The Last Round - Chapter 8

Sutton

I go through the motions.

Clean up the kitchen.

Check on Kingston and his friends.

Pretend everything is fine.

Like I didn’t just hear his name.

Like I didn’t just feel that old, familiar rage clawing its way up my throat.

Jaxon Kane.

The man who shattered me.

The man I gave everything to.

The man I loved more than life itself.

The man who looked me in the eyes and told me I meant nothing.

I grip the counter harder, my nails digging into the cool surface.

My heart shouldn’t be racing.

My stomach shouldn’t be twisting just because his name was on my son’s lips.

But it is.

And that pisses me off.

Kingston was waiting for something.

A reaction.

A crack in my armor.

But I won’t give him one.

Because I know the truth.

I know exactly what kind of man Jaxon Kane is.

And I don’t for one second believe that his little show of regret was about me.

He made it clear the night he threw me away.

I was nothing to him.

A publicity stunt, a pretty face for the cameras, someone to boost his image until he was done playing house.

And when he was done? He moved on.

So whatever the hell he said in that interview, it wasn’t about me.

It was about her.

The woman he left me for.

The one he threw in my face like I never mattered.

Maybe it didn’t work out.

Maybe he regrets choosing her over me.

Maybe he’s just looking for sympathy.

But I don’t care.

I refuse to care.

My body betrays me anyway.

My pulse pounds in my throat, my stomach twisting as I head toward my bedroom, locking the door behind me.

I don’t even turn on the lights.

I just lean against the door, breathing through it.

I tell myself I don’t care.

But for a split second-just one tiny, flickering second-I let myself remember.

The way he used to hold me.

The way his voice softened when he whispered my name.

The way he swore he’d never let me go.

Liar.

My throat tightens.

He left me.

He left us.

My hands shake as I shove them through my hair, exhaling hard.

I open my laptop and pull up the case files I brought home.

Leon Mercer.

His name stares back at me, bold and unforgiving.

A heavyweight in underground fighting rings.

A businessman with blood money in his pockets.

A man I’ve been building a case against for months.

I flick through the reports, my jaw tightening.

Mercer had a fighter once.

A kid he pushed too far, controlled too tightly.

I already know how this ends. I’ve seen it too many times. Mercer ruins men.

He turns them into weapons, uses them until they break, then tosses them.

Jaxon Kane’s name is nowhere in these files.

But it doesn’t matter.

Because even if Mercer was the reason he left-who gives a damn? Jaxon still made his choice.

He still let another man decide what my life was worth.

He still let someone else tell him I wasn’t enough.

He still left.

He still threw me away like I was nothing.

And I refuse to waste another second thinking about him.

I slam the laptop shut, the sound sharp in the silence of my room.

Jaxon Kane is a ghost.

He doesn’t exist in my world.

And he never will again.