But she’s gone.
And without her light, I’ve stopped pretending I belong anywhere but the shadows.
Everything around me dulls—noise fades, motion slows. The roar of the crowd becomes a low hum in the background; the overhead lights blur into one glaring ring. The only thing I see clearly is the man across from me—my opponent—and the fear bleeding into his wide eyes.
He’s already lost. I can see it.
The obsidian heat in my gaze locks on his, and he shifts uneasily, sweat beading along his brow. His nerves betray him before his body can react. I don’t have to land the first hit toknow this one’s over. He’s prey. Caught. The only actual choice left is how long I want to play with him.
A flicker of something cold rolls through my veins as I take that first step forward.
The moment he flinches, I strike—my fist connects with the side of his face in a clean hook that bursts the skin under his eye and swells it instantly. He staggers but doesn’t fall. Not yet. They never fall right away.
That would be too merciful.
Rowen and I—we’re fast. Brutally fast. That’s why this gig is perfect. We’re identical, so when he swaps a fight with me now and then, no one notices. It’s a release. An outlet. We don’t fight because we want to win. We fight because it’s the only thing that still makes us feel something.
My opponent tries to retreat, staggering backward, like he might somehow slip past the cage, as if escape is even an option. It isn’t. Once you’re in the ring, you’re in until you win or they carry you out. There are no clean exits here. No tap outs that save face. Not in the Underground.
And from the way he gasps for breath, arms dropping lower in exhaustion, I can tell he knows it too.
His eyes dart around, scanning the crowd like someone’s going to save him.
They won’t.
I shift, letting him take a step. Let him think he’s gaining ground.
Then, I slam my knuckles into his exposed ribs on the left side—not hard enough to crack, but enough to make him feel it. A warning. A promise.
The way he stumbles to the side, wheezing like a punctured tire, tells me all I need to know. He’s barely hanging on. And worse, he realizes I’m pulling my punches. He knows I could end this in the blink of an eye… but I’m choosing not to.
Panic flickers in his eyes like a match struck in the dark.
Because now he understands—this isn’t a fight.
It’s punishment.
I want to break something. Not him specifically, just something. But unfortunately for him, he’s the one standing in front of me tonight while the weight of five years of loss gnaws at the edges of my restraint.
My girl. The fire. The unanswered questions. That text message from Berkley, jumbled and cut off, haunts me more than anything. And I can’tfuckingtalk about it. Not with Rowen. Not with Emerson. They act as if she’s gone and buried, like we should just accept what we were told.
But I can’t. I won’t.
That’s what I drag into the ring with me.
The blood on my hands isn’t his yet—but it will be.
Before this round is over, something is going to break.
And it won’t be just my mind.
I’m mid-swing when something catches my eye—just a glint, a flicker of unnatural color—but it’s enough. The rotatingoverhead lights slide like spotlights across the crowd, and for the briefest second, that familiar flash of purple cuts through the haze.
My fist sails just wide of its mark, grazing my opponent’s cheek instead of shattering his jaw. The impact is still enough to stagger him, but it’s not what it should’ve been. Because in that instant, nothing else in the ring matters. The fucker in front of me becomes background noise, his wheezing breath and sloppy stance, nothing more than static.
My attention is elsewhere.
Locked. Hooked.