And all it had cost me was sitting there and listening while a man died because I had pointed Novak at him. I wasn’t adjacent to the violence; I had commissioned it, packaged it as strategy, necessity, and results. I was no different from the one holding the knife; I was the reason it had been drawn in the first place. And the worst part—the part I didn’t say out loud—was that even knowing that, even owning it, I couldn’t deny that Novak fascinated me.
Professionally.
Nothing else.
SIX
Novak
The Pit wasquiet by the time I was called in—another night of cage fights where thousands changed hands, and where someone like me and my team would be needed.
Two of my men stayed outside by the loading doors. Containment first. Always containment. No one in, no one out. I hadn’t wanted to take the work tonight, but Caleb was safely at the Cave working the latest intel I’d given him, and I knew Doc was with him and had given Doc express instructions to let me know if that changed. What Doc thought of that, I don’t know, and I didn’t care, but so far, he’d done as I asked when it came to Caleb.
I didn’t enjoy the cleaning side of my business as much as I did the work I was doing for the Cave, but this was a commitment I’d made some time ago, and I never reneged on a deal.
Jeremy, my latest hire, a big guy, all muscles and tattoos, followed me down the concrete steps. He walked half a pace behind, hands loose at his sides, eyes up. He didn’t talk unless spoken to. Didn’t sniff. Didn’t twitch. Didn’t skim from pockets or steal the nearly-dead for body parts.
Unlike my last second in charge, Rufus, who’d done all of that, and had barely managed an hour under my knife before I slit his throat. At least he’d given up names, which was useful for Doc and Levi—about the only useful thing he’d done.
Jeremy had worked with me for three months so far. A promising start, given I hadn’t had to kill him yet.
The door to the fighting cage hung open. The canvas was already being stripped back. Blood darkened the center where the fight had turned ugly. A broken rib had ended it. Or maybe the kick that followed. Hard to say. Men blurred together when they were on the floor.
A doctor knelt beside the fighter on a stretcher just outside the cage. Mid-thirties. Clean hands. Clean boots. Not my Doc.
I was used tomyDoc’s rhythm, and this guy felt out of place, as if someone had rearranged the furniture in my house.
He pressed along the fighter’s side. The man groaned, eyes squeezed shut.
“Don’t move,” the doctor said calmly. “You’ve got at least one fractured rib. Possibly two. I need to check for a pneumothorax.”
The fighter blinked at him. “A what?”
“Collapsed lung,” he translated. “If you’re short of breath or dizzy, you tell me. Now.”
He listened with his stethoscope, moving it methodically across the man’s chest and back.
“Breath sounds are reduced on the left,” he muttered. “But stable. He needs imaging. He can’t go home.”
I stepped closer. Jeremy stayed where he was, watching the exits as I’d trained him.
“Is he transportable?” I asked.
The doctor glanced up at me, assessing. Measuring what I was. We hadn’t worked together before; and I didn’t trust him.
“With care,” he said. “Keep him upright. Minimal movement. He needs a hospital tonight. If that lung fully collapses, he’llsuffocate.” He stared back at the fighter. “You’re lucky. Another hit, and this would be a different conversation.”
I studied the man on the stretcher. “He’ll live?” I asked.
“If you move him now,” the doctor replied. “Yes.”
I nodded once to Jeremy, and the big man scooped up the fighter and strode out to our van.
“Shall we discuss your fee?” New-Doc asked brightly, as if my fixed fee was something to negotiate.
I stared at him until he dropped his gaze. “Transfer the usual fee,” I said. Not a question. Not a discussion. “Before we reach the hospital.” I checked my watch. “You have thirty minutes.”
“It’s very steep, and I?—”
