Chapter 7 - BLACKOUTThe power died at 11:38 p.m.
Not just my house.
The entire block.
Lily gasped.
I was already moving.
“Phone.”
She activated the flashlight.
“No windows.”
We moved into the hallway.
My house was old, built in the 1950s, with narrow rooms and solid walls.
I knew every creak in the floor.
Every doorway.
Every angle.
That mattered.
I checked the security app.
Offline.
Router dead.
Backup camera battery should have activated.
It hadn’t.
That meant this wasn’t merely a neighborhood outage.
My phone rang.
Agent Price.
“Raymond, are you secure?”
“Power’s out.”
“We know. Transformer near your street was damaged.”
“Accident?”
“No.”
“How long?”
“Units are coming.”
A crash sounded behind the house.
Lily froze.
I whispered, “Bedroom. Lock it.”
“No.”
“Lily.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“This isn’t a debate.”
Another sound.
Glass.
Back door.
I opened the hall closet and removed an old aluminum baseball bat.
Lily stared.
“Seriously?”
“I haven’t played baseball in years.”
Footsteps entered the kitchen.
One person.
Maybe two.
I motioned Lily upstairs.
This time she obeyed.
I stood in darkness beside the hallway entrance.
A beam of light moved across the kitchen.
Then a man entered.
Black clothing.
Gloves.
Face covered.
Not Ethan.
Too small.
He moved cautiously.
Professionally enough to be dangerous.
Not professionally enough to understand my house.
As he crossed the hallway threshold, I stepped behind him.
“Stop.”
He spun.
Something metallic flashed.
Knife.
Bad choice.
His arm came up.
I struck his forearm with the bat.
The knife dropped.
He tried to tackle me.
I moved sideways and drove him into the wall.
The second man entered.
Larger.
He had something in his hand.
Not a gun.
Taser.
He fired.
I pulled the first intruder into the path.
The darts struck his jacket.
He screamed.
I shoved him toward the second man.
They collided.
The larger intruder recovered quickly.
He swung the Taser like a club.
I ducked and hit his thigh with the bat.
He dropped to one knee.
I took his wrist and forced him down.
“Don’t move.”
He tried anyway.
I applied pressure.
He stopped.
Sirens approached.
The first intruder staggered toward the back door.
Then Lily appeared at the staircase holding a can of wasp spray.
“Don’t!”
He turned.
She sprayed directly toward his face.
He screamed and stumbled blindly into the kitchen table.
I almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because Lily looked shocked by her own effectiveness.
“Dad!”
“I see him.”
Police arrived seconds later.
Both men were arrested.
Neither immediately identified Victor.
One refused to speak.
The other eventually did.
His name was Nolan Pierce.
Private security contractor.
He claimed Victor had paid him to retrieve “stolen property.”
“What property?” Detective Alvarez asked.
“A drive.”
There it was.
The ledger.
Victor believed Lily had it.
She didn’t.
Which meant Trevor probably did.
By dawn, federal agents were trying to locate him again.
Marco called repeatedly.
Trevor wasn’t responding.
At seven, Marco appeared at the gym.
“He sent me something.”
“What?”
“Coordinates.”
He showed Price, Alvarez, and me.
A location in northern Arizona.
Remote.
National forest.
Price immediately shook his head.
“You are not going.”
Marco said, “He asked for me.”
“He can ask.”
“He won’t meet agents.”
“He will if he wants protection.”
“You don’t understand him.”
“No, you don’t understand me,” Price replied.
“I have a missing witness connected to an organized gambling investigation whose location may have just been compromised. Nobody improvises.”
Price organized a controlled meeting.
Marco would go.
Agents would remain out of sight.
I stayed behind with Lily.
I hated that.
But it was correct.
Three hours passed.
Then four.
No call.
Finally, Price phoned.
“We have Trevor.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“He has the ledger.”
That changed everything.
The drive contained years of records.
Payments.
Encrypted messages.
Betting accounts.
Fight results.
Names.
Promoters.
Coaches.
One judge.
Two referees.
Several fighters.
And Ethan.
Not every Ethan Vale fight was fixed.
That mattered.
He was genuinely elite.
But according to the records, four bouts had been manipulated.
In two, opponents were paid to lose.
In one, a judge was paid to ensure a favorable score if the fight reached decision.
And in another, Ethan had allegedly agreed not to finish an opponent before a specific round because Victor had placed enormous bets on the timing.
The scandal exploded.
The organization suspended Ethan indefinitely.
Sponsors terminated contracts.
Sports networks ran special coverage.
Lawyers appeared everywhere.
And Victor Shaw became a fugitive.
One afternoon, Lily found me sitting alone in the empty gym.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“You look tired.”
“I’m sixty-three.”
“That excuse is getting old.”
“So am I.”
She smiled and sat beside me.
For several minutes, we listened to rain against the windows.
Then Lily said, “I keep waiting to feel happy.”
“About?”
“Ethan losing everything.”
“And?”
“I don’t.”
“Good.”
She frowned.
“Good?”
“His destruction doesn’t repair you.”
She thought about that.
“I wanted revenge.”
“Most people do.”
“Didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“What changed?”
I looked toward the ring.
“Age.”
“That’s it?”
“And consequences.”
She waited.
So I told her something I had never told her.
“When I was thirty-six, I nearly killed a man.”
Her eyes widened.
“What?”
“Training accident?”
“No.”
“A fight?”
“Outside one.”
I explained.
A fighter I trained named Calvin Reese had been attacked outside a bar.
Three men.
One had a knife.
I intervened.
One attacker kept coming.
I hit him.
Then hit him again after I didn’t need to.
He survived.
Barely.
“I told myself I was protecting Calvin.”
“Weren’t you?”
“At first.”
“And after?”
“I was punishing the man.”
Lily remained silent.
“That scared me more than anything.”
“Because you almost killed him?”
“Because part of me wanted to.”
I looked at her.
“That’s why Ethan worries me.”
“He likes hurting people.”
“Maybe.”
“That sounds like you’re defending him.”
“No. I’m saying the dangerous part isn’t strength.”
“What is?”
“The moment hurting somebody starts feeling like proof that you matter.”
Lily stared toward the heavy bags.
“Did you stop fighting because of that?”
“Partly.”
“I always thought your knee ended your career.”
“My knee helped.”
She smiled faintly.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
Victor.
“Nice work, Raymond.”
I stood.
Lily saw my expression.
“Where are you?”
Victor laughed.
“You really think Price has everything?”
“He has enough.”
“No.”
“You sound nervous.”
“I sound disappointed.”
“In Ethan?”
“In everyone.”
“What do you want?”
“Trevor gave them a copy.”
I looked at Lily.
“A copy?”
“The original ledger includes something different.”
“What?”
“Video.”
“Of?”
“Men doing things they would murder to keep private.”
My grip tightened.
“And you still have it.”
“Yes.”
“So why call me?”
“Because Ethan has decided Lily destroyed his life.”
Cold moved through me again.
“Where is he?”
“I assumed he was with you.”
The call ended.
At that exact moment, Marco burst through the gym door.
“Ray!”
“What?”
“Ethan’s gone.”
“Gone where?”
“He escaped the team watching him.”
Lily stood.
Marco looked at her.
“He took a car.”
“What car?”
“A black Dodge Challenger.”
I looked through the gym window.
May you like
Across the street, a black Challenger rolled slowly past.
And Ethan Vale was behind the wheel.
Related Stories
