Lahat ng Kabanata ng Foul Play: The Healing Scars: Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 5

The scent of damp concrete, stale iron, and cheap liniment was the only luxury East London’s underground fighting circuit could afford.In the belly of a converted meatpacking warehouse known simply as "The Pit," the air hummed with the raw, violent energy of men bleeding for rent money. Down here, there were no multi-million-pound contracts, no manicured turf, and no flashing press cameras. There was only the brutal survival of the broken.Vivienne Cross adjusted the worn cotton wraps around her knuckles, her movements methodical and cold. Her oversized, faded black hoodie swallowed her frame, the hood pulled low enough to cast a shadow over her sharp, unyielding features. At twenty-seven, her face carried the quiet stillness of someone who had already lived through a fatal wreck and chosen to stay among the debris."Next one's bad, Viv," a gruff voice grunted from the doorway. It was Barnaby, the scarred former bouncer who ran through the door. He was wiping a streak of someone else

The Vance estate in Surrey was not a home; it was a fortress of glass, black steel, and manicured isolation.Nestled behind iron gates and surrounded by acres of dense pine forest, the minimalist mansion looked like a high-tech corporate retreat. For Vivienne, as the sleek black sedan pulled up the sweeping driveway, it felt like a gilded prison."Your quarters are in the west wing, Doctor," Harrison, the lawyer, said as he opened her door. He didn't offer to carry her single, battered canvas duffel bag. She wouldn't have let him anyway.Vivienne stepped out into the crisp, biting Surrey air. The silence here was loud, a stark contrast to the constant, comforting hum of London's underground. Marcus had already been rolled inside through a private garage entrance, avoiding the weakness of his limp being seen by the skeletal staff that maintained the grounds.An hour later, Vivienne stood in the center of the private medical wing. Marcus hadn't spared any expense. The room was a state-o

The rain in Surrey never seemed to fall; it weaponized itself against the glass.It was nearly midnight when Vivienne broke. For hours, Reggie’s venomous threats had looped in her mind, a suffocating knot of panic and grief [INDEX]. She couldn't stay in her quarters. Driven by a desperate need to reclaim her father’s legacy before Reggie burned it to ashes, she used a stolen security badge to slip into Marcus’s private study—the nerve center where he kept the historical archives of London United.The room smelled of old leather and expensive scotch. Vivienne bypassed the massive mahogany desk and went straight to the built-in wall safe, its digital keypad glowing faintly. She had spent three weeks observing Marcus’s habits. She entered his old jersey number combined with her father’s birth date.The lock clicked open.Inside lay a single, dust-covered external hard drive labeled Project Icarus: Vance Medical 2021. Her breath caught. This was it. The official data dump from the night h