Deacon Marsh flung his gloves onto the canvas before he'd even stepped through the ropes. Already certain he'd won something. In front of 150 trainee protection agents, he announced that women on staff belong behind a stopwatch counting reps, not teaching anyone how to survive a real fight. Then he found me in the crowd and aimed his grin straight at me.
"Tell you what, sweetheart," he said.
And the whole gym went quiet enough to hear the air conditioning. Three-minute head start. Just tag my shoulder once and I'll walk out of here. I didn't say a word back. I just pulled the tape tighter around my wrist while his people snickered from the folding chairs.
His glove hadn't even risen an inch when the double doors at the back of the facility blew open. Our founder crossed the floor like a stormfront. And whatever he said to Deacon Marsh before that glove ever moved drained every bit of color out of the champion's face. My name is Simone Archer. For six years now, the only world I've known is the training floor at Meridian, a private compound where we turn ordinary people into close protection specialists for executives, diplomats, and the occasional celebrity who finally realizes their fame makes them a target.
I don't advertise my resume. I don't bring up the years I spent competing internationally before I ever set foot in this place. What I do is straightforward. I take people who've never been hit in their lives and teach their bodies to react before their brains have time to panic. It was a slow Wednesday when the front office decided our training calendar needed a little star power.
Deacon Marsh showed up with a small film crew, two assistants whose only job seemed to be laughing at his jokes, and enough self-regard to fill the whole building. He was the reigning cruiserweight champion. 31 wins, zero losses. The kind of face that ends up on the side of a bus. He was here as part of some cross-promotional deal supposedly to share fight tips with our trainees.
But from the moment he walked in, he treated the place like a gym he was scouting for a hostile takeover. Rather than acknowledge the room full of people standing at attention for him, Deacon spent his first 20 minutes on the floor performing for his own cameras. He picked apart our training gloves, laughed at our mats, and called our entire defensive curriculum cardio with extra steps. As far as he was concerned, anything that wasn't boxing was just amateurs playing dress up. He worked the center of the floor like a stage, riding the nervous quiet of 150 trainees who weren't sure whether they were supposed to laugh along or stay silent.