Diego's fist connected with Danior's jaw before he could finish the sentence. The crack echoed in the suddenly silent room. Danior staggered back, blood appearing at the corner of his mouth. He touched it with his fingertips, looking at the red smear with surprise.
Nobody breathed. Then Danior straightened, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
"First blood," Diego said, his voice carrying to every corner of the room. "You and me. Winner decides what happens next."
The room understood before I did. I could see it in the way the older men went still, the way the women pulled back. Something old and final had just been invoked.
And he was doing it for me.
Danior's eyes narrowed as he assessed Diego, not just his cousin now, but an opponent. "You would risk everything for him?"
"He's worth fighting for." Diego wiped his knuckles on his pants. "So. Do you accept the challenge? Or do you forfeit now and save yourself the embarrassment?"
Danior glanced around the room. Nobody looked away. Nobody offered him a way out.
"I accept," Danior said finally, his voice cold. "First blood. Traditional rules."
Then he turned and walked away, back straight, steps measured.
Diego approached me, flexing the hand he'd used to strike his cousin. "You alright?" he asked quietly.
"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" I nodded toward his hand. "You just punched your cousin in the face for me."
His usual smile flickered at the corner of his mouth. "And I'd do it again. Got a problem with that?"
Looking at him now, at the certainty in his eyes, I knew arguing was pointless.
"No," I said instead. "No problem. Just wondering if your right hook is as good as your left."
He almost laughed, the tension cracking for a second. "Guess we'll find out tomorrow." Then his expression sobered. "Jasper. If this goes badly—"
"It won't," I cut him off. "You'll win."
"But if I don't—"
"Then I'll handle it." I met his gaze directly. "I won't let anyone else pay for my mistakes. Not you, not Eight, not Lorenzo. No one."
Diego studied my face, reading between the lines. "Don't do anything stupid."
"Too late for that," I said. "I'm already here."
Diego turned to look at me, blood on his chin from Danior's return blow, his shirt collar torn. The room fell away. He wiped the blood from his chin with his thumb, then examined it like it belonged to someone else. The cut on his lower lip was already swelling, darkening to the color of overripe plums. In the low light, with blood on his face and that cold fire in his eyes, he looked like something from an older world.
"You're staring," he said quietly.
"You're bleeding." I reached out without thinking, stopping just short of his face. He closed the distance, leaning into my touch, letting me feel the heat of the bruise forming along his jaw. "He got you good."
"Worth it." He smiled, crooked and painful.
I let my thumb trace the edge of the bruise, gentle where Danior had been brutal. Diego's eyes closed. He leaned into it, just slightly, and I didn't pull away.
I was so fucked.
I lit another cigarettefrom the dying ember of the last one. The army surplus cot creaked under my weight as I leaned back against the concrete wall and let the smoke curl past my lips without tasting it.
I thought about the blood on Diego’s chin. The split lip. The way he'd touched it with his fingertips after Danior landed that blow, casual, like it was nothing.
Something sick and wrong inside me had wanted to lick it off.
