Shiori shuffled back to her corner.

Maddox held out her robe. “That cut above your eye might need stitches.”

Knox was going to lose his shit when he saw her face up close. She felt it swelling. Stitches could wait until after she’d cleared the air with Knox. Still, it was all she could do not to shamble out of the arena like a little old woman.

Once they’d reached the private room, she sat on the bench against the wall to wait for Knox to get done with his payouts.

Shiori had started to doze off when she heard arguing in the hallway. “Tough titties, Deacon. Shi is my friend and I wanna see her.”

She opened her eyes as Molly barreled in.

“Omigod. Look at you.”

“Or don’t,” she joked.

Then Presley, Molly’s coworker, leaned in really close. “Better get some ice on your face. I had a cut like that once too. See?” She turned her head and pointed to her eyebrow. “My coach forced me to get it sewn up. It needed, like, ten stitches, but as soon as those stitches came out, I pierced it.”

Molly pulled Presley back by her suspenders. “God, Presley, she doesn’t need ten stitches.”

“How’d you get your badass scar?” Shiori asked.

“Got clipped in the head with a roller skate. It bled a fuck ton. They had to stop the match to mop up the blood, which was sort of cool.”

Molly nudged Presley aside. “I swear if you get her started on roller-derby-injury stories, we’ll be here all damn night.” She took Shiori’s hand. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“No. Thanks, though. And thanks for coming to the fights.”

“Amery would be horrified by what happened to you.”

“I know. I’m glad she’s not here. And if you talk to her . . .”

“Don’t worry. I won’t say anything. Take care, okay? Katie said something about us celebrating next week. I guess we’ll see how you and Fee are faring first.”

“Good plan.”

They left and the room became quiet again. She shifted on the hard bench and felt a sharp pain in her hip.

But in the quiet void Deacon’s and Maddox’s voices drifted to her.

“We had no way of knowing that,” Maddox argued.

“Yes, you did. Knox tried to tell her, and she basically called him a dumb shit in front of a roomful of people.”

Her stomach knotted—and not from her fight injuries.

“How was I supposed to know that he wasn’t just being the paranoid boyfriend? Because that’s what it came across like. And I’m not the only one who saw it that way.”

“Shiori doesn’t fucking count,” Deacon snapped. “If you’d seen those two before they started dating, you never would’ve believed they’d end up together. Knox would say white, and even if it was obviously white, Shiori would say black—if only to get a rise out of him.”

“So you’re saying that she stepped in to fight just to piss Knox off?”

“No. I won’t pretend that Knox’s feelings for Shiori didn’t play a part in his decision. But the thing neither of you understood is it wasn’t his only reason for wanting to cancel that bout. Shiori made it personal. She stepped in to fight because Mia and Knox hooked up a couple of times. You were there at the bar last week. You saw what kind of a woman Mia is. She’s vindictive as hell. How Knox got away from her unscathed is a miracle.”

“Shiori sure as fuck didn’t get away unscathed.” Maddox sighed. “Mia whipped up on her, and I never expected that. We watched the fight tapes. The woman in the ring tonight was not the woman on those tapes.”

“That brings me back to my point. Knox has seen Mia fight. He knows what Mia’s capable of. He tried to keep Shiori from doing something stupid and getting herself hurt because of her pride. But she didn’t listen to reason. She just jumped in and assumed Knox said no for personal reasons only. She made him look like a fool, and you were the hammer that drove that nail home.”

“Fucking great. I put Ronin Black’s sister in that ring with psycho chick who downplays her fighting abilities so she can destroy unsuspecting challengers. I backed Shiori because I wanted a win. So as far as my debut as the head of Black Arts MMA program, not only is the head of Black Arts questioning my judgment, but I threw in with his girlfriend and disrespected him in the most public way possible.”

Good thing she was sitting down. The reality of what she’d done knocked all the air from her lungs. Every bit of her earlier indignation taunted her, playing on a loop that highlighted her verbal idiocy. Her treatment of Knox was beyond reprehensible. Talk about turning into a self-important blowhard. The ache in her head increased exponentially, but it didn’t hold a candle to the ache in her soul. Because she’d done the one thing she’d sworn never to do. She’d humiliated him. Their conversation about the consequence of boundaries being crossed slammed into the forefront of her thoughts as hard and as fast as a Japanese bullet train.