Page 10 of Punish Me, Daddy

Somehow, he was still standing.

Impressive.

It was over, though.

He swung again—slow, sluggish—and I ducked under it, stepped in, and unloaded. Left hook. Right jab. Uppercut. Another. Another. His head jerked with every hit, his knees buckling beneath him.

One last breath.

One last shot.

I spun and slammed my elbow across his temple—a clean, brutal strike that dropped him like dead weight to the canvas.

Boom.

He didn’t get back up.

Not this time.

The crowd exploded.

The ref started counting again, but I already knew I’d won. Volkov wouldn’t be coming back from that one.

I stood there, chest heaving, blood dripping down my forearm, and I looked straight ahead.

Right into her eyes.

CHAPTER 3

Sloane

He didn’t just fight up there in the ring.

Hedominated.

The first time he landed a hit, it felt like thunder. I swear I felt the floor shake under my boots. The guy he was up against—huge, angry, built like he bench-pressed trucks for fun—barely had time to breathe between blows. Nikolai moved like he was made of fire and steel and dark mystery.

Every hit was precise. Brutal. Beautiful somehow.

The crowd went wild, but I couldn’t hear any of it. It was like there was a wall between me and the noise, like the air was vibrating too fast to carry sound.

I’ve never seen anything like him.

He wasn’t just powerful. He was pure and utter control. He conquered every inch of that ring like it belonged to him.

I didn’t blink when blood splattered outside the ring. I didn’t flinch when the guy—Volkov, someone said—tried to tackle him. I just watched. Hypnotized. Every nerve in my body tuned tohim.

Then he finished it.

A strike across the temple, vicious, clean, and Volkov dropped like a sack of bricks.

Nikolai didn’t gloat, didn’t smile. He just stood there, breathing hard, blood dripping from his knuckles, eyes burning with fire.

And then those eyes foundme.

I froze.

His gaze was… terrifying. Electric. Unshakable. He looked at me like he already knew who I was. Like he was deciding what he was going to do about it.

---