“Evelyn. Wasn’t that the redhead you met in Brady’s? The one who acts like you’ve got some nasty venereal disease whenever you see her, which you probably have,” Kieran told us helpfully.

“Wait. I didn’t fuck her, and I don’t have VD.”

“Yeah, try telling John that when we’re doing up Con’s house together,” Liam chuckled.

“Fuck. Can’t you find someone else?” whined Tommy.

“We’ll see,” I told him, though I liked the idea of working with someone who would keep Tommy’s mouth in line. “If you didn’t sleep with her, why does she hate you?” I asked.

“None of your fucking business,” he returned.

Now I was intrigued. Usually Tommy didn’t give a crap who knew his business. This girl must be special if he was clamming up. I shrugged like I wasn’t interested. I’d just ask Em about it later. She’d get it out of Tommy soon enough.

* * *

An hour later everything went to shit. I’d stopped by our place to grab a snack before going to collect Em from the cafe. Out of habit I emptied the mailbox but as soon as I saw the brown padded envelope I knew it was another gift from Frank. It was addressed to Em but I tore it open anyway. Out fell a polished wooden box and I opened it to see a diamond ring that looked pretty fucking expensive. In with it was another typed note that simply read:

I WAS SAVING THIS FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY

I never made it up the stairs. Slamming the box shut I headed straight for the police station.

* * *

“Tell me you’re fucking joking,” I said to the pale-faced policeman opposite me.

“Please don’t swear, Mr. O’Connell. We’re on the same side you are, but there really isn’t anything we can do. The hallmark on the ring tells us who made it, but we’ve telephoned the company and they sell thousands of these rings every year. They keep track of sales but not who purchased each individual product. We can test the box for fingerprints, but given that Mr. Thomas’s fingerprints didn’t appear on the letters you’ve brought it, it’s unlikely that we can trace this back to him.”

“So he can just get away with harassing my wife like this?” I shouted.

“If you can get some proof that the harassment can be traced back to Mr. Thomas then we can assist you in taking out a restraining order, but that’s really all we can do. I pinched the bridge of my nose as I tried to refrain from telling him to go fuck himself.

“Can you test it for prints anyway, please?” I said finally.

“Of course,” he agreed, taking the ring box back. “I’ll let you know if we find anything.”

I walked out of the station and called Kieran from my new phone, a perk Em had insisted on after my title win.

“Can you do me a favor and give Em a ride home from work tonight? I need some time in the ring,” I asked him.

“No problem. I’ll see you later,” he agreed and hung up. There was no way Em was finding out about Frank’s latest stunt but fuck knew I needed to hit something if I had any chance of hiding this from her.

* * *

The thump of the bag echoed across the nearly empty gym. I’d been smacking the shit out of this thing for over an hour but it wasn’t working. I was still as pissed off and as pumped up as when I started. To calm my rage, I needed the satisfaction that only the crack of knuckles across flesh would give me. Ignoring the gloves by my side, I stuck with the dirty wraps I’d found at the bottom of my locker. They didn’t smell too good but they protected my knuckles at least. I needed Kieran or Liam to spar with me to take the edge off but the place was empty. Heath Earnshaw chose just that moment to walk out of Danny’s office. He’d do nicely.

“Earnshaw,” I called out. “You got a sec?” He looked shocked, if not a little bemused, that I was talking to him.

“Do you have any training gear with you?” I asked.

“Sure,” he replied. “Why?”

“Wondered if you fancied sparring?” I asked innocently.

“Sure,” he replied. “Just let me change, and I’ll be there.” I shadowboxed patiently while I tried to calm down.

He wasn’t gone more than five minutes, but as he strolled confidently toward the ring, everything about him, from his tanned skinned to his all-American perfect white teeth got on my nerves. Even his training gear looked new and expensive compared with our raggedy old stuff.

“How long you been boxing?” I asked as we danced around the ring.

“Since I was about ten. My old man taught me.”

“He anyone I would’ve heard of?” I asked curiously.

“Nah. He never did it to compete. He just wanted me to be able to take care of myself. I won a few amateur titles when I was a teenager but I was never good enough to go pro.”

I started out with a few combinations to test his mettle. Kieran was a better sparring partner because he could read me. We’d had a lifetime of training together, and he often knew what punch I’d throw before I did. This guy wasn’t half bad though. He picked up the pace, and we were throwing a few combinations back and forth when a rogue left hook clipped me with more force than he’d intended. It was unexpected and knocked me off my feet.

“Sorry,” he said good-naturedly, offering out his hand to help me up. When I shook my head in refusal, he looked a little worried.

“Don’t sweat it,” I told him with a calm I didn’t feel. I jabbed at him a couple of times, and he responded in turn with a couple of his own combinations. Our friendly banter of a few minutes ago was ancient history, and the tension between us was palpable. It was wrong to blame him for what pissed me off but my rage had no sense of direction. I guess it was in me to hide it from Em, but everyone else lately was fair game. Twenty minutes into our session and I’d made it clear that he was out of his depth. We’d passed what could respectively be called sparring long ago. For the most part, Earnshaw just kept his guard up, jabbing at me when he could, while I used him like a human punch bag. He knew what I was doing, and although the look on his face was murderous, he didn’t call me out on it.

“If the job is a bit out of your league, Earnshaw, there’s no shame in admitting it,” I taunted him. I was basically asking him if he’d had enough. Hell, I was practically daring him to quit. I’d smacked him around a fair bit already but he looked me straight in the eye when he told me to go fuck myself.