"Nice to meet you, Kostya." I drew out the words deliberately. "So our great Pakhan also acts like a lovesick teenager, pounding sandbags when his feelings get hurt?"
"More than that!" Kostya roared with laughter, nearly choking. "That morning his punches almost broke my ribs, just because—"
"Kostya."
Nikolai cut him off coldly. He pulled me into his chest, tall frame blocking all eye contact between Kostya and me, voice dark as a storm. "I didn't bring her here to listen to you air my dirty laundry. Open the door."
Kostya shrugged, hands raised in surrender, grin uncontrollable. "Alright, alright. You're the boss. Enjoy yourselves."
He limped to a row of beat-up lockers at the back, pressing an unremarkable piece of rusted metal.
The heavy locker slid open, revealing a scarred soundproof iron door.
The moment it opened, we stepped into another world.
A massive sensory assault hit like a tsunami. Deafening heavy metal mixed with the crowd's frenzied roars. The air thick with cheap beer, sweat, tobacco, and that adrenaline-spiking scent of blood.
Jesus Christ.
I held my breath.
Beneath this boxing gym—an underground fight pit.
Or more accurately: a real illegal no-holds-barred fighting ring hidden in the deepest basement of a legal gym.
A massive crowd swarmed the central octagon cage welded shut with chain-link, waving fistfuls of cash.
Inside the cage, a brutal fight neared its end.
No gloves. No rules. Even the referee's count was just theater.
A tattooed bald brute had his opponent pinned against the rusted fence, pounding him like a starving hyena.
That unfiltered sound of bone and flesh colliding cut through even the deafening metal music.
I clearly saw a wad of blood and spit, along with half a broken tooth, arc through the harsh spotlight and splatter against the chain-link less than six feet from me.
The pinned man didn't even scream. He slid down the fence like a boneless rag doll. But the victor didn't stop—he added a vicious kick to that already mangled face.
The crowd didn't recoil in horror. They exploded into even more hysterical roars, bills flying like snow toward the cage.
This wasn't competition. This was primal underground slaughter.
My stomach lurched violently. My fingertips went ice cold.
But beneath that visceral nausea, my writer's nerve thrummed with something disturbing—a trembling, perverse excitement.
Pure savagery. Pure conflict.
Nikolai's expression stayed dark. He didn't spare the carnage half a glance.
He blocked the sticky, crazed stares with his broad shoulders, hand firm on my lower back, guiding me through the adrenaline-drunk mob.
"Where are we going?" I swallowed.
Nikolai glanced at me. "Taking you somewhere you can find inspiration."
He led me expertly through a dim corridor to a second-floor VIP box with a perfect view.
