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Prologue

“You never kno strong you are, until being strong is the only choice you have”

~Unknown~

Felix

The crowd roared

The stands rumbled

The entire place went crazy as Felix Sanchez entered and walked through the sold-out Vegas venue with his entourage Of all the fights he’d been in, this was by far the biggest of his career Winning the professional titles to begin with had been huge, but the hype leading up to this fight had been unprecedented

In the past two years, he’d buffed up enough to now be fighting in a heavier bracket He’d be defending his title against Pauly Grecco, the up-and-co Italian phenomenon with an impeccable record He was the first contender as actually thought to have a slight chance of taking the title from Felix So far, no one had even come close

Felix had made more appearances on shows all over the world to discuss and hype this fight than he’d had in the past Win or lose he stood to walk aith his biggest paycheck to date Many of the critics suggested that ht as seriously as he should have been It had been reported that, while he’d been busy pro the states tononstop and not taking this fight for granted as Felix was being accused of

S his nahts of what all the sports co, and waved out at the crowd He then brought his attention to Athena as sheAs the provocatively dressed young pop diva was introduced, the buzz in the croas very telling of what everyone was thinking She was there because of him

Not so That was entirely his publicist Andy’s doing It was no secret that Felix and Athena had had a thing going a few months prior He’d been seen with her several ti serious like the tabloids were iood publicity, and since Felix didn’t care what anyone thought, he’d let the public come to its own conclusions

When Athena was done belting out the national antheain ild in anticipation of one of the biggest fights in years

As soon as the bell rang to start off the first round, Felix knew hethe crowd on its feet, and the entire place thundered as Felix wobbled when Grecco landed a left hook

Felix shook his head, trying to catch his bearings He’d been in the ring no more than a few seconds, and already he felt shaky Abel hadn’t been kidding when he said Grecco had a wicked left hook

“Focus and readjust!” Noah yelled from the sidelines