For the first time since he walked into my life, I am completely and utterly alone in the cage. Terrified, trembling, but alone. The silence is deafening. And in that silence, there is a single, terrifying, beautiful thought.
An opportunity.
Thirty
Cassian
Thecityisasmear of neon and brake lights. I don’t know where I’m going. I’m just driving, my foot pressing the accelerator to the floor, the deep, guttural roar of the Challenger’s engine a physical vibration in my chest. The throbbing, white-hot pain in my right hand is a welcome anchor, the only thing that feels real. I glance down at the steering wheel. My knuckles are split open, blood smeared across the supple black leather. Good.
Leonidas.
Her voice echoes in my skull, quiet and clear, a silver blade sliding between my ribs. She said his name. She took his name, the most sacred thing in my world, and spoke it in the cage I built. It felt like sacrilege.
The rage is a physical thing, a coiling serpent of fire in my gut. But underneath it is something colder, something far worse; shame. A profound, gut-wrenching shame that threatens to swallow me whole.
“The note.”
That’s what broke me. Not that she knew, but how she knew. It was me. My own hubris. My own obsessive, grief-stricken stupidity. I led her right to the heart of my pain, and she walked in and set it on fire. I slam my good hand against the steering wheel. I am trapped in a soundproof bubble of my own failure.
I built the loft to be a fortress, but I am my father’s son. My control was just another form of destruction. My protection was just another cage. And in my arrogance, I underestimated her. I saw her as a fragile doll, a symbol. I forgot she was a person. A person with a mind, with a will to survive. A will I had sharpened with my own cruelty. She looked at me, and for the first time, she wasn’t just scared. She was seeing me. All of me, and I couldn’t bear it.
My hands tighten on the wheel as I take a sharp turn, the tires squealing. I know where I’m going now. There is only one place for this feeling. A place where pain is a currency, and I am desperate to be bankrupt.
I pull the Challenger into a dark, litter-strewn alley in the industrial district, killing the engine. I get out and walk toward a nondescript steel door, a faint, rhythmic thump-thump-thump of bass leaking through the concrete.
I don’t bother to knock. The door opens into a steep, narrow staircase descending into the earth. The air changes instantly.It’s thick with the smell of sweat, stale beer, cheap disinfectant and the coppery, metallic tang of blood.
The basement opens up into a massive, raw concrete space. A makeshift ring sits in the center under a bank of harsh fluorescent lights. A crowd of a hundred people are packed around it, their faces hungry and predatory. I push my way through them, my eyes locked on Sergei, the man who runs this place.
He sees me coming, a business-like smile touching his lips. “The Wraith graces us. I do not have you on the card tonight. Come to watch the mortals bleed?”
Then he gets a closer look at me. His smile falters. He sees the fading yellow-purple of the black eye from my last fight, but he also sees my fresh, bloody knuckles and the wild, unfocused look in my eyes.
“Looks like you have had a bad night,” he says, his voice a gravelly Russian growl.
“I need a fight, Sergei,” I say, my voice flat.
“You fought last week. You aren’t scheduled.”
“I’m not asking to be scheduled,” I say, stepping closer. “I want the main event. Tonight.”
Sergei actually laughs. “The main event? That is Santos, he is an animal. He has thirty pounds on you and a head made of concrete. He will kill you.”
“Good,” I say.
The single word hangs in the air between us. Sergei stops laughing. He looks into my eyes, and whatever he sees there makes him take the cigarillo out of his mouth. He sees the truth. I’m not here to win, I’m not here to maintain my perfect record. I’m here for punishment. He knows that an undefeated champion who has lost his mind is a spectacle. The chance for the untouchable Wraith to finally fall? That’s not just a fight, it’s a legend.
“You aren’t right in the head tonight, Kostas,” he says, the warning in his voice real, even if his motives are greedy. “This is how fighters get killed. Your hand is already broken.”
“I’ll use the other one,” I reply, my voice cold.
He stares at me for another long moment. Finally, a slow, predatory smile spreads across his face. “Fine,” he says, pulling a crumpled waiver from his pocket. “It is your funeral. Go get your hands wrapped. You are on in twenty.”
I sign the form, my bruised knuckles screaming in protest. It feels like a confession. A suicide note. I walk toward the grim, small room where the fighters prepare. An old, grizzled cutman named Sal gives me a look, shakes his head but says nothing as he begins to wrap my hands. He wraps the left one tight and fast. When he gets to the right he hesitates, looking at the swollen, split knuckles.
“This is broken, son,” he says quietly.
“I know,” I say. “Wrap it anyway.”
