn’t do it without Damon.

I needed him — he didn’t need me.

I had to figure out a way to convince him that there was a reason he stood up to Davonte and if that didn’t work, I’d do whatever else it took to get him on my side.

And don’t fucking judge me for whatever I have to do because you’ve never walked in my shoes.

You don’t know the terror of watching someone you love more than life itself being beaten to death under the guise of a legitimate fight.

Tommy died choking on his own blood in the ring.

All because I wouldn’t sleep with Davonte.

I wouldn’t be his woman.

I hadn’t giggled and dropped to my knees to suck his dick simply because he was Louie Davonte — the so-called messiah of the downtrodden.

Davonte was king of the slums around here and he made sure everyone knew they were beholden to him in some way or another.

I wouldn’t suck his dick even if it were made of candy.

The idea made me want to puke as hard as Damon was upchucking right now.

I winced as some sort of roar came from the bathroom. Poor dumb ox was probably unloading his spleen.

My family had blamed me for being too prideful, that I’d been stupid to pass up the honor of being with Davonte.

“Think of your brother,” my dad had demanded with greed in his eyes. “You’re lucky Davonte thinks you’re something special. Use it to your advantage. If you’re smart, you’ll let him knock you up and you’ll be set for life.”

Parenting skills were not my dad’s forte. I ignored his disgusting suggestion and tried to fight for Tommy’s future.

“Tommy needs to use his head for more than a punching bag,” I’d shot back, hating my weak-ass father for slavering at the thought of both his children working under Davonte and all the perks that would supposedly come with the privilege. “He needs to go to college to get out of this fucking hell-hole!”

“College?” he sneered as if I’d just started babbling nonsense. “What the fuck is wrong with you? College ain’t for people like us so get that through your dumb-ass skull,” my dad had growled, irritated as fuck. “Just sit there and look pretty…that’s what you’re good for, sweetheart. Your brother knows the score. He’s got talent. Davonte sees something in him. He’s gonna take him to the big time.”

The smug assurance in my father’s tone made me want to shake his head off his shoulders.

“He’s going to get him killed,” I cried with impotent rage. “Don’t you see that Tommy is just like the rest of the guys thinking they’re going to be the one who makes it out of this shithole? How many careers have actually made it out of the town?”

“Jimmy “The Punisher” Ratchet, Paul “Steel Hands” Rodrigues,” her dad shot back as if two nominal successes were enough to leverage someone’s entire future on. “They got out of here and it was all because of Louie Davonte so show some respect, girl.”

I hated when my father called me “girl.” I also hated that my father placed my entire worth on my ability to catch a slimy pig between my legs.

But then Frankie Williams wasn’t angling for Father Of The Year nor had he ever been in the running.

The toilet flushed and water started running. Damon was showering.

My sinuses tingled as real emotion boiled up, awakening parts of me that’d been hibernating.

There was nothing about Damon that turned my head.

Uneducated block of man meat.

All he knew was swinging fists and training until he fell into his bed.

I’d seen enough of his kind hanging around the gym, their eyes sharp as sharks but their heads full of sawdust.

Well, I wasn’t looking for a relationship, least of all with someoene like him.

But that big, dumb blockhead could save my ass.

I wiped at the tear that somehow found its way down my cheek. I smiled at the drop perched on my fingertip.

I wasn’t crying because I was sad.

I wasn’t mired in hopelessness like before.

I wasn’t driven by panic.

No, this was something entirely different.

This emotion was wild, reckless and blood-thirsty.

And I embraced it with all the abandon that only the truly damned could appreciate.

I was crying because for the first time since Tommy died, I saw a way to avenge my brother’s death and put Davonte behind me for good.

I saw a future free of The Underground and everything it stood for.

I saw me, shaking off the grip that Detroit had on my throat.

I saw hope.

Now, I just needed a plan.

And a metric shit-ton of luck.