Chiron
The boy left the office without another word.
Didn't need to say anything.
I could see it all in his eyes.
The dream hadn't shaken him. Not fully.
But it etched something in.
He looked like Makii did, the morning he told me he was done.
That same tension in the jaw.
That same storm behind the eyes.
I sipped my coffee, bitter as memory.
Thailand.
Goddamn Thailand.
I hadn't thought about that place in years—not in any way that mattered. I locked it down. Buried it under fights, under sweat, under rings and broken men.
But now it was clawing back.
Lachlan didn't know the half of it.
Didn't know that when I was twenty-two, I stood across the ring from his father in Chiang Mai. Back when Makii was a crown jewel in the family's pocket—undefeated, feared, precise like a scalpel. They used to call him "the Quiet Blade." Never smiled. Never celebrated. Just finished the fight and walked off like it was his job to remind you how mortal you were.
He was beautiful in that ring.
But you could see it—the cost.
Every fight, he looked less alive.
Every win, he looked more like a ghost.
They made him too good, too young. And they kept him too long.
When we fought, I'd already been in the circuit for years. A farang with too many scars and too many fans. I wasn't special. Just an obstacle for them. They wanted him to break me.
He didn't.
We went five brutal rounds.
I dropped him in the third. He nearly broke my orbital in the fourth.
And in the fifth—he let me up.
I still remember the look in his eyes.
He could've finished it. Should've. But he didn't.
After the bell, we sat side by side in the back room, soaked in sweat and blood, no words between us.
And that's when I knew.
He wanted out.
He just didn't know how.
I helped him figure that out.
A few weeks later, I made some calls. Pulled favors I didn't even know I still had. Got him and Ariel fake documents, a whisper trail to Detroit. Gave them my uncle's contact on the west side.
Told them not to look back.
They didn't.
But I did.
I stayed a few more years. Burned through my body. Lost my knees, my speed. Got smart. Got cold. Then I came here, bought this gym with the last of my fight purse, and told myself I'd never train another Thai boy.
Then Lachlan walked in.
Twenty. Hungry. Quiet.
Had his father's eyes. His mother's spine.
I didn't tell him who I was.
Didn't tell him I used to stand across from the man he called Dad.
Didn't tell him I once promised that family would never touch them again.
And now?
Now the fire was lit.
They saw him. On TV. Online. In headlines.
They'd come calling.
Dressed in silk. Speaking about legacy. About roots.
But it was never about honor.
It was about control.
And I knew their type. The kind that smiled while tightening the leash.
I set the mug down and stepped back into the gym. The sun was cutting through the windows now, gold and sharp. The bags hung still. The floor smelled of sweat and resin.
This was my home now.
And Lachlan?
He wasn't just my fighter.
He was the one promise I hadn't broken.
If they wanted him—they'd have to come through me.
And I was still a goddamn problem.