Two weeks ago, he’d called me to his place after his discussion with his brother. Not surprisingly, Dean had learned about the loan when he dug into the gym’s finances. Upon finding out the extent of the debt and whom it was owed to, Dean proved himself to be a good brother. He immediately began brainstorming with Rhys and they’d come up with the idea of a charity fight.

I hated that it meant Rhys would still have to fight, but he seemed content with the idea since it would be on his terms. They required my help so I went into full battle-plan mode.

Rhys had already held a meeting with Fiona at Street Warriors; this was their second meeting to finalize details. Since we didn’t have a lot of time, I’d called in Easton to help, as well as my mother. With both my sister and my mom’s knowledge of society, we picked a date in the social calendar that we knew most people would be able to attend. The event would be held at Rhys’s gym. The idea had been to bring the gym the exposure it needed in the hopes of gaining sponsorship from some of the more exalted guests, but to our delight a few of my parents’ friends involved in community development programs had already visited the gym with my mom to offer sponsorship.

The fight hadn’t even occurred and already a lot of the pressure was off for Rhys.

To lure people to the event, Rhys had called in a favor and had gotten ex-heavyweight world champion Jarrod “The Thunder” Johnson to fight him. Jarrod was a little older than Rhys, and although they were friends, they’d never fought each other. Which meant this exhibition fight was a huge draw for sports fans amongst the elite. We’d already secured ticket sales from Diana Crichton Jones—the billionaire I’d met at Fairchild’s garden party—and her fiancé, as well as Adriana Bellington, the owner of Sportsbox.

She wanted to air the charity fight on her network, and we were donating the rights payment to Street Warriors. The free promotion would only help us out by gaining more of those sponsorships.

Easton and my mother were the best at organizing receptions, so I’d put them in charge of organizing catering for an after-fight party on the gym’s second level. My quick-talking mom had convinced a caterer and party planner to donate their time and work with us as a tax write-off, so we didn’t have to pay for that either.