“Since when do you give me orders?”
“Since right now.” But there was warmth in his voice. “Talk soon.”
The screen went dark.
Luka and I sat there in the silence Ash left behind. The tension hadn't disappeared completely. Still there under the surface. Still ready to flare up if either of us pushed too hard.
“The man who attacked you is a ghost,” Luka said finally. He pulled out his phone, showed me the screen again. “But ghosts leave traces. We'll find him. Find whoever hired him. And when we do, they're going to regret ever putting you in their crosshairs.”
The conviction in his voice should have been comforting.
Instead, it just reminded me how much I had to lose.
“Go home,” Luka said. He stood, moved to the door. “Get some rest. And for fuck's sake, be smart about this.”
I grabbed my jacket. Walked past him into the hallway.
“Troy.”
I stopped. Looked back.
“You're one of mine,” he said quietly. “That means I don't let you die alone in some Chicago alley because you were too stubborn to accept help.”
“I'm not planning on dying.”
“Good. Keep it that way.”
The door closed behind me.
I stood there alone in the hallway, still smelling like sex and whiskey, trying to process everything Luka had just laid on me.
Someone wanted me scared. Maybe dead. And they had the resources and the patience to keep trying until they got what they wanted.
ELEVEN
BLEED QUIET
DECLAN
The lights were bright and hot. The crowd was loud enough to feel in my chest. I walked to the ring with my hood up, music pounding through the speakers, moving through the aisle with focused calm.
Carter was already in the ring. Bouncing on his toes, shadowboxing, all coiled energy and hunger. Fast hands. Good footwork. He had the aggressive style that overwhelmed slower fighters who couldn't match his pace.
I wasn't slow.
The ref called us to the center. Went through the rules. We touched gloves.
The bell rang.
Carter came out fast, throwing a quick combination that I slipped, angling my head just enough to let the punches pass. Hefollowed with a low kick that I checked with my shin, absorbing the impact, then a spinning back fist that missed by inches when I pulled back.
He was aggressive and committed, but that meant leaving himself open.
I waited. Let him work. Let him think he was setting the pace while I cataloged his patterns, his tells, the way his weight shifted before each strike.
Then I saw it. The opening I'd studied on tape. His left hand dropping when he threw the right hook.
I slipped the hook, head movement minimal and precise, stepped inside his guard, and drove an uppercut into his liver. The impact traveled up my arm, clean and brutal. Carter's whole body seized, his guard dropping completely as pain shut down his nervous system.
