Page 4 of Craving the Edge

A few metres away, Rhys Galloway paced a frantic circle on the cracked asphalt. The sun had barely risen and he was dressed in a dark, tailored suit. Against the backdrop of ruin and flashing emergency lights, he looked stupid. Who wore a suit to a fire?

His smartwatch buzzed, a constant, irritating vibration against the cuff of his white shirt. He’d been on the phone since four in the morning, speaking to insurers, police, and God only knew who else. His dark hair showed more silver at the temples in the harsh flare of the emergency vehicles. It made him look old.

He stopped his pacing for a second, his narrow eyes scanning the street, searching for the glint of a camera lens or the headlights of a news van. Then he was back to it, muttering into his phone.

“The asset is insured, yes, but the downtime is the liability. We need a secure facility by midday. No exceptions.”

Asset. That’s what Ironbound was. That’s what I was.

A familiar resentment seared my gut. This wasn’t a tragedy to Rhys. It was a logistical nightmare. A potential crack in the Declan Walsh brand and his bank balance. His hyper-vigilant energy was a shield, not for me, but for the empire we’d built. The only thing Rhys feared, was bad press.

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. My body, conditioned to hit hard, felt heavy and useless on the quiet Fitzroy street. Smoke curled from a shattered upper-storey window, drifting upwards, not giving a shit about what happened below.

The initial hollow punch to the gut when I’d seen the gym had faded. Pretty damn quickly if I was being honest.

I knew I should be gutted. Ironbound was the bedrock of my career. Where I trained between big bouts, the next being the Sydney fight, now just seven weeks away. Panic should’ve been clawing up my throat. My entire camp schedule, my preparation, my whole world, was all housed in that blackened shell.

But the panic never came. There was just this…stillness.

A twist of guilt tightened in my stomach at the thought. This place was supposed to matter. Instead, it’d become another stage. The last anchor to a life I felt less and less a part of.

Seeing it burned to the ground felt more like a violent, final break I wasn’t allowed to make for myself.

Rhys finally lowered his phone and stalked over. “The cops just confirmed it was arson.”

I said nothing. My gaze stayed fixed on the warped steel of a leg press machine that I’d used just yesterday.

“It’s connected,” Rhys continued, his jaw tight. “They’re linking it with the tobacco shops getting hit, those tattoo parlours over in Collingwood. It’s the same crew.”

A muscle twitched in my jaw. That was it, then. Some piss-ant turf war had spilled over and swallowed my gym. Strangers I’d never meet had made a decision, and the one place I could shut the world out was now a column of smoke on the six o’clock news. A message sent in a war I had no part in. My name, my routine, my fucking sanctuary, collateral damage.

All the talk of underworld links and suspected ties was just noise. More static in a life that was already too loud.

Rhys was already shifting his weight, his mind clicking forward through the wreckage of our schedule. “I’ve already made a few calls.”

“Oh, so that’s what you were doing?”

Rhys’ lips tightened, but he ignored the sarcasm. “I’ve found a possible interim solution.”

My right hand clenched into a fist, an old habit. A sharp throb shot from my knuckles and travelled up the bones of my arm.

I relaxed my fingers, staring down at my hand. The skin across my knuckles was thick, worn smooth in places from thousands of hours hitting pads and bags. It looked strong, but it was all a lie. Underneath the calluses, a hairline fracture spiderwebbed through the bone.

I rubbed my right shoulder, tracing the raised line of the surgical scar. A clean fix for a public injury…but my hand was different. If Rhys knew the true extent of the damage, he wouldn’t be barking into his phone about logistics. The whole ‘Declan Walsh’ machine would grind to a dead stop. The Sydney bout would be cancelled. The new round of sponsorship negotiations would evaporate. The money would dry up.

The ruin of the gym was a problem, but it was nothing. Rhys thought the fire was the biggest threat we faced. He had no bloody idea the real disaster was standing right next to him.

“Speak like a normal person, Rhys,” I drawled. “Where’s this gym?”

Rhys jabbed a thumb towards his phone. His voice dropped, the tone he used when he was skirting the edges of something he knew I’d hate. “This place is a hole-in-the-wall called Fighter’s Edge.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“It’s old-school. Independent. Completely off the grid. No corporate ties, no sponsors, barely any social media presence to speak of. It’s perfect.”

Perfect. The word hung in the stench of burnt rubber wafting out of Ironbound. I nearly laughed. I could already picture it. Some dirty converted garage with cracked mirrors and heavy bags leaking sand, stinking of stale sweat and cheap disinfectant. A world away from the climate-controlled Ironbound, with its medical-grade ice baths and custom-branded everything.

“It’s cleared for you,” Rhys added. “From six until midday, every day. It’s discreet. No one will look for you there.”