Chapter 1 - The Woman Who Wouldn’t Bow
Dominic rose from the booth, and every conversation within ten feet of him died.
“What’s your name?”
Sadi kept the towel between her hands. “The woman who’s finished serving Leo.”
A few men laughed before remembering whose room they occupied.
Dominic stopped across the bar. Up close, he looked younger than his reputation and considerably more tired.
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“It was what you needed to know.”
His gaze dropped to her feet.
“Who taught you to stand like that?”
“My father.”
“Was he a patient man?”
“Until people asked stupid questions.”
This time, Dominic smiled.
Inside the cage, the young dockworker lay curled against the fence. Nox stood above him while a promoter argued that the boy could continue.
Sadi’s attention shifted.
The boy was trying to breathe around a mouthful of blood.
“Get him a doctor,” she said.
The promoter glanced toward her. “Get back to work.”
“He needs a hospital.”
Dominic watched her, then lifted two fingers.
His guards moved immediately. The cage opened. Someone finally called for medical help.
Leo found his courage again.
“Now she’s a doctor. Maybe she should fight.”
Dominic’s amusement returned, sharper this time.
“Perhaps she should.”
Sadi set down the towel.
“No.”
“Afraid?”
“Of wasting my evening? Constantly.”
Someone near the booth laughed too loudly.
Dominic looked toward Nox, then back at her.
“Beat my champion and I’ll marry you.”
The room erupted.
Men slapped tables. Leo bent double, delighted by a joke that finally placed someone else beneath him.
Sadi waited until the laughter thinned.
“What a terrible prize.”
Silence.
Dominic’s smile vanished.
She should have stopped. She knew that.
But the dockworker was being carried past the bar, one hand hanging loose, and her father’s voice had begun speaking inside her head.
You don’t owe cruel people a performance.
“You want a wager?” she asked. “If I win, that boy’s hospital bills are paid. Everyone working here gets what they’re owed. And I leave this building without anybody following me.”
Dominic studied her.
“If you lose?”
“You still don’t get to marry me.”
A short laugh escaped him.
“What do I get?”
“The satisfaction of learning that I can make bad decisions too.”
He turned toward the cage.
“Three minutes. A submission ends it. Either fighter can stop.”
The promoter protested. Dominic silenced him with a glance.
Sadi removed her apron.
Behind the bar, her coworker Mina caught her sleeve. Neither woman earned enough to afford bravery without considering their rent. Sadi knew Mina had two children asleep at a neighbor’s apartment. She loosened Mina’s fingers gently. “Take your tips before anyone changes their mind,” she whispered. Mina’s eyes filled, but she nodded and stepped away.
Her hands were steady.
That frightened her more than shaking would have.
She had spent four years learning to carry trays instead of consequences.
Now she crossed the floor while men called bets behind her.
At the cage entrance, she slipped off her shoes.
Nox watched without expression.
Closer, she saw the scar crossing his left eyebrow, the pale surgical line beneath his ear.
Recognition struck.
Not from a fight poster.
From a photograph folded inside her father’s old wallet.
“Nathan?” she whispered.
His eyes changed.
Barely.
Then he looked toward the cameras.
“Don’t,” he said.
She stepped inside.
The cage door closed.
Dominic stood beside the timekeeper, his expression unreadable.
Nox raised his hands.
Sadi did not.
Instead, she moved her left foot six inches forward and turned her shoulder.
A small adjustment.
An old one.
Her father had called it opening the gate.
Nox went utterly still.
Across the cage, his lips parted.
“Calder.”
Her stomach tightened.
Nobody had spoken that name to her in four years.
The bell sounded.
Nox came forward, fast enough to surprise the men who mistook size for slowness.
Sadi moved.
His fist struck empty air.
She heard the crowd inhale.
Then his mouth came close to her ear.
“Your brother’s alive.”
For the first time that night, her balance broke.
Nox caught her elbow before she fell.
To the crowd, it looked like a clinch.
May you like
To Sadi, it felt like the world splitting open.
“Lose,” he whispered. “Or they’ll know why you came.”
