Fuzzy’s eyes narrow when he sees me, and he walks right up to me and leans into my face. “Thanks for joining us.”

    “You’re welcome.” My words drip sarcasm. But I want him angry. I want him to punish me. I want to feel pain.

    “Were you sick or injured?” He runs a hand over his dark hair, closely shaved and bristly. Broad, thick, and heavily muscled, with rigid standards and high expectations of everyone around him, Fuzzy is the cop no criminal wants to meet and the instructor no one wants to piss off. Except me.

    “Neither. I just didn’t feel like coming.”

    The class draws in a collective breath and Fuzzy’s jaw tightens. “So you let down the team.”

    “It’s a class. Not a team.”

    Behind me, Cora gasps. I look over my shoulder and give the class an apologetic shrug. We are sort of a team, having bonded over Fuzzy’s verbal abuse and his penchant for working us until we throw up.

    “Fifty push-ups on your knuckles for disrespecting your instructor.” He points to the mat. “Then you catch up with the rest of the class.”

    “Seriously? Don’t you think the knuckle push-up thing is getting old?”

    Cora moans quietly behind me. Fuzzy tips his head to the side and strokes his chin.

    “You’re right. It is getting old. And since I was planning to get everyone into the ring today for a few practice rounds, how about we start with you? But instead of partnering with one of your non-teammates, you can partner with Shilla the Killa.”

    “No!” Cora shrieks. “She’ll be killed.”

    “She’ll suffer,” Fuzz says. “But she won’t die.”

    Ten minutes later I climb into the practice ring. Shilla nods her head. All my classmates are gathered around, and a few fighters drift over to see what’s going on.

    “If you stay in the ring for the full three minutes, you’re off the hook,” Fuzzy says. “Shilla’s going to give you a one-minute handicap, so that’s two minutes you have to stay on your feet. Try to remember the techniques we’ve practiced in class, your positioning, and footwork. If you tap out or if she knocks you out, then you’re my bitch forever.”

    “Thanks for the pep talk.” I pump my arms like Shilla, although I have no idea why she’s doing that crazy move. Cora leans in and grabs my arm.

    “You don’t have to do this. He can’t force you to fight or do push-ups on your knuckles. It’s not the army. Tell him where to go, and we’ll ditch him and go for a drink while we wait for the guys.”

    “I want to fight.”

    Shilla jumps up and down on her toes, and I follow suit, except she has very little in the way of breasts, and I’m in serious danger of knocking myself out before we even get started.

    “You don’t know how to fight like this,” Cora wails.

    “Despite being a mean SOB, Fuzzy is a good teacher,” I assure her. “I’ve picked up a lot in his classes. And don’t forget, I’m a white belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.”

    Fuzzy crosses the ring to talk to Shilla, and I clench and unclench my fists like I’ve seen some fighters do. We have attracted a considerable crowd, but the one person I do want to see isn’t among them.

    “Climb the ropes.” Homicide Hank, a lean, wiry, red-haired fighter, leans against the ropes beside me. When Redemption was an underground fight club, he made a name for himself by climbing the ropes, screaming, and throwing himself on his opponents. Now that Redemption is licensed and regulated with a couple of pros in the gym, he has had to exercise more restraint in the ring and limit himself to unsanctioned fights. But since this is just for Fuzzy and I have no hope in hell of making it out alive, I give his suggestion serious consideration before finally turning it down.

    “It wouldn’t give me much of an advantage,” I say. “But your screaming trick might work.”

    “Bring it from the diaphragm.” He sucks in a sharp breath, ready to scream, and I hold up my hand. “I don’t want to ruin the element of surprise.”

    Fuzzy blows his whistle to start the fight, and I take a page from Homicide’s book and run, screaming, directly at Shilla.

    Bam. She sweeps my leg out from under me, and I go down hard.

    Dazed but undefeated, I draw in a deep breath of disinfectant-scented mat and then jump up, ready for more.

    Bam. I’m down again, having missed her standing beside me with her irritating sweeping foot at the ready. I glance over at the clock. Twenty seconds have passed. Only one hundred seconds to go.

    Fuzzy calls a time-out and ushers Shilla to the corner, giving me a moment to breathe. Obviously, a direct assault is not the way to go. What can I do that she won’t expect?

    I drop into the fight stance Fuzzy taught us. She’s known as a striker, so if I can get her on the ground, I can use the jiu-jitsu moves I practiced with Jack. All I have to do is sweep her leg before she sweeps mine. Shilla moves toward me. I sweep.

    Bam. She catches me with a right hook because I forgot to protect my face. Now that’s the kind of pain I was looking for. Haze-inducing, gut-wrenching, knock-the-breath-out-of-me pain. I lie on the mat to catch my breath. Now, only seventy-five seconds to go.

    Cora calls another time-out and helps me to my corner. Shilla hasn’t even broken a sweat. She lounges on the other side of the practice ring, talking to Homicide Hank, who seems displeased that she’s beating me up in the ring.

    “You’re not going to make it.” Cora holds an ice pack to my cheek and hands me a bottle of water. “This is utterly ridiculous. I sent one of the guys from the class to tell Torment. He’ll put a stop to it.”

    “I can take more,” I tell her. “She pulled that punch. And I would rather be pulverized by Shilla than become Fuzzy’s lifetime bitch.”