Chapter 6 - THE FINAL RECKONING
The bell above the gym door didn’t ring—we didn’t need an audience anymore.
The shadows of the past had finally been swept away by the morning light, but tonight belonged to us. The old wooden floorboards groaned beneath our feet as Cole shifted his weight, dropping his hands into a classic orthodox guard. His shoulders were loose, his breathing steady, and his eyes locked onto mine with the intense focus of a true competitor.
“Don’t hold back just because I’m out of practice,” Cole warned, a playful edge in his voice.
“I never hold back,” I replied, slipping into my stance with my fists raised near my chin, right where my father had always demanded I keep them.
We circled each other under the ticking rhythm of the red clock. The tension in the air wasn't filled with the deadly malice of Cole's uncle or the desperate betrayal of Patrick Ellis. This was pure, honest competition—the kind of sacred language my father had spoken through sweat, bruises, and relentless discipline.
Cole moved first, throwing a crisp, fast jab that tested my reflexes. I ducked beneath it, caught the momentum, and countered with a sharp hook to his ribs. He grunted, blocking my second strike with his forearm, and lunged forward with a playful uppercut that forced me to scramble backward across the canvas.
“Fast hands,” I laughed, quoting my father’s old notes from the back of the photograph.
“Angry heart,” Cole shot back, grinning as he pressed the attack.
We traded punches with a fierce, joyful rhythm, every strike echoing off the brick walls of the renovated gym. We weren't fighting for survival anymore. We were honoring the man who had picked us up off the streets, taught us how to stand on our own two feet, and showed us that no matter how dark the past gets, the truth always wins the final round.
By the time we finally dropped our hands, breathless and laughing against the ropes, the sun was beginning to break over the city skyline outside, casting a golden glow across the floor.
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The debt was paid. The war was over.
And as the red clock ticked steadily into the new day, we walked out of the gym together—not as enemies, not as strangers, but as survivors ready for whatever life threw our way next.
