Mia’s gloves made a flat, wet sound every time they struck Denise’s guard. For the first two rounds, Denise had looked comfortable enough. Now her forearms were starting to shake from absorbing the impact. She’d trained with Mia for eight months and knew she always took it easy in the first two rounds. She just hadn’t found a way to deal with what came after.
Mia was taller and more heavily muscled than most women Denise trained with, her short dreadlocks held away from her face by a wide black training headband. Under the bright gym lights, her blue eyes stayed fixed on every shift of Denise’s shoulders and hips.
Late in round three, Denise’s right hand dropped an inch too low on the jab, and Mia’s weight was already coming forward, hips loading, elbow rising toward the space under Denise’s jaw. Her elbow came up sharp and automatic, the way it used to in rooms where hesitation cost you your face.
She turned it at the last inch, driving it into the cage padding beside Denise’s head with a dull thud that vibrated up through her arm.
Denise blinked and stepped back, glove pressed against her own cheek even though nothing had touched her.
“Time.” Coach Soto’s voice cut across the mats before the round clock reached its beep. He was already walking over. “That’s enough, Mia.”
Mia pulled her mouthguard out with two fingers.
Soto looked past her at Denise, who waved him off, breathing hard and not meeting Mia’s eyes.
Mia stood in the middle of the cage. Under the bright lights, the gray-and-black mats looked almost new, freshly mopped and free of scuffs or blood. The padding was intact, the equipment stacked neatly along the wall, and a laminated sheet of rules was fixed to the fence at eye level. Her gloves were her own, worn to the shape of her knuckles. She’d had them for years and refused to replace them.
The cage was a long way from the places where Mia used to fight.
Back then, it was concrete, dried blood, no rules. A stain on the floor nobody mopped because it would only get added to next week. Men close enough to the cage that their money was practically part of the fence, shouting bets while somebody’s nose was already broken and bleeding down the back of their throat.
“You good?” Soto asked.
“I’m good,” Mia replied.
He looked at her, then turned away. “Denise, you’re done for today. Go ice that jaw. I don’t want to hear about it tomorrow.”
Then, quieter, to Mia: “The Reyes fight puts you on the Marchetti card if you win clean. Clean means the judges don’t have to think about it.”
“I know.”
“Your head knows it. Your elbows don’t.”
She didn’t argue.
Near the reception counter, half turned toward the front windows, Mateo Cruz was talking into his phone, eyes on the cage. His suit probably cost more than her annual rent. He had a habit of appearing at the gym when one of his fighters was close to something useful.
He watched her until she looked back. When she caught his eye, he gave a short nod and went back to his call.
Mia headed for the lockers and sat on the bench beneath them. She pulled the wraps from her hands and rolled each one back onto itself in the same careful order she always used, smoothing the fabric as she went before placing the finished rolls in her bag. She stepped on the scale bolted near the lockers, wrote the number in the little spiral notebook, along with two lines about the sparring session, then sat with an ice pack strapped to her left knee, the one that had started clicking sometime last winter and never stopped.
Soto sat next to her.
“You’re too aggressive in sparring.”
“She dropped her hand.”
“And you nearly took her head off for it.”
“I stopped.”
“Barely.” He looked toward Denise. “Take the opening, Mia. Just don’t try to kill her with it.”
“Old habits.”
Soto grunted and bumped her lightly with his shoulder. “Save it for Reyes. She’s fast, so don’t try to outspeed her. You need the decision.”
Her phone buzzed against the bench. Luis.
cooking. bought the pastries you told me not to buy. also the bathroom tap is doing the thing again. tell me if it’s the thing or a new thing.
***
Traffic was thick as she drove home. A betting shop on the corner of Alameda had a fight poster taped across its front window. Mia stared out from an old promo shot, fists raised beneath her chin, her face blown up beside Carla Reyes’s. Across the middle, red block letters announced: MIA “THE HAMMER” VS CARLA REYES. SATURDAY NIGHT.
She didn’t slow down to correct him. She never did.
At a red light two blocks from the gym, Mia noticed a black SUV three cars back, its windows too dark to see through.
She let the light change and took the next turn.
The SUV followed.
At the following junction, she cut left onto a side street she only used to avoid the construction.
The SUV followed.
Mia kept her eyes forward and watched it in the mirror. It held the same distance, never gaining, never dropping back.
At the junction by the market, it dropped away into a lane of trucks and didn’t reappear.
Probably nothing.
A clean win Saturday could put her on the Marchetti card. Maybe a bigger place. She could tell Soto she was done with the small regional fights that paid garbage and left the same amount of damage as the big ones. Actual time with Luis, not stitched together around her training schedule.
***
The apartment smelled like garlic and lemon, and reggaeton played too loud from the kitchen, a heavy bass line and clipped percussion rattling faintly through Luis’s phone speaker. He had his back to her, sleeves pushed up and a wooden spoon in one hand.
“Speaker’s too loud,” she said, dropping her bag by the door.
“Worth it.” He didn’t turn around. “There’s a white box on the counter.”
Mia glanced over. The pastry box sat on the counter, untied and already open. Four glazed pastries waited inside, dusted with sugar that had started to turn translucent in the kitchen heat.
“They’re mine,” Luis said, finally turning and pointing the spoon at her like a warning. “You need to watch your weight until after weigh-ins.”
“Sure.” She waited until he turned back to the stove, then took one, ate half of it in two bites, and put the rest back in the box.
“I saw that.”
“You didn’t see anything. You had your back to me.”
“I have ears.” He stopped stirring and glanced sideways at her. “What’s up?”
“What do you mean?”
Luis looked at her, waiting.
She leaned against the counter and picked at the sugar dust left on her fingers instead of answering right away. “Denise left an opening. Dropped her hand.”
“You take it?”
“No.”
“That’s the part of you that I love,” he said.
He plated food for both of them. Hers was smaller and had less oil.
“So,” he said, setting her plate down across the little table. “After you win on Saturday. What then?”
“I haven’t won yet, Luis.”
“Humor me.” He sat, folded his hands on the table, and waited.
Mia looked down at her plate. “It opens doors. Better cards. Better money.”
Luis smiled. “There you go.”
“We could finally replace that stove.”
He glanced toward it. “Nothing wrong with that stove.”
“It clicks twelve times before it catches.”
“Character.”
“One day its character’s going to take half the kitchen with it.”
“Fine. New stove.” He sat across from her. “And?”
“Somewhere for a few days. Not far. I don’t care where.”
“That’s a real answer. I’ll take it.”
He ate for a minute, then said it too casually. “Cruz called here this morning.”
Mia’s fork stopped halfway to her mouth. “To the apartment?”
“Yeah. Wanted to know what time you were training.”
“He’s a promoter. They like knowing where everyone is.”
“Maybe. I still don’t like him.”
Luis pushed a piece of pepper around his plate without eating it. “I don’t know. Something about him.”
Mia kept her eyes on her plate.
“I saw him later as well,” Luis said. “Near the service road behind his office. He was with someone beside a black SUV. When he noticed me looking, he cut the conversation short.”
Mia looked up. “What were you doing near his office?”
“Maintenance call in the building next door.”
She let it go and they finished eating.
Luis started clearing the plates.
Mia got up and started packing tomorrow’s training meals into plastic containers lined up on the counter, dividing chicken and rice into portions. Luis hummed off-key as they moved between the sink and fridge without colliding.
Her phone buzzed on the counter, screen lighting up.
CRUZ: Come to my office tomorrow. Alone.
“Who’s that?” Luis called from the sink, not looking over.
“Cruz.” She kept her voice flat. “Probably wants to talk fight logistics.”
“Tell him logistics can happen over the phone like a normal person.”
“I’ll tell him.” She set the phone facedown on the counter and went back to closing the last container.
That night, Luis slept beside her, a soft snore catching in his throat every few breaths. Streetlight slipped through the thin curtain and laid a pale strip across the ceiling.
Mia watched it instead of sleeping.
Cruz had called the apartment. Asked about her schedule. Then he’d sent a message telling her to come to his office.
Alone.
Her eyes moved to the phone on the nightstand, its screen dark.
Promoters wanted meetings. That wasn’t unusual.