Black Belt Tried to Embarrass a Single Mom During Sparring—Then She Changed Her Fighting Stance
Chapter 7
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Derek scrambled frantically to his feet, his chest heaving, his handsome face now a twisted mask of furious desperation. He was no longer sparring. He was fighting desperately for his reputation, his standing in the gym, and his pride. He wiped a smear of cold sweat from his forehead, his breathing erratic and heavy."You're dead," he hissed through clenched teeth.Completely abandoning any remaining pretense of control or sportsmanship, he charged her blindly, throwing caution to the wind, unloading a frantic, chaotic flurry of wild haymakers, looping hooks, and desperate uppercuts. It was an ugly street-brawler barrage meant to overwhelm her through sheer, unadulterated aggression.Diana simply slipped into the matrix.She employed a flawless masterclass in defensive shell framing. She kept her elbows pinned tightly to her ribs, her gloves glued seamlessly to her forehead, and her chin tucked safely behind the fortress of her shoulders. Derek's heavy punches battered against her forearms and gloves in a rapid, echoing staccato, but absolutely nothing penetrated the shield. She absorbed the kinetic energy beautifully, rolling slightly with the heaviest shots, letting his own uncontrollable anger drain his oxygen.She stepped laterally, pivoting smoothly off the center line with graceful, measured footwork, forcing Derek to turn awkwardly and reset continually. He was swinging blindly at smoke, burning out his shoulder muscles while she conserved every single ounce of her stamina, watching his patterns, waiting for the inevitable mistake.When Derek's frantic barrage finally slowed, his arms heavy with lactic acid and his lungs burning for air, Diana saw the gaping opening she had meticulously engineered. As Derek threw a lazy, exhausted right hand from his hip, Diana slipped gracefully outside the trajectory of the punch. She parried his heavy arm downward, trapping it against his own body for a fraction of a second, and fired a crisp, explosive right cross straight down the pipe.The punch snapped Derek's head violently backward, snapping his nose sideways. A spray of crimson blood instantly painted across his cheek. Before he could even register the sharp explosion of pain, Diana grabbed the back of his neck with both heavily wrapped hands in a vicious, unbreakable Thai plum clinch. She yanked his head downward with tremendous, unyielding force while simultaneously driving her right knee violently upward.She stopped the devastating strike exactly half an inch from his face.Derek froze completely. He was bent over awkwardly, held hostage in her iron grip, staring cross-eyed at the hard, sweat-stained leather of her knee guard hovering mere millimeters from his shattered nose. He knew with absolute, terrifying certainty that if she had followed through with even a fraction of her momentum, she would have fractured his orbital bone and knocked him unconscious into next week.The silence in the Grindhouse Combat Club was suddenly absolute and deafening. The heavy hip-hop music had somehow been muted, leaving only the harsh buzzing hum of the overhead fluorescent lights and the ragged sound of Derek whimpering.Diana held him locked in that humiliating position for three agonizing, deeply silent seconds. She let the harsh reality of his utter physical helplessness wash over him completely, letting him feel the exact same suffocating terror he so deeply enjoyed inflicting on others."You drop your hands when you throw the right," Diana whispered directly into his ear, her voice remarkably cold and brutally steady. "If you ever do it again in front of my son, I will take your teeth home as a trophy."