Page 37 of Craving the Edge

Rhys stopped in front of me. “We need to get you scanned. Today. I want to see the reports. Where are they?”

“Haven’t got any.”

He went rigid. “You’ve known about a severe fracture for months and you haven’t had it looked at? Are you insane?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. His mind was already three steps ahead, mapping out the containment strategy. “We’ll need new NDAs for everyone. The whole coaching staff. Your physio. Anyone from that shitty little gym who might’ve seen the swelling. That girl at the gym you’ve been eye-fucking…”

I looked past him, out the window. The city was sharp and clear in the morning light. The chaos Rhys described felt distant, like it belonged to someone else. For the first time since camp started, my head was quiet. A strange clarity settled in my bones. The endless pressure just… evaporated.

“I’ll call Doctor Evans,” Rhys muttered, already pulling out his phone. “We’ll tell him it happened this morning. A sparring accident.”

His phone was already pressed to his ear. “Robert, it’s Rhys Galloway. Get a pen.”

I glanced at Tomas. He looked pissed, his dark eyes fixed on Rhys. For all the attention Rhys paid him, Tomas could’ve been a piece of furniture.

Rhys paced. “Declan’s had an accident. Sparring. I need you to meet us at the clinic. He thinks he’s fractured his right hand, fourth metacarpal.” A pause. “Yes, this morning. About an hour ago.”

The lie came so easily for him, but as I stood there watching him spin it, I released that he hadn’t even looked at my hand. He hadn’t even asked if it hurt.

Rhys ended the call, shoving the phone back into his pocket without looking at it. “The press cannot find out,” he snarled. “Under any circumstances. If they get a whiff that this is an old injury, that you’ve been hiding this, every sponsor will drop you. The integrity clauses alone will ruin you.”

I let out a laugh that was more air than sound.

“You think this is funny?” Rhys’s voice rose. “Your entire career is on the line. Everything we’ve built.”

We. The arsehole wasn’t even thinking about my wellbeing. His only concern was the fallout, and the damage to his own pocket. He was the complete opposite of Char. She’d looked at my hand, seen the lie, and told me to fix it. For me. Not for the sponsors or the fight purse or the fucking television network. For me.

My career might be collapsing, but for the first time in a long time, my world felt fucking real. The rest of this bullshit—the cameras, the endorsements, the fake persona—it could all burn.

“Don’t move,” Rhys commanded. “Don’t leave this apartment. Don’t answer your phone. I’ll send a car for you once the clinic is ready. Just stay put and don’t talk to anyone.”

He pulled the door open without looking back at me, or at Tomas, and left.

Tomas walked to the kitchen and opened the fridge, glass clinking inside. A moment later, there was two sharp hisses as he twisted the caps off a pair of beers. He came back and pressed one into my good hand. The condensation was ice cold against my calloused palm.

“It’s not even nine a.m,” I said.

Tomas just tilted his own bottle back, taking a long pull. “Feel better?”

“Yeah.”

Tomas snorted. He raised his beer toward the door. “Fuck that guy.”

A genuine laugh escaped me. I took a deep swig of my own beer, the cold liquid a clean burn down my throat.

He leaned against the kitchen counter, his expression serious again. “So… What are you going to do about Char?”

I lowered my bottle. “That’s what you want to know? Not about Sydney? My hand? What I’ll do if I bankrupt myself?”

“I’m not some cold-hearted suit like Galloway,” Tomas said. “Give me some credit, mate.”

I took another drink of the beer,. The quiet in my head was a new sensation, unsettling in its stillness. “Buggered if I know.”

Tomas shook his head, his expression unimpressed. “That’s not an answer, mate. Not after the last few weeks. You don’t get a girl’s face splashed over every news site in the country and then just say you don’t know.”

He was right. ‘I don’t know’ was a cop-out, a weak excuse to avoid the fucking mess I’d made. My gut instinct was to shield her from the bomb I’d just detonated. The media, Rhys, the whole goddamn circus. She deserved better than that.

“It’s not that simple,” I muttered, staring into my bottle.