Chapter 3
The VIP lounge feels like a gilded cage as Kieran’s words echo in my mind. I’ll be watching you.
“Fascinating as this reunion has been,” Marcus interjects smoothly, “I believe there are other matters requiring our attention downstairs.” He gestures toward the windows overlooking the main floor, where the crowd has swelled to twice its previous size.
“Ghost has three more fights scheduled tonight, and the betting pool has reached impressive levels.”
Three more fights? Despite my knocking him out? They’re going ahead with those bouts? I’m not sure if that says more about this organization or about Ghost. Hmm…
Kieran’s ice-blue gaze flicks to Marcus then back to me. “Of course. Business before pleasure.” He straightens his cufflinks, a nervous tell maybe. No one can convince me otherwise.
My presence rattles him. He hadn’t expected me to show up tonight… or any night for that matter. Keeping him on his toes… having him sleep with one eye open… I intend to do all that to him and so much more.
“Ms. Blackwood, I trust you’ll find tonight’s remaining entertainment… educational,” Kieran adds.
“I’m sure I will,” I reply, matching his formal tone even as my pulse hammers against my throat.
Fuck. He rattles me too. Not surprising, of course, but I need to get a better handle on things.
Dom moves closer to my side as we’re escorted back to the elevator, his presence both comforting and suffocating. Tension emits from him in waves, the barely contained violence he’s holding in check for my sake.
“You don’t have to do this,” he murmurs as the elevator descends. “Whatever game you’re playing, it’s not worth your life.”
I meet his dark eyes in the reflection of the steel doors. “My life stopped being worth much the night they killed my father. Everything since then has been borrowed time.”
His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t argue. We both know the truth when we hear it.
The main floor hits us like a wall of sound and sensation—screaming crowds, the metallic taste of blood in the air, and underneath it all, the primal electricity of violence barely contained by rules and ritual.
My attention immediately zeros in on the octagonal cage at the center of it all, where a new fighter has taken the stage.
I barely register the newcomer, though, because Axel Rivera moves like liquid mercury, all fluid grace and controlled chaos.
He’s smaller than his current opponent—a hulking brute with prison tattoos covering every visible inch of skin—but size means nothing when you fight like the devil himself.
“Jesus,” I breathe, watching as Axel slips a devastating right hook and counters with a knee strike that drops his opponent like a stone. “How long has he been fighting?”
“Two hours,” Marcus answers, appearing at my elbow with the silent efficiency that makes him so unsettling.
“You did better than most. The other ones he’s been up against have barely made him break a sweat.
Don’t worry. He’s good to go… although I’m sure his losing to you has only added fuel to his fire.
These guys… He’s not going to hold back any. ”
As if he knows we’re talking about him, Axel glances up toward where we’re standing, and those unusual amber-brown eyes find mine across the crowded space.
Even at this distance, I can see the wild energy crackling beneath his surface, the barely contained violence that makes him so dangerous in the ring.
How in the hell did I manage to get the better of him?
He held back, the fucker. He didn’t go full beast-mode against me.
But I still put him on the made. I still made the crowd go silent, and that part was all me.
And if we do square off again, I’ll be ready, and I won’t hold back either.
Underestimate me at your peril.
Ghost winks at me before turning back to circle his fallen opponent like a predator deciding whether his prey is truly dead.
“Cocky bastard,” Dom mutters, but there’s grudging respect in his voice.
“Confidence,” Marcus corrects. “There’s a difference. Ghost has never lost a fight in two years of competition. He has reason to be confident.”
I grunt. “Have you forgotten already?” I murmur, studying Axel’s movements as the referee raises his hand in victory. “Everyone loses eventually. The trick is making sure you’re not the one to do it.”
Marcus makes a noncommittal sound that could mean anything. “Yes, of course. You did win.”
“There’s no asterisk,” I snap.
“Never. Either way, I suspect Ghost’s greatest opponent won’t be found in any ring.”
Something in his tone makes me look at him sharply, but his expression reveals nothing. The man is a walking enigma wrapped in expensive suits and quiet threats.
The crowd roars as Axel’s next opponent is announced, a mountain of a man called “The Butcher” whose reputation precedes him like a funeral procession.
This fighter has killed men in the ring, and the crowd knows it.
The betting boards light up with astronomical figures as money changes hands with desperate urgency.
“This should be interesting,” I murmur, leaning against the railing to get a better view.
“Bloodthirsty little thing, aren’t you?” Dom’s voice carries a note I can’t quite identify. Disapproval? Arousal? With him, it’s often hard to tell the difference.
“I prefer to think of myself as professionally curious.” I don’t take my eyes off the ring as the fighters touch gloves. “Know your enemy, study their weaknesses, exploit their patterns. Basic survival.”
“Is that what we are to you?” The question comes from Marcus, so quietly I almost miss it over the crowd noise. “Enemies to be studied and exploited?”
I turn to face him fully, noting the way he’s positioned himself to block most of the room’s view of our conversation. “What else would you be?”
“Useful,” he says simply, holding out his arms as if to show off all he has to offer. “If you’re smart enough to see the possibilities.”
Before I can respond, the fight below explodes into motion. The Butcher charges like an enraged bull, clearly planning to end this quickly with overwhelming force. It’s a solid strategy against most opponents.
Axel isn’t most opponents, and I know firsthand that this technique won’t work.
Despite the earlier knockout, Ghost flows away from the charge like smoke, barely seeming to move but somehow ending up behind his attacker. The elbow strike he delivers to the base of The Butcher’s skull is surgical in its precision, hard enough to stagger but not quite enough to drop him.
“He’s playing with him,” I observe, my fascination overriding caution. “Why not end it quickly?”
“Because Ghost doesn’t fight for money,” Dom answers grimly. “He fights for the rush. The longer it lasts, the better he feels.”
That explains the almost euphoric expression on Axel’s face as he dances away from another wild swing. He’s not just winning. He’s high off the violence, drunk on the crowd’s bloodlust and his own superiority.
It’s beautiful and terrifying.
It also, somehow, cheapens my win against him. If he had fought like this against me, I wouldn’t have gotten the jump on him. That much is clear to see, and it infuriates me to no end.
“Who is he?” I mutter.
“Half-Korean and half-Puerto Rican,” Marcus answers. “No one knows where he came from or how he learned his skills. He showed up at the fight club one night and dominated every opponent. He’s been undefeated for two years… until you, of course.”
The Butcher, growing desperate, pulls a move that would be illegal in any sanctioned fight—a thumb thrust aimed at Axel’s eyes—but Axel anticipates it, catching the larger man’s wrist and using his own momentum against him.
The resulting throw sends The Butcher crashing into the cage wall with enough force to rattle the entire structure.
“Magnificent,” Marcus murmurs beside me.
When I glance at him, I find those dark eyes fixed not on the ring but on me. The intensity of his gaze makes heat pool low in my belly despite every warning bell going off in my head.
“Something interesting about my reaction?” I ask coolly.
“Everything about you is interesting, Raven Blackwood.” He shifts slightly, and I smell his cologne again. I prefer his to Kieran’s. “The question is whether you’re interesting enough to stay alive.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning Kieran Frost isn’t the only one who knows who you are now. Word travels fast in our world, and Vincent Blackwood’s daughter returning from the dead is the kind of news that commands attention.”
Ice runs down my spine even as the crowd below screams for blood. “What kind of attention?”
“The terminal kind.” Marcus’s smile is sharp as a blade. “The Kowalski family has already put a price on your head. Half a million dollars for proof of death. The Sterlings will match it within the hour.”
“A million dollars.” I let out a low whistle even though I knew this would happen at some point. I just hoped I might have more time before my reappearance was noticed. “I’m flattered.”
“You should be terrified.”
“Terror is a luxury I can’t afford.” I turn back to the fight, where Axel is systematically dismantling The Butcher with the efficiency of a surgeon and the artistry of a dancer. “Besides, a price on my head means I’m important. Important means valuable. Valuable means I have leverage.”
“Or it means you’re about to be very dead.”
“We’ll see.”
The fight below reaches its inevitable conclusion as Axel drops The Butcher with a devastating combination.
The larger man hits the canvas like a felled tree and doesn’t get back up.
The crowd erupts in a mix of ecstasy and outrage, those who bet on the underdog celebrating while others curse their losses.
But my attention is fixed on Axel as he raises his arms in victory, that wild grin splitting his face like he’s just experienced something better than sex.
His brown eyes find mine again across the distance, and this time there’s something different in his expression.
Challenge. He doesn’t like that he lost to me, and it’s starting to become personal.
He points at me and mouths words I can’t hear over the crowd noise but somehow understand anyway.
You’re next.
My blood turns to liquid fire. I beat him once, but next time…
Then he deliberately mouths, Come find me.
Oh…
“Well,” Marcus says conversationally, “that’s certainly going to complicate things.”
Dom’s hand closes around my upper arm, grip just shy of painful. “We’re leaving. Now.”
“Like hell we are.” I shake him off, adrenaline singing in my veins as Axel vaults over the cage wall with predatory grace. “I came here for a reason, and I’m not walking away because some pretty boy with a death wish wants to play games.”
“Raven—”
“No.” I spin to face Dom, letting him see the steel in my eyes. “I spent five years preparing for this. Five years training, planning, becoming something harder and deadlier than the girl who ran away. I’m not going to waste that because you’re afraid I might get hurt.”
Dom’s face goes pale then red then settles into the granite expression I remember from my childhood. “Your father asked me to protect you.”
“My father’s dead,” I spit back, “and the promises made to dead men don’t bind the living. Besides, what happened to him being protected?”
Genuine hurt flashes across his features before he locks it away behind his professional mask. I can’t afford to be gentle right now. I can’t let sentiment compromise what needs to be done.
“Fine,” he says finally, his voice flat and emotionless. “But when this goes sideways—and it will go sideways—don’t expect me to pick up the pieces.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
He turns and walks away without another word, disappearing into the crowd like a shadow. Part of me wants to call after him, to apologize for the cruelty, but that part is a weakness I can’t afford.
“Harsh,” Marcus observes, “but probably necessary. Sentiment is a liability in our line of work.”
“Speaking from experience?”
“Always.” His smile is razor-thin. “What you plan to do about your admirer down there?”
I look back toward the ring, where Axel has been stopped by the crowd. He’s busy now signing autographs and accepting congratulations from fans and fellow fighters alike, but even in the middle of the crowd, his attention keeps drifting back to me.
“I’m going to do what I came here to do,” I say finally. “I’m going to infiltrate this world, learn its secrets, and use them to destroy my enemies.”
“And if Ghost decides he wants to be more than just an observer in that plan?”
I meet Marcus’s knowing gaze and let him see the predator lurking beneath my carefully controlled exterior. “Then I guess we’ll find out just how good he really is.”
The game has changed. The stakes are higher. And for the first time in five years, I feel truly alive.
Time to see what kind of chaos I can create.