The Aftermath (The Hurricane, #2)(73)

“He’s getting frustrated, but ain’t letting go of this title easy. You’ve done enough to wear him down, now you start showing me some magic. But no going southpaw yet. You hold that back until you need it at the end,” Danny advised me.

When he’d finished with my eye, I swilled around some water then spat it back out. The minute the bell rang, I was off that stool and looking for an opening. Temple threw a couple of jabs, expecting what I’d been showing him for the last five rounds. This time I didn’t let a single jab connect.

As I ducked and sidestepped a second time, he dropped his guard, and that was it. Like the whole thing was happening in slow motion, I saw my window of opportunity and took it. Years of push-ups, pull-ups, and bench presses and a lifetime of pain and discipline went into that punch. My right jab caught his attention but I followed it up with a left hook that connected with his torso. I know he felt that down to his foundation. A perfectly executed body shot is a thing of beauty. The head shots look bad, but I just caught this f*cker in the liver. From the look on his face, the pain was crippling.

The crowd went crazy. If I’d hit any other fighter like that, he’d be on his knees or flat out on the canvas by now. As cocky as he was, I had to give him credit. He was hard as f*cking nails for taking that shot and still standing. For the thirty seconds left in the round, I tried to capitalize on the hit, but he was too good. He stayed out of my way and protected himself. I gave him a pummeling but there was no second opening. As the round ended, he slumped into his corner. He might recover enough to catch his breath in the next few minutes, but as he stared across the canvas at me, all cockiness gone, I knew he understood just how dangerous I was.

The next three rounds were the most difficult I’d ever fought in my career, each one more brutal than the next. The cut to my eye was getting bigger with every punch.

“What do I do about my eye?” I asked Danny during a break.

“Don’t get hit again,” he replied with a chuckle. “Protect the eye and look for an opening. Keep your guard up and don’t fight defensively. He didn’t go down with the liver shot, and that punch was feckin’ perfect. We need the points now so start getting ’em on the scorecard.”

He finished just as the bell rang. Temple immediately went for my face, forcing me to keep my guard up. After a while, he worried more about my face than his own body and I got him again in the torso with a hook. It wasn’t a direct hit. It wasn’t even a good punch but his liver had taken such a blow the first time that even the judges had to see him flinch in pain.

Round ten was an all-out street brawl. This was my wall, the point where I was fatigued and my body wasn’t doing what my brain was telling it to. We were both flagging. The body shots had cost him heavily on points but I was still making up for the early rounds. At this point, nobody could call it, so we both just kept hitting.

My right jab caught him square on the jaw, but I dropped my arm doing it, and he caught me solidly with a right hook. Fuck! My face was probably a f*cking mess by now, and my eye felt like it was about to explode. We staggered and were unsteady on our feet, but the ringing of the bell saved us both. I sank onto my corner stool and closed my eyes as Danny cleaned me up and Kier hydrated me. The sound of the crowd was ringing in my ears when I heard her voice. I must have been hit in the head harder than I realized.

“I’m here, I’m here! O’Connell, I made it.” The voice was getting louder. I whipped my head around to see a red-faced Em being ushered up the steps by Kieran.

“Quick, he’s got seconds,” Kieran warned.

“I made it. Baby, I’m here,” she said, laying her palm against my cheek through the ropes.

“You okay, Sunshine?” I asked her through the gum shield, the coppery taste of blood still filling my mouth despite the water.

“I’m fine,” she answered with a laugh, though there were tears in her eyes. “How we doing?” she asked me, looking toward Temple.

“Killing it,” I said, making her smile. Danny climbed out of the ring as she removed her hand.

“I love you,” she told me. Just like when I was doing hanging sit-ups, she was like a shot of adrenaline to my system. My girl was here. She’s made it, and there was no way I was losing now. If I had to bring everything in me to the table, so be it. I wanted to be the only man she saw in this ring, the only one she saw, period.

The bell rang, and I stood in time to see Rico Temple make his fatal mistake. He looked over at my wife, then turned to me and licked his lips. From that moment on, it was all over. Stupid f*cker just didn’t know it. I had wanted to win this for Em. Now I wanted to end him for me.

He was expecting me to come at him with all guns blazing, but I didn’t. I shook out my shoulders, bounced around the canvas, and looked like I didn’t have a care in the world. Temple came at me after a few seconds of dancing and threw a jab, followed by a fairly decent hook, or it would have been if it had connected. I was gone before the punch landed.

Switching to fighting left handed, like the boys from Southside had taught me, I completely disorientated him. My combinations before now had probably been as predictable as his. Now I had him against the ropes, and there would be no rope-a-dope this time. His core was taking an absolute pounding. After disrespecting my wife, hell, after even looking at her, I was gonna make him piss blood for a week. There was no break and no letup. I hammered him with every single f*cking thing I had.