Dmitri gave a humorless laugh. “You make it sound easy.”
“It isn’t easy. It’s simple. Those are different things.”
The words seemed to settle between them. Dmitri looked down at his hands, scarred from decades of training and repairs.
“I need you to understand something,” he said. “If the sponsorship goes, I may have to close.”
Thomas nodded. “I understand.”
“I have fighters who depend on this place.”
“Then make the place worth depending on.”
Thomas left before Dmitri could answer.
At the end of his shift, he found a folded sheet of paper tucked beneath the handle of his mop bucket. There was no name on it. Only a time and address.
**Tomorrow. 6:30 a.m. Old Harbor Boxing Club. Come alone. — S.P.**
Thomas crumpled the paper, then smoothed it again.
Samuel had always hated riddles. If he had written one now, something had frightened him.
Thomas called the number from the message. It rang once before Samuel answered.
“You got my note,” Samuel said.
“What’s going on?”
“I can explain in person.”
“You said someone was asking about the unit.”
“They are. And they’re not asking out of nostalgia.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know yet. But they have your name, Thomas. They know where you work.”
Thomas looked through the gym’s glass doors. Across the street, a dark sedan sat at the curb. Its windows were tinted. As he watched, it pulled away from the curb and merged into traffic.
“Why tell me now?” he asked.
“Because the video made you visible. Whoever is looking for you has a new way to find you.”
Thomas felt the old, cold alertness awaken behind his ribs.
“Six-thirty,” he said.
“Come prepared.”
“I’m not coming to fight anyone.”
Samuel was silent for a moment. “That’s what you said the last time I saw you.”
The line went dead.
Thomas stood in the empty gym, the mop bucket beside him and the cage lights reflecting off the polished floor. He had spent six years believing that if he made himself small enough, the past would pass him by.
Now a stranger had found him through a video of a rich kid losing his balance.
Thomas locked the supply closet and checked the service door twice before leaving.
The Old Harbor Boxing Club occupied the ground floor of a brick building that had survived three owners, two floods, and the neighborhood’s transformation from working docks to luxury lofts. Its sign had lost two letters. The front windows were cloudy with age, and the bell above the door sounded like a spoon striking a glass.
Thomas arrived at 6:27 a.m.
Inside, the air smelled of leather, dust, and coffee left too long on a hot plate. Heavy bags hung from exposed beams. The ring ropes had been patched with tape. A handful of teenagers moved through footwork drills while an elderly trainer called corrections from a folding chair.
Samuel Price stood near the far wall.
He was sixty, broad through the shoulders, and walked with a cane he pretended not to need. His hair was white, his face deeply lined, and his eyes still possessed the unnerving clarity Thomas remembered from training years ago.
“You look tired,” Samuel said.
“You look old.”
“I am old. You’re just stubborn.”
They clasped hands. Samuel held on a second longer than necessary, as if checking that Thomas was real.
“You shouldn’t have posted that video,” Thomas said.
“I didn’t post it.”
“You knew I’d see it.”
“I hoped you would.”
“That’s worse.”
Samuel gestured toward a small office behind the ring. They sat at a table covered with old tournament flyers and a half-finished crossword puzzle. Samuel poured coffee into two mismatched mugs.
“I’ve been contacted by a man named Victor Sloane,” he said. “He claims to be working on a documentary about veterans who moved into private security after leaving the service. He asked about our old unit, about the last deployment, and specifically about you.”
“I haven’t worked security in six years.”
“He knows that. He also knows you refused several contracts after you retired.”
Thomas stared at the coffee. “How?”
“That’s what concerns me.”
Samuel slid a printed email across the table. The sender’s address was a business account associated with a private risk consultancy. The message was polite, almost bland. It asked whether Thomas Decker had ever discussed the final mission with former colleagues, and whether any members of the unit had retained personal records.
“Did you answer?” Thomas asked.
“No. I called the number listed on the company website. The receptionist had never heard of him.”
Thomas read the email again. “Someone is using a false identity.”
“Or a real company as cover.”
“Why now?”
Samuel’s expression darkened. “There are people who believe the mission report left something out. They have been trying to reopen the question for years.”
Thomas pushed the page away. “The report was reviewed.”
“The report was approved.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No,” Samuel said quietly. “It isn’t.”
The room seemed to grow smaller. Thomas could hear the teenagers striking pads outside, the trainer’s voice rising and falling, the dull thud of gloves against leather. For a moment, he was back in a transport vehicle under a white sky, listening to Daniel Mercer tell a terrible joke while the others laughed too loudly.
He pushed the memory away.
“What do you want from me?”