Chapter 5 - The Final Round
The legal walls were closing in on the Vance family, but desperation makes dangerous predators out of cornered rats.
It was a rainy Thursday evening, two days before Ethan's formal indictment. The gym was empty; I had sent Marcus and the kids home early so I could have some quiet time to train alone on the heavy bag. The rhythmic thwack-thwack-thwack of my gloves hitting the leather echoed through the dark warehouse, a soothing melody that helped clear my mind.
Suddenly, the lights in the main lobby flickered and went out, plunging the back of the gym into deep shadow.
I stopped punching, my gloves resting against the bag. My ears pricked up. The heavy metal entrance door had clicked open, followed by the sound of wet footsteps on the concrete floor.
"Maya..."
The voice came from the darkness near the ring. It was Ethan. But it wasn't the arrogant, clean-cut man I had married. As he stepped into the dim light cast by the streetlamps outside the windows, I saw that his clothes were disheveled, his eyes bloodshot and frantic. In his right hand, he wasn't holding a belt this time. He was holding a heavy steel crowbar he must have taken from the gym's maintenance closet.
"Ethan," I said, keeping my voice level, not showing a hint of fear. I slowly stepped back, positioning myself in the center of the floor where I had plenty of room to move. "You're out on bail, and you're currently committing aggravated breaking and entering. Your mother's lawyers can't save you from this."
"My mother is gone!" Ethan screamed, his voice cracking with a terrifying madness. "She's packing her bags, trying to liquidate whatever's left to flee to a non-extradition country! She abandoned me! The firm is gone, my life is over, and it's all because of you!"
He raised the crowbar, his knuckles white. "If I'm going to prison, Maya, I’m making sure you can never step into a boxing ring—or a boardroom—ever again. You think you're so tough because of your little trophies? Let's see how well you fight when I break both of your legs."
He lunged forward with a primal roar, swinging the heavy steel bar in a wide, lethal arc aimed straight for my knees.
In that split second, everything slowed down. The thousands of hours I had spent in the ring, the thousands of punches I had dodged, all culminated in a single, fluid movement. I didn't step back; I stepped in, closing the distance before the crowbar could reach full momentum.
The steel bar grazed my jacket as I slipped inside his guard.
Left jab to the chin.
Right cross to the solar plexus.
Ethan gasped, the breath violently expelled from his lungs as he stumbled backward. But the madness kept him moving. He recovered his balance and swung the crowbar vertically, aiming to crush my skull.
I pivoted on my back foot, a classic textbook evasion. The crowbar slammed into the concrete floor with a deafening clang, sending sparks flying into the dark. Before he could lift it again, I stepped forward and delivered a devastating, full-power left hook directly to his jaw.
It was the punch I had held back on the night of our honeymoon.
The impact sounded like a cracking whip. Ethan’s eyes instantly rolled into the back of his head, and he collapsed onto the canvas ring apron like a sack of bricks, completely unconscious. The crowbar clattered away into the shadows.
I stood over him, my chest heaving, my hands still tightly wrapped in my training gloves.
The heavy doors of the gym burst open once again. This time, it was Officer Davis and three other units, their flashlights cutting through the darkness. Sarah Jenkins had noticed my phone’s GPS tracker stopped moving and called them immediately.
May you like
Davis ran over to me, looking at Ethan's sprawled form, then up at me. "Dr. Sterling! Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine, Davis," I said, taking a deep breath and untying my gloves. I looked down at the man who had tried to terrorize me. "But I think you're going to need to upgrade his charges to attempted murder. And you might want to call the airport—his mother is trying to catch a flight."
