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The third-floor is dim, the fluorescent tubes overhead flickering in and out. The chemical tang of preservatives sting sharply.

Among the boot prints layered in the dust, a fresh set of small, bare footprints leads toward the far end of the hallway. My pulse jumps.

Lucia.

Bruno’s voice carries toward me, calm and lecturing, stirring the old need for his approval.

“Kidney first. Then heart, liver, lungs, pancreas, intestines… Until there’s nothing left to take.”

I inhale deeply and drive my heel into the metal door, blasting it open with crushing force.

My eyes find Lucia first. She’s strapped to the table, her gown torn, her face bruised, and her wrists raw and bleeding. Her chest heaves, and the moment her eyes—wide and fierce and burning with a fury that only the living possess—lock onto mine, my name rips from her throat.

“Marco!”

She’s alive.

In an instant, I evaluate the situation. Two guards have their weapons raised. The machines hooked up to Lucia—one pulse monitor, one IV line—beep incessantly.

Bruno stands at the center, his right hand clutches a scalpel that glints in the light. In his left hand, he holds an instrument tray. His face is schooled into an expression that could either be pride or hunger. I recognize the cold calculation that’s lived behind his eyes for as long as I’ve known him.

“Marco.” Bruno’s voice is almost gentle, almost warm. It’s the voice he used when I won, when I was useful, and when I was his. “I was wondering when you’d get here. You always did like to keep me waiting.”

My gun whips up. The guards focus their muzzles on me, tracking my every action. For a moment, no one moves. The air is thick with the weight of our history.

When I speak, my words are unrecognizable. “Let her go, and I’ll let you walk out of here. I’ll let you walk away with whatever you have left.”

Bruno’s laugh echoes off the tile walls, familiar in ways that make my skin crawl. It transports me back to gym locker rooms, to supplements and plates of food I never should have trusted, and to everything I lost.

“You think I’m going to walk out? After everything I’ve built? After all I made of you?” He gestures with the scalpel, flicking it toward Lucia in a way that triggers a flinch. “No, Marco. This ends here, one way or another.”

I take out the first guard with a shot to the chest. He falls as the blood spreads across his shirt.

Before the second can react, I pull my knife out of my boot and hurl it. The blade finds his throat, and his eyes widen with shock as he drops his gun. He claws at the wound, then crumples.

Bruno reacts quickly for a man his age. He undoes the straps holding Lucia down and drags her between us. The blade of the scalpel darts to her throat.

Her wide eyes fixate on my face.

“Put the gun down.” Bruno uses that same calm, reasonable voice that talked me through my first professional fight, my first loss, my first real taste of failure. The one I craved, right up until the moment he told me I was worthless. “You know how this ends.”

My hands are unwavering, but my voice isn’t. “If you hurt her, there’s nowhere in this world where you can hide from me. I’ll burn it all down, Bruno. I’ll obliterate every piece of your empire and every person who’s ever worked for you. I’ll leave you with nothing. Then I’ll tie you up and strip off a piece of your flesh hourly. I’ll keep you alive for days, until you’re writhing and crying and wishing you could undo the mistake of touching her.”

“You paint a scary picture, Son.” Bruno’s hand shifts on the scalpel, the blade trembling against Lucia’s skin before he stills it. The mask slides back on, and his voice curdles. “I saw the news, by the way, about your little redemption show at the Athletic Commission. You think clearing your name changes what you are? I made you, Marco. A piece of paper doesn’t erase that.”

“But it undoes you.”

His jaw tightens, and he presses the scalpel closer to Lucia’s throat. The tip dimples the skin below her jaw. A bead of blood wells and rolls down her neck in a thin red line.

Lucia’s fierce eyes lock on mine, and she shakes her head once. It’s a tiny, desperate message to not do anything reckless. A whimper escapes through her clenched teeth that hollows out my chest.

“I’m offering you a choice, Marco. Drop the gun, or lose everything you love. What’s it going to be?”

He’s right. No matter how much punishment my imagination can conjure, I’ll never live through losing Lucia.

My gun drops to the floor, the clatter echoing against the tile.

Bruno’s smile widens. “Good boy. Now walk away⁠—”