Slowly, Brock turned around. He looked her up and down the exact way an arrogant man inspects a speck of dirt on his expensive shoes.
"Elijah?" Brock sneered, tasting the name like a bad medicine. "Yeah, I remember him. Tall kid. Couldn't throw a jab to save his life. Total liability."
"He paid three hundred dollars for this month," Wanda replied, her voice remarkably calm. "You expelled him with two weeks remaining. I want to know why."
Brock tilted his head, a cruel, mocking grin stretching across his face. "Why? Because I run a professional elite gym, not a charity daycare. And I don’t owe you, or him, or anybody an explanation."
He stepped toward the edge of the ring, leaning down over the ropes. "Especially not some old grandmother who wanders in here like she owns the place."
Two students near the heavy bags stopped hitting and grinned, waiting to see the old lady get put in her place.
Wanda didn’t blink. "Give me one real reason."
Brock let out a sharp, theatrical laugh, turning to his students so his voice echoed off the walls. "Yo! Somebody come get their grandma before she hurts herself wandering around!"
Laughter erupted across the room. But Wanda Moore didn’t move a single inch. And Brock Anderson, hungry for attention and hooked on the thrill of public cruelty, decided to take it a step further.
Brock Anderson had been waiting for a moment like this—not consciously planned, but instinctively craved by the modern influencer brain. A sixty-two-year-old Black woman standing in the middle of his gym, demanding accountability? To him, this wasn’t a human conflict; this was content. This was viral gold.
He snapped his fingers at a junior student standing near the entrance. "Kyle! Get my phone. And set up the ring light. Now."
Kyle hesitated, blinking. "Coach, you sure—?"
"Did I stutter? Phone. Ring light. Now."
Within thirty seconds, a smartphone was mounted on a tripod with a harsh red recording light blinking steadily. Brock positioned himself strategically between Wanda and the camera lens, ensuring every angle captured her face while framing himself as the heroic, uncompromising gatekeeper of excellence.
"All right, everybody, gather around!" Brock clapped his hands loudly. "We got a special guest star today. Grandma here wants to know why I threw her little boy out of my academy."
The students quickly formed a semi-circle behind him, crossing their arms, grinning, pulling out their own phones to record.
Brock turned back to Wanda, projecting his voice directly toward the camera microphone. "You want to know why, Grandma? Fine. I’ll spell it out for you. Your grandson was soft. He lacked the killer instinct. He flinched every time a fist came near his face. He was holding back every single guy in this gym."
He leaned in close, invading her personal space, smelling of protein powder and arrogance. "Honestly? I was doing him a favor. Some people just aren’t built for combat sports. It’s in the blood, you understand? Genetics."
A ripple of cruel laughter moved through the teenage crowd.
Wanda’s voice cut through the noise, low, steady, and terrifyingly calm. "His coach at school said he had natural talent. He practiced every single night in our backyard, rain or shine."
"Every night in the backyard!" Brock repeated dramatically, throwing his hands up for the camera. "That’s adorable. Truly heartwarming. But this isn’t a backyard, sweetheart. This is a professional training facility. We build champions here. We don’t coddle fragile kids."