An Iron-Body Fighter Told Single Mom "Your Punches Are Useless" — She Was Down, 6 Seconds Later He Regretted!
Chapter 15
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For three years, she's kept every part of herself small and quiet on purpose. This is the first thing in a long time that hasn't asked her to shrink.She thinks of Everett briefly, the way she always does in quiet moments like this one: he used to tease her gently about how careful she was with everything—careful with money, careful with her words, careful with the way she carried herself in a room. She never told him why. Now, throwing soft, deliberate punches into a bag that's absorbed 20 years of other people's grief and ambition, she wonders if he'd have understood anyway, without needing the full story.She doesn't notice the door creak open behind her."Didn't expect to find you here this early," Silas says.Callie freezes mid-swing, embarrassed like she's been caught doing something she shouldn't. "Couldn't sleep."Silas doesn't move from the doorway; he just watches her a moment, quiet and unhurried, the way he watches everything. "Your stance is off.""I haven't done this in ten years, Silas.""Doesn't matter." He steps closer, setting down the thermos he always carries—the same faded green one he's had for as long as Callie's known him. "Your feet are too square. You're squaring up like somebody taught you to brawl, not box. That's not how your father had you standing."The room goes very still. Callie lowers her hands slowly. "You knew him?" It isn't a question—not really. It's the thing she's suspected for days now, finally said out loud, waiting to see what it does to the air between them.Silas is quiet for a long moment—long enough that Callie wonders if he's going to answer at all. "I trained him," he finally says. "12 years. Cornerman, coach, whatever you want to call it. Thomas Reese was the best amateur I ever worked with—best I ever will, probably." He picks his thermos back up, turns it slowly in his hands—not drinking from it, just holding something. "I trained you, too, a little. You were maybe six years old; you wouldn't remember.""I don't.""No reason you should." He almost smiles, though it doesn't quite reach the rest of his face. "You had his hands even then—same way of watching a person before you moved. You'd stand at the edge of the ring, dead serious, studying grown men spar like you were taking notes for later."Callie sits down slowly on the edge of the ring apron, her wrapped hands resting in her lap. "Why didn't you say something? All these years working right next to me—why not just say who you were?""Because your father asked me not to." Silas's voice drops quieter now. "Before he left Mill Haven, he made me promise. Said if you ever came back around this gym, he didn't want you finding out from some old man with a mop and a grudge. Said if you were meant to pick it back up, you'd do it on your own time."