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1
ALISTAIR
The first punch always hurts the most.
No matter how ready you are, how much you brace for it, or how far in advance you see the swing coming. When it connects, when Peytor’s fist slams broadside into my jaw? It hurts like a motherfucker.
But after that?
I blink away stars, staggering back and allowing the numbness to creep over me as the crowd roars.
After that, you adjust. The numbness becomes your ally. The pain helps you focus. The smug look on your opponent’s face motivates you to recalibrate and slow down time, until you can see the path forward to victory, marked out clear as day.
Which I do. Instantly.
Feign left hook. Block his haymaker. Right fist to ribs, knocking out his breath. Dodge the wild counterattack. Left forearm to right ear, temporarily stunning him. Use his confusion to hit his ribs again, cracking the ones already weakened from the first hit. Break nose. Left hook to temple. Right to jaw. Finish with right uppercut.
This is my zone, shaking off that first blow and relishing the look of triumph on an unsuspecting opponent’s face. This is where I see the exact roadmap to victory—clear as IKEA instructions in neon letters hanging in the air in front of my face.
I’m the same in court. Let the opposition draw first blood; garner the first nod of approval from the judge, or the first emotional response from the jury. Allow them to sit back, pleased with themselves.
Then comes my counter, followed by the next, and the next, until finally comes the glee of watching the smug look fade from their faces as I shred them under the blind gaze of justice.
But for now, in the dirty, grimy boxing ring in the middle of the old liquor distribution warehouse in Bushwick, I restrain myself. Again, the instructions for how to obliterate Peytor, my opponent this match, are almost literally glowing in the air between us.
However, this match has a lot of interest. And with interest come big bets and wads of cash being waved around.
…Also, I may or may not, via a friend, have put down a sizable “wager” with the on-site bookies on Peytor getting me to the ground in the first round.
Of course, I also put big money on me knocking Peytor the fuck out in that same first round.
I’m not taking a dive for the money. That’s not why I bet on shit like this.
It’s the rush. The thrill of the coin toss. The uncertainty. Or, as Taylor and my brother are all too eager to point out, there’s a chance I’m more of a degenerate gambler than I’d care to admit. But to that, your honor, I call bias, hearsay, and leading the witness.
So, that all said, I don’t immediately mount my counter-assault. I allow Peytor to edge in on me. Which, admittedly, is a shit idea when you’re fighting six-foot-four and two-hundred-fifty-pounds-of-borscht-and-vodka-fed Russian Bratva muscle.
But really, none of this is being left up to chance. I’m ready, even as I shake off the first hit.
The second one slams into my jaw again, momentarily blinding me. But the pain is lesser now that the numbness from the first has set in. Still, I stagger back from that second hit. And even though it bruises my ego, I allow my legs to wobble and a knee to drop to the grimy floor. Predictably, the idiots in the crowd who had the poor judgment to bet against me go wild.
I glance to my right, catching Kratos’ eye. To most of the assembled crowd, Kratos Drakos is a younger, though by far the largest, brother of Ares Drakos, head of the Drakos Greek mafia family.
He’s also my fence for most of the bets I’ve placed tonight.
The Drakos family is one of my firm’s—that would be Crown and Black—biggest and most notorious clients. We handle almost all their legitimate legal needs, especially now that one of our top partners, Elsa Guin, is married to Hades, another of the Drakos brothers. But we’re also on retainer for any, let’s say, less than legitimate legal needs they might have.
About a year ago, Kratos and I figured out we were both low-key in the same underground fight clubs when we spotted each other at an event much like tonight’s, and so we started training together here and there.
Over the roar of the crowd and Peytor hurling insults at me as I take the knee, Kratos rolls his eyes and folds his massive arms over his massive chest.
“Pay attention,” he mouths. “He’s going to mess you up.”
Not. Fucking. Likely.
I draw in a breath, slowing my surroundings. I hear the crunch of the grit under Peytor’s feet as he advances, and the dull roar of the crowd, and the thud of my pulse.
I feel the first hit seeping into my soul, hardening and focusing me.
