Page 32 of King of the Cage

The bouncer opened the rope for us, and we swept in. The gentleman’s club on the ground floor was packed. If you peered too closely at any one table, you were bound to see the cream of the New York crop drinking and rubbing shoulders, eyeingup the beautiful servers with interest and braying over the burlesque show.

But we weren’t here to be social. We were here for the fight. Nothing released stress like watching hot men trying to kill each other. I was hoping it might shake Sol from her melancholy.

Fight nights at The Blue Rabbit were infamously rowdy. They took place in the basement and cost a pretty penny to get into.

“Okay, enough talking. Let’s get drunk and watch hot men rub their bodies against each other.” Marco liked nothing better than a little homoerotic wrestling. Too bad that these fights were often fatal. It was literally survival of the fittest.

That was the way of it in our world. Actions spoke louder than words, and life and death were often on the line. The rules that applied to normal society didn’t apply here. I’d grown up in those dark, lawless places, under the surface of normality, outside the reach of the law.

Inside, we descended three more floors to reach the fighting arena. Names were written up on a chalkboard, and the betting game was hot, people crowding around the makeshift tables that had been set up. Those were the small-time bets, however. The bigger ones were shaken on and could make or break someone’s financial year.

“Should we bet on someone?” Marco stared up at the list of fighters doubtfully.

I shrugged. “Go ahead. I don’t know any of these guys.”

Sure, the odd name was familiar here or there, but none of them were De Sanctis men. I’d lived in America on and off over the years, most recently at Casa Nera, the family’s sprawlingcompound in New Jersey, and I’d yet to really learn the names and faces of the players in New York. It was probably because I didn’t usually leave the house that much. I was at my best behind a screen, looking at the world in the way I best understood it: through lines of code.

“I’m gonna put money on the Irish, then. They’re lucky, right?”

My mind drifted as Marco lined up to place his bet, and I scanned the floor. It was packed. The braying crowd of bloodthirsty observers was hungry for violence. You could feel it in the energy of the room. They didn’t want a mild-mannered fight with rules and referees. They wanted a brawl, and that’s why they were here.

“Shall we get a drink?” Sol gazed longingly at the bar.

“Sure,” I agreed.

Marco bounced back to our side. “Shit, I think Sepriano is here. I wonder what brings the good councilman to a shithole like this?”

My stomach dropped. After last night’s tussle, the last person I wanted to see was Enrico. I turned away from the direction Marco was looking. Hopefully he wouldn’t even notice me. Sol then peered in that direction.

“Don’t pay attention to it, or him. He’s an asshole, and I hear he got his actual ass handed to him last night. I only wish I’d seen it.” I rubbed Sol’s arm.

She nodded but was quiet.

At the far end of the room, the ring was almost ready. The fights would start any second.

“Let’s go and get a good seat. I want ringside,” I told Marco, looping one arm around Sol and the other around Marco. I tugged them both toward the action. “Right in the splash zone.”

An hour into the matches,and I had to give it to the crowd. I’d thought I liked violence, but the mass of humanity standing behind me was on another level. The more brutal the blow that was landed in the ring, the louder the cheers. If teeth could get knocked out, that was a cause for celebration. If someone hit the mat and didn’t get up? A standing ovation. Sol had her hands clamped over eyes.

“Can I look yet?” She winced.

I knocked back the rest of my drink. “I wouldn’t.”

“This is less sexy that I expected.” Marco shuddered as someone spat out a mouthful of blood through the ropes. He’d returned from a drink run and passed me my third cocktail in a plastic glass.

“Really? You thought it would be sexy to see people get the shit beat out of them?”

“I thought there’d be more grappling and pinning to the mat, or something, you know? Like in the Olympics.” Marco was an avid Summer Games watcher.

“Well, this isn’t ancient Greece. This is modern-day New York, and according to the crowd, they want blood.” I took a long sip of my lukewarm drink. It wasn’t great, but it was better than anything else on offer.

Marco shivered.

A match ended, the loser carried out of the ring on a stretcher.

“Is he dead?” Marco asked.

Sol peered around her fingers. “Hard to say.”

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