They Threw Me Away at Twelve, So I Came Home Undefeated novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Thirty-One and Zero

"Tell me," I said.

Dutch looked at the ceiling for a long time.

"It was the week of your first bout," he said. "You were fourteen, and you had been in my gym for a year and a half. You were the best natural hand I ever trained. I knew it, and I was scared of it."

"Tell me."

"A kid came down the stairs on a Tuesday afternoon. Tall, sandy hair, a coat that cost more than my car. He asked for a girl with a braid."

I closed my eyes.

"He said he was your brother. He said he'd been watching the circuit for months. He'd seen your name on a flyer, and he'd watched you from the back, every night, in a hood."

"Perry."

"He didn't ask me to give you back." Dutch rubbed his bad eye with the heel of his hand. "He knew you wouldn't go. He said he couldn't take you home and he couldn't make you stop. He had five hundred dollars in an envelope, and he asked me to make sure nobody ever really hurt you."

"So you fixed my fights."

"I picked men who'd fold." His voice was thick. "I told them to go down in the first or second, and I paid them out of his money. Some of them would have done it for free. They liked you."

"Thirty-one fights."

"Thirty-one."

"All of them."

"Every one." He held my eyes. "The hits you land are real, Thora. Your hands are real. But nobody has ever stood in front of you and hit back."

← Chapter 8 · All chapters · Chapter 10 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend