Lahat ng Kabanata ng FAKE DATING THE HOTTEST BOXER: Kabanata 71 - Kabanata 80

Drent"I want everything on Marcus by Friday," I said. "Movements, contacts, whoever he's been meeting with since he got back. I don't care how you get it."Javier's voice came through the phone even and steady. He had been with me long enough to receive instructions like that without needing them softened. "Understood. I'll have something to you by Thursday night.""Good."A brief pause on the line. "There's something else.""Say it.""The boxing match." I could hear the careful neutrality he was putting into his voice, which meant he had an opinion he was deciding whether to share. "It's been getting attention. Sponsors are talking about it. People are watching how you handle it.""I know.""Renata's been training hard. Word is she's serious about this.""I know that too.""So what's the plan?""The plan is I win," I said. "Same as everything else."I ended the call and set the phone face down on the desk and sat back.The room was quiet. Outside the window the city did what it alwa

DrentSir Khabib's office was the kind of room that had been designed to remind you of how much money was in it. Heavy furniture, the kind of art on the walls that existed purely to signal taste, and a view of the city that said everything about where the man who sat behind that desk had positioned himself in the world.He stood when I came in, which was a courtesy he extended to very few people, and we shook hands and sat and his assistant poured coffee that neither of us touched."We're looking forward to this fight," he said. As he swung his chair slightly. "The attention it's getting is significant. More than we anticipated, frankly.""I appreciate the investment," I said. "Both of you coming on board early meant a great deal."He nodded, accepting this, and then he leaned forward slightly and the warmth in his expression adjusted itself into something more direct."I'll be plain with you, Drent. We have a great deal of money behind this. Not just on the event itself but on the ou

RenataThe venue was already filled with people, and it felt like all my weeks of training were crumbling just from hearing the loud rumbling of fans outside.I sat in the prep room, the quietest place in the entire stadium, where I was supposed to get ready before two o'clock when we would actually step into the ring. I sat on the cold bench, soaking it all in.I had waited for this for as long as I could remember and it was finally happening. I had gone through hell for this opportunity. To one day share the ring with Drent Ardent, to one day show the world what I was capable of despite my gender.I remembered the discouragement from my old coach. You will never become a boxer, Renata. It's for the men. Go find a ladies sport.That was enough to crush most dreams, but I never gave up. I never had. And today I sat here, with hundreds of people waiting outside, just like I had imagined as a high school girl who used to paste boxing posters inside her locker. And I was facing Drent.My

MarcusSirens tore through the night before the dust had even settled. Ambulances screeched into the lot one after another, their lights washing red and blue over the wreckage of the arena as the building groaned and finally gave way behind them. The place had collapsed. The match was over. And my plan had worked perfectly.People were running everywhere, some bleeding, some screaming names into the smoke, some just standing frozen and staring at what used to be a roof. Injured bodies were being carried out on stretchers. Others limped out on their own, coughing, dazed, displaced from a night that was supposed to end in celebration and instead ended in chaos. By morning, the state of Drent would be nothing but speculation, whispers, and half-answers.I didn't wait around to watch the cleanup. I had somewhere to be.I found Dakota at the bar we always went to when there was something worth drinking over, and tonight there was plenty. The place was already loud with people talking about

RenataI took one last glance at an almost lifeless Drent before leaving the ward, after the doctor had told me multiple times to go home and let him rest.It wasn't that I didn't want to go home. But after Marcus had made a scene about being blamed for Drent's current state, and told me he was coming for me, I was too scared to leave Drent alone.I was scared that Marcus would come back and do something bad, and I wouldn't be there to stop him. That Marcus had another plan, and I wouldn't be there to protect Drent, and the thought of that made fear run through my body.Coming from a family that loved each other, I never knew blood brothers could hate each other so much that they were willing to kill one another just to inherit a company. But with the look in Marcus's eyes, he was definitely going to come back to that hospital and do something bad to Drent, and the thought of it made my heart beat faster.I arrived at my room, banged the door shut, swung my bag onto the chair, and cra