Chapter 30
Thirty
Cassian
The city is a smear 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.”
He gives me another long look, then wraps it with extra gauze, a futile attempt at padding. The pressure is agony, but I welcome it.
When I walk out of the room and toward the ring, a murmur goes through the crowd.
They know me. The Wraith. The silent, untouchable champion who appears, destroys his opponents with cold, technical brutality, and then vanishes.
But tonight is different. They can see it.
The lack of warm-up, the wildness in my eyes, the hastily wrapped, broken hand.
They smell blood in the water. My blood.
My opponent is already in the ring. Santos. He’s exactly as Sergei described him. A slab of muscle and scar tissue with a thick neck and a flat, brutish face. He paces back and forth like a caged bull, roaring at the crowd, feeding on their energy. He is pure, mindless aggression.
I slide through the ropes. The bell rings.
I don’t even wait, I meet him in the center. My usual style is defensive. Evasive. I let my opponents wear themselves out chasing my shadow, but not tonight. Tonight, I don’t want to be a wraith. I want to be a punching bag.
Santos throws a wild haymaker. Normally I’d slip under it, make him pay.
Instead, I let it connect. The blow lands high on my cheekbone with a sickening thud.
My head snaps back, and the world explodes in a flash of white light.
The crowd roars. I taste blood in my mouth and in the pain, I feel a flicker of relief.
This is what I came for.
I spit a mouthful of blood onto the canvas and smile. Santos looks confused by my reaction. He expects fear. He doesn't understand I'm on his side.
The rest of the first round is a blur of punishment.
I abandon all technique, all defense. I walk into his punches, letting his heavy, clumsy fists rain down on me.
A right hook opens a cut over my eye. An uppercut sends a spray of sweat and blood into the air.
I am a building being demolished, and I am welcoming the wrecking ball.
In the second round I start to fight back, but not with skill. I fight like him. A brawler, and I use my right hand.
The first time I connect with my broken hand, a scream of pure agony rips through my mind.
The bones grind together. The pain is so absolute, so blinding, it’s almost euphoric.
I hit him again with it, and again. Each punch is a penance.
Leo. A jab from Santos rocks my head back.
The note. I throw a wild right, the impact jarring my entire arm. She knows.
We stand in the center of the ring, trading blows like two street thugs.
All technique is gone. There is only blood, rage, and pain.
The crowd is a single, screaming entity, baying for a kill.
My face is a mask of blood. My body is a canvas of bruises but the shame in my soul is still there, untouched.
This isn't working. The physical pain doesn't even come close to dulling the agony of my failure.
Santos, smelling victory, gets sloppy. He lunges forward, throwing a wide, telegraphed hook meant to take my head off.
And in that moment, in the middle of the bloody chaos, the old instincts—the instincts of a champion—take over.
I don't think, I react. I slip under the punch, my body moving with a grace I thought I had abandoned. The world slows down. I see the opening. A clear, perfect path.
My left hand comes up in a brutal hook to his liver, making him seize up. As his guard drops, I pivot. I put every ounce of my weight, my rage, my grief, and my self-loathing into one final punch with my broken right hand.
The impact is a clean, sickening crack. It’s his jaw, not my hand, but the pain is so immense I almost black out.
Santos drops like a stone. He is out cold before he hits the canvas.
Silence. For a full three seconds, the entire basement is utterly silent, stunned. Then, it erupts with a deafening roar of disbelief and awe.
I stand over him, my chest heaving, blood and sweat dripping onto his unconscious form. I am the winner. I am undefeated.
And I have never felt more empty in my life.
I don't wait for Sergei to raise my arm, I don't look at the crowd. I stumble through the ropes, push past the stunned onlookers, and walk back up the stairs into the cool night air. Leaving the noise, the blood, and the money behind. The physical agony is immense, but it did nothing. The ghost is still there, and I just showed him I can’t even punish myself correctly.