Eve had always known Alexander was dangerous. She had seen it in his eyes the first time they met—the kind of darkness that didn't just haunt a man, but owned him. But love had made her reckless. It had made her believe she could save him.
She was wrong.
The underground fights were changing him. He didn't talk about it, but she saw it in the way his fists clenched even when he wasn't in the ring, in the way he barely slept, in the way his kisses grew desperate—as if he was trying to hold onto something that was already slipping through his fingers.
Carver's threats loomed over them like a guillotine, always there, always waiting. Each fight was worse than the last, the blood thicker, the crowd wilder. And every time Alexander stepped into that ring, Eve felt like she was losing a piece of him.
She tried to pull him back. Tried to remind him that there was something beyond the violence. But he only looked at her with those haunted eyes, as if he knew something she didn't.
And then Carver came with his ultimatum.