Nodding, Abel jumped to his feet as the bell rang. The guys all got out of the ring. The buzzing in Abel’s head drowned out the crowd. The fact that Nellie still wasn’t there and this guy standing in the ring with him had everything to do with that blurred everything around him until his entire surroundings were now black. There was no more sound or anything else. All he saw was his fury’s prize right in front of him, and he was going for it. The only thing he heard from that moment on was the bell, and he went for it with a vengeance.

Landing the first one, he missed the next couple of jabs, which were literally air jabs. McKinley got a few in on him, and he stumbled back. Then the images in his head started up: the ones of Nellie and Sam entering his hotel room then the one of his lips on hers. They’d set her up and he f**king knew it. He swung hard with everything he had, and if he’d landed it, he was sure he would’ve taken McKinley’s head off. But he missed and he stumbled, nearly going down since he’d swung with so much force.

When the round was over, everything else began coming back into view, and he heard others talking, but not until Noah grabbed his shoulders with both hands and shook him. “Are you listening to me!” Abel finally heard what Noah was saying and he nodded. “You are gonna blow this thing if you keep going out there swinging like that. This is exactly what they wanted. Are you gonna let them win? That’s their only hope, that you lose your f**king mind and go out there and keep doing that.” Noah pointed behind him in the direction of McKinley’s corner. “He ain’t got shit on you and he knows it. Even with you turning into a madman like you just did, swinging without even thinking, I still think you got that round, but you cannot keep doing that!”

“Yeah, Abel,” Hector said. “That was ugly. You nearly knocked yourself out in there. If you’d landed it, it would’ve been beautiful.”

“No shit,” Gio agreed immediately. “This fight would be over if you’d landed it, but you’re not gonna land anything going at it that way. And what’s worse is if you keep that up by round three you’re gonna be worn out. You got twelve rounds to go, man. Pace yourself.”

“Slow and steady,” Noah said as the bell rang, and they all jumped out of the ring. “Get your head together!” Noah yelled as Abel stood up again and once again tuned everything and everyone out.

~*~

More than a half hour after leaving Abel’s suite, Nellie arrived at a small unassuming hotel somewhere in the outskirts of Henderson. She didn’t even care where she was, as long as she was away from the big city where Andy had assured her she’d be mobbed.

Her breathing had finally steadied, but Andy’s words kept the tears flowing. I’ve never seen him so disgusted. He doesn’t really want you there, Nellie. She paid the driver and walked into the hotel lobby, still feeling numb. Even though it was significantly smaller than the giant hotels in Vegas, it still had a small bar off to the side where, of course, the fight was being aired, and they had a good-sized crowd watching.

Nellie didn’t take her dark glasses off and hoped to God that no one would recognize her. She’d pay for her room and go lock herself up for the rest of the night. She could only pray that Abel would actually be calling her after the fight.

“He’s totally off tonight,” another hotel attendant said to the clerk helping Nellie as he joined him behind the counter.

The clerk looked away from the computer screen and back to one of the monitors at the bar that the other attendant was staring at. “You think it’s the scandal that has him fighting so sloppily? I’ve seen him in other fights, and he’s always so damn good.”

“I dunno.” The guy took a seat on a stool behind the counter but still stared in the direction of the fight. “I thought that was all just a publicity stunt, but something’s off, that’s for sure.” He suddenly stood up as the crowd in the bar got loud. “You see! That’s the second time he’s almost gone down.”

The clerk shook his head as Nellie felt the tightening in her chest again. Her wheezing had never completely gone away, but it’d calmed. Now it was getting bad again.

“Name please?” The clerk asked her.

“Nellie,” she whispered. “Nellie Godinez.”

Thankful that she still had an old I.D with her married name on it, she began digging for it in her purse as the crowd in the bar got even louder.

“Holy shit.” The other attendant hurried around the counter to get a better look at the fight again. “Ayala’s gonna go down.”

Deciding to forget about the ID for a moment, Nellie pulled out her inhaler instead. She was unable to stand it anymore, so she finally turned to watch the monitor. Abel was still up, but he did look sloppy, swinging way too fast and missing a lot while McKinley kept landing his punches. Almost everyone at the bar was on their feet now.

She didn’t even realize how bad she was wheezing, until the clerk behind the counter asked her if she was okay. Her inhaler may as well have been empty for all it was helping. Shaking her head, she managed to get across that, no, she wasn’t okay, not at all. Her inability to catch her breath now was so bad that it was really beginning to scare her.

Then it happened. Abel went down with an enormous thud, his head bouncing off the canvas. She stared wide-eyed as she clutched her chest gasping for air, but even the straw like trickle of air she’d been able to inhale earlier was gone now. The clerk’s alarmed face was the last thing she saw before everything went black.