I watch, my body frozen and my stomach churning, as my friend grabs his opponent’s skull and smashes it into the concrete wall. Snakebite’s eyes roll back into his skull. His body goes limp. Noah tosses him to the ground, now crimson with spilled blood. He grunts as he unwinds the whip from his arm and wraps it around Snakebite’s neck. Noah tugs on the end, lifting Snakebite’s head up and back, up and back, as the crowd chant his stage name.
Claudia leaps to her feet, her fist pounding the air as she yells in triumph. All around me, the air sings with my friend’s victory. I can’t move. I’m frozen to my chair by the brutality of it.
As Noah’s opponent is dragged from the arena, leaving a trail of blood behind him, Antony himself wanders across the gangway. Two men follow him, dragging another man whose legs are shackled in chains. My pounding heart leaps so fast I’m sure it’s going to fly out of my chest. I know we haven’t seen the last of the blood to be shed tonight.
Noah disappears from the arena as Antony leans over the edge of the gangway, holding his hand up for silence. It takes a long time for the cheers and roaring to calm down enough for him to be heard. “I’m pleased you enjoyed the return of our favorite champion. Now, we have a special treat for you tonight. An interlude for your amusement. Bring him forward.”
Antony’s guards hold the man upright so everyone can see him. He’s naked save for his underwear, which is already stained with piss. He trembles as he’s held aloft for the baying crowd, and he looks as though he might pass out at any moment. Someone has carved up his chest with a blade. As I squint, I realize the bloody cuts form words – a Latin phrase.Et in morte fidelitas.
“You might know this man as Tony Moretti, but he does not deserve that name. He is a traitor.” Antony spits the word. “He broke the cardinal rule of our family – the rule of blood, of loyalty.”
“Et in morte fidelitas,” the crowd chant. Across the arena, Gabriel grins as he joins the chant. He’s got no idea what’s coming, but he loves being swept up in the moment.
But Claudia doesn’t clap or chant or even smile. Her cold eyes fix on her cousin.
“He offered information about our business to the police. Because of his betrayal, one of our most loyal soldiers is in custody and we’ve had to close a lucrative distribution channel.” Antony points out people in the crowd, including Nero. “This costs me money, and you, and you. But more importantly, it makes a mockery of everything we fought for, everything we stand for. Where is the honor?Corvus oculum corvi non eruit– a crow shall not pull out the eyes of a fellow crow.”
The crowd hiss and boo. They watch Antony with greedy eyes, waiting for his next move. Nero nods to Antony, sipping his drink with a smile playing on his lips. Antony acknowledges Nero with a nod in return.
I thought Claudia’s cousin merely ran this club for the gangs, but it’s clear he’s so much more than that. These people may bow to Nero, but theyadoreAntony. They look to him to mete out punishment. He may not be top dog, but he wields power I can’t even imagine.
And I’ve pissed him off. For the first time, I realize that the danger Claudia keeps trying to warn me about may be real, and closer than I ever imagined.
“What do you say his punishment should be?” Antony cries.
The crowd roar as they thrust their fists in the air, thumbs pointing up. I remember the gesture from movies about Ancient Rome – it means death to the defeated gladiator in the ring.
It means this man is condemned.
Antony smiles – it’s a cold, cruel smile. “As you wish. Tonight he shall face the punishment fit for his crime. For without adherence to our laws he is no more than a beast, and to the beasts he shall return.”
“Damnatio ad bestias,” the crowd chants as the guard hoist the man over the edge and drop him into the ring. He lands with aCRUNCHon the hard floor, and I can tell from the way he drags his leg that he’s broken a bone. “Damnatio ad bestias!”
“Damnatio ad bestias?” George’s forehead furrows. “What’s that—”
Her words are cut off as the trapdoor in the arena floor begins to slowly swing open.
34
Claudia
“Damnatio ad bestias. What’s that?” Gabriel’s chair creaks as he leans forward, desperate to get a look at what’s rattling the trapdoor.
I can’t answer him. My tongue has frozen to the top of my mouth. My stomach swirls.I can’t believe I’m watching this.
I can’t tear my eyes away.
The condemned man manages to drag his broken leg to the edge of the ring, his back against the wooden sliding door that admits fighters – the door through which Noah had exited only moments before. He claws at the wood, but it’s locked tight.
“Please,” he cries, “Please…”
His sobs are drowned out by an inhuman roar – a rumble that pools in my stomach and shudders through my body. It feels as though I’m sitting inside a Marshall stack at one of Gabriel’s concerts, only the music coursing through me is drenched in blood.
The roar trembles the earth and reverberates in the air. Something bangs against the trapdoor, sending splinters flying across the ring. The crowd takes up the roar, punching their raised thumbs into the air.
“Claws, what’s going on?” Gabriel yells. “What is damnatio ad bestias?”
My insides turn to ice. The three families have practiced this torture for decades, until my father outlawed it, as it requires the purchase of exotic animals that will never see their natural habitat. “Let us enforce our laws,” he said. “But let us not disrupt the dominion of beasts to do it.” It was one of his least popular reforms.
