The clicker counted down the last ten seconds, but Mia managed to work in another blow to the head.

Bleeding, breathing hard, she walked back to her corner, and Maddox was right there with the stool, water, and Vaseline for her cut lip.

“Okay, you’ve got to try to keep her on her feet. I know you’ve been working on Muay Thai with Deacon, so use some of those drills to knock her off balance. Any spinning moves you do, do them fast before she grabs any part of you, understand?”

Shiori nodded. Rinsed her mouth and spit into the bucket. “Why does she have a professional record? Isn’t this amateurs only?”

“In a smoker like this, anything goes. As long as her amateur record has more fights than her pro record, she can enter these things.”

“She’s not fighting like the tapes.”

Maddox looked into her eyes. “No, she’s not. But you can adapt, Shiori. You have to. She won that round. Get her this time.”

At the start of the second round, Mia started in again with those snap kicks that landed on the inside of Shiori’s knee. She blocked a couple, but she hadn’t landed any kicks because she was too focused on dodging Mia’s kicks.

She tried a spinning back fist, hoping to knock Mia the fuck out with one blow, but it landed low. The attempt made Mia mad enough that she charged.

Unprepared for that move, Shiori hit the mat on her back. She did land a knee to Mia’s head before Mia got into guard position again. Then Shiori was getting whaled on.

Things were starting to get a little fuzzy, and she lowered her hands for just a second and Mia punched her in the eye.

That motherfucking hurt.

And she was bleeding again.

Enraged, she bucked hard and threw Mia off, which allowed her to get a reversal. She knew she didn’t have a chance of getting her arm for an arm bar, so she settled for delivering blows to the side of Mia’s head. As the last ten seconds clicked down, Mia twisted her arm around and punched the inside of Shiori’s right knee—the knee that’d been kicked a hundred times.

Somehow Shiori walked a straight line to her corner. She sat on the stool and closed her eyes against the blood seeping down the side of her face.

“Jesus. She got you there.”

“She. Got. Me. Every. Where,” she wheezed.

“You did better this round. You earned a few offensive points, which helps, because that tells you she has weak spots.”

“Where?” She rinsed and spit.

“When she does the punch, punch, fake-out, kick combo? Sweep her standing leg out from underneath her. Then make sure you get into guard position.” He smeared more Vaseline on her split lip. “Three more minutes. You’ve got it in you.”

Mia mixed it up at the start of every round. She attempted a spinning back kick, but Shiori saw she’d compromised her balance point and she swept her leg out. This time she did land in guard position, but she couldn’t sustain it against Mia’s monkey feet, which worked their way to Shiori’s hips.

Then a real bell-ringing blow caught her on the cheek, and she loosened her hold. Mia forced a reversal, and Shiori found herself facedown on the mat, bleeding again, not able to make any offensive moves against this beast.

Tap out.

She ignored the voice and struggled to keep her arms away from Mia.

No shame in tapping out.

Yes, there is! Ronin’s voice. What happened to your rage? Find it. Use it.

Her rage had fled the building, along with her sanity, because she should not have gotten in the ring with this woman.

Then coherent thought disappeared completely when Mia got her into a rear naked choke. But she knew a trick to get out of this one and it worked. She rolled upright, determined to end this round on her feet.

Mia was bouncing from side to side, trying to distract her with her footwork. So when the wheel kick came, Shiori was ready. She used the last of her energy to do a jumping knee, and it caught Mia under the chin.

The ten-second clicker ticked down and Shiori kept her hands up, protecting herself, but Mia didn’t strike.

The final bell rang.

Would anyone object if she crawled to her corner?

Her butt hit the stool, and she spit out her mouth guard. She looked at Maddox as he did more patch-up jobs on her face. “How bad did I lose?”

He shrugged. “I’ve seen worse.”

The ref brought them both into the center of the ring and held their hands. “After three rounds, the judges have scored this decision unanimously. Your winner tonight.” He lifted Mia’s arm. “Mia ‘the Meat Grinder’ Sedladcheck.”