He attacked again. This time he wasn't holding back. He moved through us like water, striking and dodging and countering with efficiency that bordered on superhuman. Everytime one of us landed a hit, he adapted. Every weakness we tried to exploit, he'd already accounted for.
Luka got back up. He was moving carefully now, favoring his ribs. “This isn't about me anymore. This is about you needing someone to blame for your choices.”
“My choices?” Rafael blocked Dmitri's punch and broke his guard with a palm strike that sent him reeling. “I chose loyalty. I chose the Network. I chose you, Luka. And you threw that away.”
“You chose revenge over rebuilding.” Luka ducked under Rafael's strike and countered with a combination to the body. “You chose to burn instead of heal.”
“Because there was nothing left to heal.” Rafael caught Luka's next punch. They grappled, both bleeding, both exhausted. “You made sure of that when you decided I was too damaged to be useful anymore.”
I saw my opening. Rafael was focused entirely on Luka. I grabbed a length of chain from the floor where Troy had been restrained. I moved in behind Rafael and got the chain around his throat.
Rafael released Luka instantly. He drove his elbow back into my broken ribs with brutal precision. The pain was immediate and total. I lost my grip on the chain.
Rafael spun and drove a knee into my gut hard enough that I tasted bile. “You should have kept your head down and your hands off what didn't belong to you,” he said.
“He doesn't belong to anyone,” I rasped.
“He belongs to whoever's strong enough to take him.” Rafael smiled through the blood on his face. “And you were never that strong, Declan. Just a washed-up fighter playing house with a boy who hates you.”
The rage that tore through me then was unlike anything I'd ever felt. Pure and incandescent. The kind that burned throughpain and doubt and every last shred of restraint I'd spent years building.
I went at him again. I traded blows I couldn't afford to take for ones that landed hard enough to crack bone. We were both bleeding. Both damaged. Both past the point where skill mattered and it came down to who wanted it more.
Dmitri and Ash moved in from opposite sides. Luka circled behind. All of us were bleeding now. All of us were hurt. But we kept coming.
Rafael fought all of us at once. He was faster, better trained, more prepared. But even he couldn't sustain this. He was bleeding from the shoulder, the face, a dozen cuts across his arms and torso. His breathing was labored. His movements, while still precise, had lost their earlier fluidity.
“You can't win this,” Luka said. He was breathing hard, blood dripping from a cut above his eye. “Even if you kill us all, the Network survives. Other people will come for you.”
“Let them come.” Rafael blocked Ash's strike and countered with a kick that caught him in the knee. Ash went down. “I don't need to survive this, Luka. I just need to watch you fail. I need you to live with the knowledge that you couldn't save them. That your protection was an illusion. That everything you built was a lie.”
Dmitri came at him from the side. Rafael saw him coming and drove his knife toward Dmitri's throat. Dmitri caught his wrist, but Rafael was stronger than he looked. The blade inched closer.
I threw myself at Rafael from behind. Got my arms around him and pulled him off Dmitri. Rafael drove the back of his skull into my already fractured nose.
Stars exploded across my vision. I lost my grip. He spun and drove a knee into my gut.
“You're all going to die here,” Rafael said calmly. “And Luka's going to watch every second of it.”
Luka moved in fast. He caught Rafael with a combination that actually drove him back. For the first time since the fight started, Rafael looked off-balance.
“The difference between us,” Luka said between strikes, “is that I learned to let go. You're still holding onto ghosts.”
“The ghosts are all I have left.” Rafael countered and they traded blows again. “You took everything else.”
They crashed into the wall. Grappled. Both bleeding. Both exhausted. Both refusing to give up.
Dmitri got back to his feet. So did Ash. We all converged on Rafael at once.
He was good. Better than good. He was the best fighter I'd ever seen.
But he was one man against four. And we had everything to fight for.
Rafael drove an elbow into my temple. The world tilted. I felt my legs give out.
Then a gunshot cracked through the room.
Rafael jerked. Stumbled. Looked down at the red blooming across his chest with an expression of pure surprise.
