The Underground Bout

Marlo

We were deep beneath an abandoned coastal warehouse on the edge of Port Phillip Bay. Up above, the sea wind roared against rusting sheet metal, but down in this concrete basement, the heat was sickening. The heavy bass of the crowd’s roaring voices vibrated right through the soles of my boots.

Jarrah walked two steps ahead of me, his massive frame carving a path through the packed crowd of sailors, syndicate enforcers, and high stakes gamblers. 

People moved out of his way without him asking. They looked at him with a mix of awe and pure, unadulterated fear.

I kept my hand buried deep in my jacket pocket, my fingers curled tightly around the cold glass vial Siobhan had given me hours ago. My heart felt hollow, bleeding from the fresh wound of her betrayal. My aunt was at the gates of his compound, but Jarrah hadn't stayed to fight her on her terms. Instead, he had dragged me through an underground drainage tunnel and brought me straight into the underbelly of Port Phillip.

“He needs to bleed it out before midnight, Marlo,” Cal had grunted as he locked us into the VIP cage above the ring. “When the darkness takes him over, this is the only place he doesn't tear you apart instead.”

I leaned my back against the cold steel mesh of the VIP cage, my eyes fixed on the makeshift chain link ring in the center of the pit.

Jarrah stepped through the iron gate of the cage below.

Opposite him stood a monster of a man, a fighter covered in prison tattoos, his knuckles swollen and scarred from years of violence. The crowd went wild, screaming and waving fat stacks of cash in the air.

The bell didn't ring. There were no rules down here. No gloves. No referee.

The larger fighter lunged forward, throwing a heavy, swinging hook aimed straight for Jarrah’s jaw.

Jarrah didn't even duck. He stepped right into the fighter’s guard, his movement a terrifying blur of fluid, lethal precision. He caught the man’s wrist, twisted it until bone cracked loudly over the roar of the crowd, and drove a brutal elbow straight into the fighter’s ribs.

A sickening thunk echoed through the pit.

The crowd erupted, but I stopped breathing entirely.

Jarrah didn't stop. He unleashed a barrage of cold, calculated violence that made my stomach turn into tight knots. Every punch he threw wasn't just for sport; it was raw, unadulterated rage spilling out of him. He fought like a man possessed by demons, a man trying to burn away the unbearable weight of ten years of bloodshed, secrets, and an all-consuming obsession with keeping me alive.

The other fighter hit the concrete floor hard, coughing up blood. Jarrah stood over him, his chest heaving violently, sweat dripping from his dark hair onto his scarred shoulders. His amber eyes were completely wild, blacked out with a primal, terrifying darkness.

He slowly lifted his head, turning his gaze straight up to the VIP cage where I stood alone.

Our eyes locked through the iron mesh.

A heavy, suffocating wave of heat rolled through my body. The conflict inside me reached a fever pitch. He was a monster. He was brutal, terrifying, and merciless. But as I stared down at his bloodied knuckles, I knew every ounce of that violence was built to be my shield. He destroyed everything else so he could hold me soft.

Jarrah wiped a smudge of blood from his jaw with the back of his hand. He took a slow step toward the ladder leading up to my cage, his eyes never leaving mine.

I took a step closer to the edge of the cage, my heart pounding a chaotic rhythm against my ribs. I wanted him to come up here. I wanted to touch his heat. I wanted to bury my face in his neck and forget that the entire world was trying to put a bullet in my head.

Around me, the crowd was screaming, throwing money onto the ring floor.

I felt a sudden, strange prickle on the back of my neck that quiet, forensic instinct warning me that something in the room was wrong.

I tore my eyes away from Jarrah and scanned the packed crowd below.

About twenty feet away, standing near the shadow of a massive concrete pillar, a man in a long dark coat wasn't shouting. He wasn't watching the ring. He wasn't looking at Jarrah.

He was staring directly up at me.

My blood ran instantly to pure ice water.

The man slowly reached inside his dark coat. His hand emerged holding a sleek, matte-black pistol fitted with a long, cylindrical sound suppressor.

He lifted the weapon with practiced, terrifying speed. The black circle of the barrel pointed directly at my forehead.

I couldn't move. My feet were glued to the cage floor, my throat locked in a silent scream.

From the ring floor below, Jarrah saw the shift in my posture. He snapped his head toward the concrete pillar, his amber eyes widening in pure, unhinged horror.

"Marlo! Down!" Jarrah roared, his voice cutting through the deafening noise of the crowd.

He threw his body toward the ladder, sprinting with every ounce of speed he had left. But he was twenty feet away, trapped behind the chain link fence.

The assassin's finger tightened on the trigger.

Pfft.

A tiny, silenced cough echoed softly beneath the roar of the room, and the heavy safety glass of the VIP cage right beside my ear exploded into a million flying shards.