CHAPTER ONE
Scotland, April 1827
The cold Scottish wind whistled over the moors as hundreds gathered in a hollow between two large hills.Excitement rippled through the crowd as bets of coin, whisky, and livestock were shouted back and forth.At a bare-knuckle match, any payment was fair game, and this one promised to be legendary.
Tavish O’Brien stood at the edge of the makeshift ring, its stones braced with rough wooden stakes.He’d waited two years for the chance to face The Butcher, to claim the title of Champion.
For five years, The Butcher had held the championship with brutality, crippling opponents, killing twice, never offering remorse or prayer for the dead.
Nothing.
Flexing his neck left and right, Tavish jogged in place, fists cutting the air as blood rushed hot in his ears.This was it—his chance to avenge Hammer.
It had taken everything he had buried inside to train and prepare for this day.The day he would take down his friend’s killer once and for all.
Silas Slade, nicknamed Hammer for his devastating left hook, had been Tavish’s only true friend beyond his family.They’d met as boys when the family had first moved to London from Ireland.His da had moved the family to London to pursue his dreams of opening a gentleman’s club and prove his nob of a family wrong.
Flynn O’Brien had turned his back on his noble family when he married Tavish’s ma in Ireland.The third son of a duke had no hope of inheriting—or so he believed.Yet, from the last letter Tavish had received from his ma, the old duke still had not produced an heir.How strange to think that anyone in his family could inherit a dukedom, especially his da.
Bloody hell.
An ache shot through Tavish at the thought of his da.They had not parted on good terms, not with Tavish choosing the ring over the gentleman’s club his da had built with his own hands.That wasn’t him.That life was for his brothers.Still, he wished their parting had been kinder, but it couldn’t be helped as they were too much alike—stubborn to the bone.
Dutch’s heavy hands slapped at Tavish’s shoulder repeatedly, before he started kneading hard.“Stay away from that bastard’s fists.If he gets you, you won’t live to father any children.”
Tavish cracked his neck, letting his thirst for revenge surge through his veins.“He won’t fecking touch me,” he growled, pivoting to face his long-time trainer and friend.
Dutch met his gaze, eye to eye, his rich dark skin concealing his true age but not the weight in his eyes.Jaw tight, eyes filled with unsaid words, a dark shadow clinging to him, the same shadow he wore before Hammer faced The Butcher.The same darkness before Hammer never breathed again.
Fear.
Fear was foreign to Tavish.Since boyhood, he hadn’t feared anyone or anything.Perhaps it was the unorthodox discipline of his parents.With five boys a year or two apart, they had to come up with unconventional ways for punishment.His da had punished them all by training them in bare-knuckle fighting.Their ma made them scrub floors and haul laundry, since she had no daughters to help her.Their cousin, Caitrin, had joined the family years later, and his little sister, Adara, wasn’t born until he’d left at sixteen.
He bounced on the balls of his feet, alternating punches in the air.This was it, the big one, the fight that would make or break him.Every match, every bruise, every victory had brought him here.Tonight, The Butcher would fall.Tonight, Hammer would be avenged.
After months of being away from civilization and training like his very life depended on it, Tavish was ready.He was never nervous before a fight, just anxious to get it over with, to have his opponent on his back begging for mercy or knocked out cold.
Whichever came first.
“Are you ready, ladies and gents?”the referee barked from the center of the ring, voice carrying over the roaring crowd.
The mob answered his call with one of their own.Farmers, laborers, and aristocrats alike, all hungry for blood.Tavish’s blood.The odds were stacked against him.It didn’t matter that he’d never lost a fight in his entire career.The Butcher was infamous, his viciousness legendary.
“This is it,” Dutch muttered, guiding Tavish toward the ring.
On the opposite side, The Butcher entered.A mountain of a man, standing over Tavish’s six foot two frame, twice his width and built like steel.The crowd howled, smelling blood.
None of it mattered.Revenge was everything to Tavish.
He stepped into the ring, and the world narrowed: his blood hummed, vision tunneled to only his opponent.
The referee’s voice carried over the crowd.“Our champion, Jack ‘The Butcher’ Russel!”The referee stretched his hand dramatically toward The Butcher, who punched the air viciously, a clear display of his strength.
The Butcher peeled his shirt off like armor, revealing a wall of muscle littered with scars.A pale vicious line ran from his right eye to the corner of his mouth, carving menace into his face.
“Don’t fecking die,” Dutch shouted over the crowd.
Tavish gave his old friend a lazy, dangerous smile.“Not today, old man.”
