We spend the night in a hotel across town.

One bed. Two people trying to process how everything changed in the span of thirty minutes.

Marcus sits by the window, watching the street below with the hypervigilance of someone trained to expect attack. His knuckles are properly bandaged now—my work—but I can see the tension he carries in every line of his body.

"You should sleep," I say from the bed.

"Can't."

"Because of Tommy?"

"Because of you."

[soft rustling of sheets]

I move to sit beside him, studying his profile in the dim light filtering through the curtains.

"Talk to me."

He's quiet for so long I think he won't answer.

Then: "I killed people, Sophia. Not in rings, not in fair fights. In ways that would make you sick if you knew the details."

"For your country."

"That's what I told myself. But when you're holding a rifle instead of boxing gloves, when the person in your sights is someone's son or brother or father..." He closes his eyes. "The reason stops mattering."

"Is that why you fight now? To punish yourself?"

"Maybe. Or maybe it's the only way I know how to exist."

I reach for his bandaged hand, intertwining our fingers.

"What if there was another way?"

"Like what?"

"Like this. Like us."

He turns to look at me, eyes dark with something between hope and disbelief.

"You still want there to be an us? After what you saw tonight?"

"Especially after what I saw tonight."

"Sophia—"

"You protected me. Protected Murphy. You could have killed those men, but you didn't. You used exactly the amount of force necessary and no more." I squeeze his hand. "That's not the behavior of someone who's lost his humanity, Marcus. That's someone who's found his way back to it."

[heartbeat, steady and strong]

He lifts our joined hands, presses a kiss to my knuckles with lips that are impossibly soft.

"I love you," he says quietly.

"I love you too."

"Even knowing what I am?"

"Because I know what you are. Not just the soldier. Not just the fighter. All of it."

We sit in comfortable silence, watching the city wake up outside our window.

"What happens now?" I ask eventually.

"Now I end this."

"How?"

His smile is sharp, dangerous. "By giving Tommy exactly what he wants."

My blood goes cold. "Marcus, no—"

"Not the contract. The fight." He stands, pacing to the other side of the room. "He wants me in his organization? Fine. One fight. Winner takes all."

"That's insane. He'll have every advantage—"

"Will he?" Marcus turns back to me. "He's counting on me being afraid. On me fighting to preserve something. But what if I'm not fighting to preserve anything?"

"I don't understand."

"What if I'm fighting to destroy everything? Including myself if necessary?"

[sharp intake of breath]

The look in his eyes terrifies me.

"Don't you dare," I whisper. "Don't you dare throw your life away."

"I'm not throwing it away. I'm finally using it for something that matters."

"I matter. We matter. Doesn't that count for something?"

He crosses back to me in two strides, cupping my face in his hands.

"You matter more than anything. That's why I have to do this."

"There has to be another way—"

He silences me with a kiss that tastes like goodbye.

When we break apart, I see the decision already made in his eyes.

"Marcus, please—"

"Marry me."

The words stop my protest cold.

"What?"

"Marry me. Right now. Today."

"You're insane."

"Completely." His thumb traces along my cheekbone. "But I want you to be mine before I walk into that ring. Want to know that whatever happens, you'll always be the woman who saw past the violence to something worth saving."

Tears stream down my face.

"You're not going to die in there."

"Promise me something."

"Anything."

"If I don't make it out—"

"You will."

"If I don't," he continues firmly, "promise me you'll remember this moment. Remember that the man who loved you was more than just fists and fury. That he was gentle when it mattered."

[soft sobbing]

I can't speak around the tears, so I just nod.

"Is that a yes to the proposal or the promise?"

"Both," I manage.

His smile is radiant.

"Good. Because I already called Murphy. He knows a judge who owes him favors."

"You planned this."

"I planned to love you for the rest of my life. However long that turns out to be."

Four hours later, we're married in a courthouse that smells like disinfectant and broken dreams.

Murphy and his wife serve as witnesses. The judge looks like he'd rather be anywhere else. I wear the same clothes I slept in.

It's perfect.

When Marcus kisses me at the altar—soft, reverent, full of promise—I taste the future we're going to build together.

Because I refuse to believe this story ends any other way.

That night, Tommy's fight takes place in an abandoned warehouse on the south side.

I watch from the crowd as Marcus steps into a ring that's more cage than boxing ring. Watch him face an opponent who outweighs him by fifty pounds and fights without rules or mercy.

For twelve brutal rounds, I remember how to pray.

Marcus fights like a man with everything to lose and nothing to fear. When his opponent goes down for the final count, when the referee raises my husband's bloody hand in victory, I realize something important:

Sometimes the gentlest souls are forged in the most violent fires.

Sometimes the hands that know how to destroy are the same ones that learn to heal.

[crowd cheering, distant]

Later, as I clean his wounds in our hotel room, Marcus catches my hand.

"How do they look?" he asks.

I examine his bruised knuckles, the same hands that fought for our future tonight.

"Like they're ready to hold something precious," I say.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

He pulls me down for a kiss that tastes like victory and new beginnings.

"No more fighting," he murmurs against my lips.

"What will you do instead?"

His smile is soft, full of possibility.

"Learn how to be gentle. Full time."

The strongest fighters know when to lay down their gloves.

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