“Don’t yank,” she said. “Make space.”
She demonstrated Patrick’s old step.
Slip outside. Guide the wrist. Move past the hip.
Imani tried again.
This time she was free in two seconds.
Her face lit up.
Cassidy looked at the photograph on the wall.
Patrick was smiling in it.
Vincent came into the gym after class carrying a small brass plaque.
Cassidy read it.
PATRICK GALLAGHER TRAINING FLOOR.
She shook her head.
“He would hate that.”
“I know.”
“He’d say naming floors after people is how rich men avoid apologizing.”
Vincent considered that.
“Also accurate.”
Cassidy handed the plaque back.
“Put his name on the scholarship forms. Not the floor.”
Vincent nodded.
The plaque never went up.
The scholarships did.
A year after the whiskey spilled, Cassidy stood in the same ring where Patrick had once refused twenty-five thousand dollars to lose on purpose. The old club was loud again—jump ropes slapping canvas, gloves hitting pads, teenagers arguing about music.
Above the lockers, Patrick’s photograph remained.
Not because he had been a perfect fighter.
Because he had refused to become the kind of man who won by agreeing to lose himself.
Cassidy wrapped her hands in the old red cloth for the first time.
The fabric was thin and useless for serious sparring now, but she tied it once around her wrists anyway.
Then she called the next class into the ring.
When a student reached for her arm during the demonstration, Cassidy moved the way Patrick had taught her.
