All Chapters of THE HIDDEN RIVAL: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

RIVAL’S POV The tunnel out of the pit felt longer than it ever had before. Every step dragged, boots heavy with dirt and blood. My ribs screamed with each breath, my jaw throbbed, and the copper taste of blood still clung to my tongue. But the roar of the crowd hadn’t followed me down here. Up there, they were already moving on to the next fight, hungry for more. That was the truth of the pit: no one remembered your blood once someone else spilled theirs. Except Samuel. He waited at the end of the tunnel, right where the light from the arena spilled into the shadows. Suit perfect. Smile sharper than broken glass. “Rival,” he drawled, like we were old friends meeting after years apart. “Always a pleasure watching you work.” I didn’t answer. My eyes locked on his, steady, flat, unblinking. His smile only widened, like my silence was a private joke between us. “You’ve still got it,” he said, gesturing to the ring behind me. “They love you more than ever. And that little display

RIVAL’S POVSleep didn’t come easy.I lay on the couch long after Thomas disappeared into his room, staring at the ceiling while the old clock ticked its steady, merciless beat. The pile of envelopes sat on the table like a quiet accusation, thick with escape routes I didn’t know how to take.Run, or stay or perhaps Leave and break.Every choice carried its own kind of death.My ribs ached so bad I could feel the pulse of it under my skin. Each breath rattled against bone, sharp and shallow. Every time I closed my eyes, the pit came back, Samuel’s grin from above, the roar of the crowd, the mountain of a man collapsing into the dirt. And behind all of it, a voice whispering what Thomas had said: One night you won’t come back.I turned onto my side, groaning at the stab of pain. Stared at the wall. Stared at the shadows until they began to shift.At first I thought it was my ribs playing tricks. The way pain messes with your head. But no—the longer I watched, the clearer it became. Th

RIVAL’S POVThe apartment was too quiet.Not the calm kind of quiet—no. This was the kind that pressed on your ears, made your own heartbeat sound like a drum. I lay flat on the couch, staring at the ceiling fan creaking above me, its slow blades doing nothing to ease the heaviness in my chest.Thomas’s words from earlier kept looping like a broken record. Bleeding for Samuel or living for yourself.I hated him for saying it.I hated him more because it was true.By the time I sat up, the city lights had already bled through the blinds, striping the room with neon. My ribs burned, but the ache was drowned out by the restlessness gnawing under my skin.Thomas was at the table, hunched over a deck of battered cards like he thought shuffling them would solve his rage. He didn’t look up when I moved.I cleared my throat, voice rough. “What if we left?”That made him pause. His hands stilled on the cards, head lifting slow. His eyes narrowed like he wasn’t sure he’d heard me right.“Left?”

Rival’s POVBy the third day of their little parade, I couldn’t take it anymore.The same car. The same shadows leaning against walls like vultures. The same smug smirks every time I caught their eyes. Samuel thought he could leash me from a distance—break me with silence and stares.He forgot who the fuck he trained.I’d been prey once, bleeding in the pit, forced to fight like a dog. I wasn’t prey anymore.Tonight, I’d remind them.Thomas paced behind me, rattling off risks like a broken record. “It’s too dangerous. You don’t know how many are out there. We should wait until—”“Until what?” I cut him off, tying my boots tight. “Until they walk through the door and drag me back? Until they get bored of watching and put a bullet in your skull to get a rise out of me?”His jaw locked, but he didn’t argue again. He just stood there, fists clenched, while I slid my blade into my boot and tucked a second one under my sleeve.I flicked the light off, leaving us in shadows. “They want to wa

Rival’s POVThe silence before retaliation is the worst kind.Three days passed since I carved my refusal into Samuel’s men and sent them limping back. Three days of waiting, of pacing the apartment like a caged wolf, every nerve wired for the sound of footsteps outside.Thomas tried to act normal, tried to drown the tension with muttered plans and stale jokes, but I could see the truth in his eyes. He was waiting too.Because Samuel wasn’t the kind of man who let defiance sit.He’d been quiet too long. And quiet meant storm.It was almost midnight when the storm knocked.Not fists. Not boots. A single rap. Sharp. Precise.I opened the door with my knife already in hand.Only one man stood there. Alone.Tall, wiry frame wrapped in black. No coat. No mask. Just a scar running across his cheek like someone had tried and failed to cut his face off. His eyes were flat. Lifeless.Not one of Samuel’s usual dogs.This was something else.“Samuel sends his regards,” he said quietly. His voice