Chapter 179: Old Grudge

The address led to a scrapyard on the edge of the industrial district rusted hulks of cars stacked three high, the ground slick with old oil and standing rainwater.

No cameras. No witnesses. The kind of place built for exactly one purpose.

Jack pulled the SUV to a stop at the gate.

"You know he said come alone."

"I know."

"You’re still bringing me."

"I never said I’d make it easy for him." Liam stepped out, and Jack cut the engine but didn’t follow not yet.

They both understood the difference between backup and interference.

Derek was already waiting, standing in a cleared space between two mountains of scrap, jacket off, sleeves pushed to his forearms.

He looked unhurried, the way a man looks when he’s been picturing this moment for years and finally gets to stop imagining it.

"You brought your dog," Derek said, glancing past Liam toward the gate.

"He’s staying in the car."

"Good." Derek rolled his neck once. "This was never about him."

Liam shrugged off his own jacket and let it fall behind him. "Just us, then."

"Not quite." Derek tilted his head toward the far side of the yard, where a figure stood in the shadow of a container, arms folded, watching without a word.

Stone Cold Rock.

Liam’s eyes settled on him for a beat. "Didn’t think you’d come."

"I don’t miss things worth seeing," Stone Cold said. Nothing more. He didn’t move from where he stood a spectator, not a second.

Derek’s attention snapped back to Liam. "Don’t worry about him. Worry about me."

"I am."

That was the last thing either of them said.

Derek moved first a fast, low cross meant to end things early.

Liam slipped it by inches, felt the wind of it pass his jaw, and answered with a short jab that caught Derek’s cheekbone and turned his head half a degree off center.

Not enough to drop him. Enough to tell him this wasn’t going to be as easy as years of imagining it had made it feel.

Derek reset, faster this time, a combination aimed at the ribs and following with an elbow. Liam took the first hit on his forearm, absorbed the sting, and used the momentum of the block to step inside the elbow instead of away from it, driving his own fist into Derek’s stomach hard enough to fold him half a step.

Derek recovered quicker than that should have allowed. He came back swinging wide, sloppier now, anger starting to bleed into the technique that had opened the fight so clean. Liam ducked one hook, weaved under a second, and put a hard right into his jaw that snapped his head back.

Derek staggered, spat blood onto the concrete, and grinned like the pain had unlocked something in him. "There it is."

"You wanted to know if I was real," Liam said, circling. "I am."

"Good." Derek came again faster, angrier, less careful and that was the mistake. A wide left hook left his ribs open, and Liam took the opening without hesitation, two fast strikes to the same spot that made Derek’s whole side buckle.

He stumbled, caught himself against a stack of scrap metal, and Liam didn’t let up. A knee found Derek’s stomach; an elbow caught the side of his head as he doubled over. Derek went down onto one knee, breathing hard, blood running from his lip.

Silence settled except for the rain ticking against sheet metal somewhere above them.

Derek looked up, chest heaving. "Finish it."

Liam didn’t move closer. "You don’t want me to."

"I do." Derek’s voice cracked with something that wasn’t quite anger anymore. "I’ve waited years for this. Don’t you dare hold back."

"I’m not holding back." Liam looked down at him, steady, no triumph in it. "You’re just not as good as you thought you were."

That landed harder than any punch had. Derek’s jaw tightened, and for a moment it looked like he might try to stand, try to force one more exchange out of pure will.

Then something in him gave way instead not defeat exactly, something closer to exhaustion that had been building for years and had finally found its floor.

"Then it’s over," Derek said, more to himself than to Liam.

"It was over the moment you decided this would fix anything." Liam crouched slightly, meeting his eyes. "It won’t."

Derek didn’t answer.

Across the yard, Stone Cold finally moved, stepping out of the container’s shadow and crossing the wet concrete without hurry.

He looked down at Derek, then at Liam, something unreadable passing behind his expression.

"Clean," he said. Not a compliment an observation, filed away for later use.

Liam straightened. "You could have stopped this."

"I could have." Stone Cold’s gaze didn’t waver. "I wanted to see it instead."

"Why?"

"Because Derek’s grudge was never going to end this yard." Stone Cold looked down at Derek, still kneeling, still catching his breath. "Mine might."

Liam’s expression didn’t change, but something behind his eyes sharpened. "Your grudge."

"You’ll understand soon enough." Stone Cold turned, unhurried, toward the gate. "Ask Dexter about Ben again. Ask him properly this time."

"I already asked."

"You asked the wrong question." Stone Cold paused at the edge of the yard, half-turned, rain darkening the shoulders of his coat. "Ben wasn’t just a name someone used to rattle you. He was mine before he was anyone else’s business."

Liam went still.

"I gave him things he shouldn’t have had at that age," Stone Cold continued, voice flat, almost bored with his own confession. "He came to me for them.

I made sure he kept coming back." A faint, humorless smile. "Derek knew. He’s known for a long time."

Derek’s head came up slowly, something like shame moving across his bruised face not for the fight he’d just lost, but for something older, something he’d apparently carried in silence.

"That’s not your business to explain," Derek said, low. "No," Stone Cold agreed. "But it’s about to become his."

He looked at Liam one last time. "You wanted to know what makes me different from every other man you’ve beaten so far." He stepped through the gate into the rain. "Find out what happened to Ben. Then come find me."

He didn’t wait for a response. His footsteps faded into the sound of the storm, and then he was gone, leaving only the scrapyard, the rain, and Derek still kneeling on the wet concrete with a truth on his face he clearly hadn’t meant to show.

Liam looked down at him. "Start talking."

Derek wiped the blood from his mouth, and for the first time all night, he looked less like a man who’d wanted a fight and more like one who’d been carrying something far heavier than a grudge.

"You don’t want to hear this standing in the rain," he said quietly. "Trust me."