Page 39 of Main Event

I go back to my office.

LUKE

Nine weeks out from the fight, the Commission calls Bill again.

This time it’s not a preliminary inquiry. It’s a formal hearing notice. The conduct file has been reviewed by the standards committee, and they want me to face them in a room and answer questions about the gas station. About the footage. About the man who died at Grady two days later with no identification and a medication error in his chart.

Bill calls me on the way to the gym. I pull over on Northside Drive, sit in the truck with the engine running, and listen.

“They’re not pulling your license,” he says. “Not yet. The self-defense argument is holding,a nd the police report supports it. But the standards committee has questions about the unidentified man. The fact that he had no ID, no phone, a false name at intake—they want to understand what you knew about who these people were before you engaged.”

“I knew they were pulling my fiancée out of her car,” I say.

“I know that. I’m telling you what they’re going to ask.” His tone flattens. “Luke. The hearing is in three weeks. Three weeks before the fight. Whoever scheduled it on that timeline did it deliberately.”

I look at the cars going past on Northside. In Atlanta in September, the heat is finally starting to ease, and the city is running its ordinary morning routine.

“Evelyn,” I say.

“She advises two of the organizations that have filed formal complaints with the Commission in the last six months. I found that this morning.” Bill’s voice is level. “She didn’t manufacture the hearing. She just made sure it landed on a calendar that creates maximum pressure.”

I sit with that for a moment.

“What do I do?” I ask.

“You show up. You answer every question honestly and completely. You let the police report and Andi’s statement do the work they were designed to do.” Then, slower, each word set down on its own: “And you do not—under any circumstances—let this affect your training. Because the timing is designed to get inside your head, and the best answer to that is a performance in that ring that makes the conduct file irrelevant.”

“Reyes is going to love this,” I say.

“Tell Reyes after the session,” Bill says. “Not before.”

I pull back into traffic.

I don’t tell Andi until that evening.

Not because I’m protecting her—we agreed a long time ago that protecting means standing next to, not deciding what someone can handle. I don’t tell her until evening because she has a full day at MaxMorgan and a board call at the center, and she’s been managing Deja, the Delia file, and the Evelyn meetings, and I want her to have a day that’s just normal work before I add this to it.

She reads it in my face the minute I come through the door, anyway.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

I tell her about the hearing. The three-week timeline. Bill’s read on the scheduling. She listens with her arms crossed and her jaw set—the way she absorbs something she’s angry about and will not express it.

“She intentionally scheduled it three weeks before the fight,” Andi says.

“Bill thinks so.”

“It’s not a coincidence.” She uncrosses her arms. “It’s designed to split your focus. Hearing preparation, camp intensity, and Commission scrutiny all at once. She wants you distracted.” She looks at me. “Are you?”

“No,” I say.

“Good.” She nods once. “Then we prepare for the hearing the same way you prepare for a fight. Methodically. No shortcuts. Bill handles the legal piece, you handle the room, and the police report handles the rest.”

I look at her, studying her beautiful face, the set of her jaw, and the fire in her eyes.

“You’re not worried,” I say.

“I’m furious,” she says. “That’s different from worried.” The corner of her mouth lifts slightly—not quite a smile, but something in that neighborhood. “Go shower. Daniel’s file came today. Bill messengered the second one over. I’ve been waiting for you.”