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Zarek opened his mouth, but Code answered first.

“Because of me,” he said.

I looked at him.

“I can find things Nash can’t,” Code continued. “Things that aren’t admissible in court. Things that don’t exist on paper.”

“And those things matter,” Simon added, “when you’re dealing with people who’ve built entire systems around making sure nothing ever sticks.”

I nodded slowly. “Okay. So, what have you found?”

Code turned his laptop toward us, tapping a few keys. A web of lines and names filled the screen.

“There are four major underground MMA circuits in the country,” he said. “Old ones. Established. Mostly regional. But about two years ago, a fifth one started cutting in.”

“Mid-country,” Roan added. “Tennessee, Kentucky, parts of Arkansas, Missouri.”

“It’s worse than the others,” Code said. “Cleaner. Smaller crowds. Richer ones.”

My skin prickled. “What do you mean, worse?”

Simon leaned back in his chair. “The others want a show,” he said. “Bare-knuckled mixed-martial art fighting where men end up beat to shit.”

“Like what Zarek was doing?”

Simon nodded.

“This one is different,” Code spoke up. “They occasionally give shows to a hand-selected audience. They call it an Intimate Night at the Colosseum.”

“No one would sign up to watch men fight to the death,” I said automatically. The words sounded naive even to my own ears.

Code looked at me and shook his head. “I don’t have names, but I have a headcount and how much the organization earns on one of these nights. The last one was over three million dollars. That was just the total from the entry fees. I haven’t found out their cuts on the bets.”

Nolan leaned forward to look at Code’s computer screen. “But men can’t actually sign up for this shit.”

“The fighters don’t know what they’re signing up for,” Zarek said quietly.

The table went still.

Code nodded. “Fighters move up through the ranks. Bigger purses. More secrecy. More exclusivity. By the time they’re invited to the private events, they think it is for the championship round.”

“No,” Zarek was shaking his head. “They’ve chosen two poor assholes that they’ve got leverage on and send them into the ring.”

I was confused. “What do you mean, leverage?”

“My guess is it's their family. They’ve convinced the fighter that the only way to save their family is to kill his opponent. The thing is, they whisper the same thing in each guy’s ear. That’s how they give the audience what they want.”

Silence followed Zarek’s explanation. Thick. Heavy. No one rushed to fill it.

I felt it then—the shift. The moment when the math finished itself in the room.

My pulse started to pound.

“That’s not what happened to Tyler, was it?” I asked.

Zarek shook his head. “No. He was collateral. A lower-tier fight went wrong. Then they needed a clean narrative.”

“And they found one,” Simon said. “Single-car accident. No witnesses. No questions.”