Page 59 of From Best To Bested

“But then I realized with what you did to Stacy, you deserved so much worse,” Ezra continued. “I wanted to break you the same way you broke me. You hollowed out my soul and left me with nothing. A vacuum of a man. I decided to hollow you out, break you, own you, make your every waking thought a service to me.”

Roman hated looking back on the night Stacy died. The blood that covered Roman’s fists. The man gasping on the ground. The way one angry shove knocked Stacy into traffic. The way one moment, one action, had changed the entire course of Roman’s life.

There were so many things Roman hated to look back on. He hated thinking about the night he spent with Jake and his crew. He hated thinking about all the ways he willingly insisted on Ezra debasing him, encouraging it even. He hated thinking about all the looks he got from everyone in Marlow Penitentiary. More than anything, Roman hated himself and wished to forget all the ways he deserved this.

But maybe he did deserve this, mind flitting to Stacy’s broken body. Corpse. Flesh barely held together in the wake of a semi-truck. Maybe Roman could finally accept his place, his punishment. This was why the universe let him fall; this was why the universe laughed as he plummeted, as he crashed, as he shattered into a million pieces of desperation and insecurity. Roman finally accepted his fate.

“So, all of this…” Roman gestured to the cell, the champion’s suite, the life he now lived under Ezra’s thumb. “This was because of what happened to Stacy.”

“Because of what you did to Stacy,” Ezra corrected.

“I’m s-s-sorry.” Roman shivered, the word colder than any blizzard and a useless waste based on the scowl that burned through Roman’s flesh.

He didn’t want to apologize. He wanted to fall back to his knees. He wanted to tell Ezra he understood that he’d accept this. Part of him wondered if that would finally free him from the guilt he harbored, from the resistance of secretly wanting more in life. Roman never deserved more from life. And he certainly didn’t after taking a life.

“I don’t need or want your apologies.” Ezra playfully smirked. “I just need you to suffer, which you have and will continue to do. It was so easy to make you compliant, like you knew you deserved this.”

Maybe Roman did know that on some level, some warped perception of guilt for his actions. But did he really deserve all of this? Did his cruelty truly warrant complete and utter destruction? How much suffering would he need to continue enduring until the scales were balanced?

“Once I decided I could break down your mind and ego, make you serve me completely, make you love me, need me, I knew I could lead you where you belonged.”

“Belonged?”

“You don’t think Jake was a mistake, do you?” Ezra laughed. “It took some time to get you there, to make it your choice, always making it your choice.”

Ezra had arranged it. He’d sent Roman to the showers knowing Jake would fake an attack, knowing Roman would run to Ezra, knowing Ezra would then bring Jake back and make things right, and Roman—being the desperate, broken man he was—did whatever he could to see Ezra smile, even if he died a little inside every time Jake or one of his men raked their hands over Roman’s body, every time he served them, every time they broke him in a little more.

“The long-term goal was always to send you to Jake and his crew, let you choose it even.” Ezra wrapped his hands overRoman’s face, still smiling, still laughing. “I was so excited to watch them slowly decimate what I’d already shattered.”

Roman trembled in Ezra’s grasp, trying to free himself from the hands slapped on the sides of his face, but he was too reserved, too well-trained to properly defy the unwanted grip.

“Then Jake the psychotic Snake went and got himself killed in some gang feud bullshit,” Ezra spat the words more annoyed than angry.

Ezra hadn’t pieced together what Levi had done. He didn’t know Levi’s involvement in Jake’s death, in burning down his crew.

“No matter. Plans change.” Ezra smacked Roman’s face, then released his hold on him. “You took away the most important person in my life. You killed my best friend. Maybe when I kill yours, you’ll understand how I feel.”

Ezra left the room. Roman collapsed to the floor, each breath a wispy struggle as the walls spun and his thoughts twisted into gnarled nightmares. Everything that had happened. Everything that would happen. It was his fault. Ezra had come to destroy him. Ezra had warped his understanding of friendship. Broken Roman until he could no longer recognize himself. Now, Levi would die. The last person who actually seemed to give a damn about what happened to Roman. He didn’t deserve someone so kind, so caring, so brave. And Levi certainly didn’t deserve to die for someone as weak, as lost, and as useless as Roman.

He crumbled into himself, crying over the last year of his life, the lengths he’d gone to live just one more day. To survive. This no longer felt like surviving. It was a chore, a waste, and Roman didn’t know what to do.

Chapter Twenty-One

The lead-up to the next Challenger’s Chance haunted Roman. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t think, he couldn’t even probably feel past the guilt he carried for causing this. Every part of him secretly thought back to how much he deserved his fate, how karma had finally come for him after what he’d done to Stacy, but to learn Ezra came in karma’s stead. To know that Ezra made it his mission to take Roman and break him, make him love the servitude, expect the pain, and show gratitude for everything he’d been forced to endure for months.

He thought about how Ezra warped his understanding of friendship, how he used friendship to punish Roman, and now would take the only friend Roman had left in the world and kill him.

Roman swallowed hard as he followed a small crowd being escorted to the fighting arena. Would Ezra honestly murder Levi? The warden didn’t tolerate competitors getting slick and pressing their luck by killing a fellow inmate. There was no profit in casual murder, and the warden was a businessman, after all. But accidents happened, and this was a rough, no-rules arena where every fighter came with their own shady background of breaking the law.

Ezra could easily make it look like an accident. Hell, maybe it had nothing to do with their fight at all. Roman scoured thecrowd, searching for threats. Ezra might have someone in the audience ready to gut Levi, just like the inmate who’d come for Ezra with a knife all those months back.

Roman dwelled on that moment, that incident that cemented Ezra’s friendship with Jake. Had it been real? A real altercation Ezra merely capitalized on, or a ruse meant to justify his fake friendship with Jake? Roman didn’t know the truth, didn’t know if he wanted to know. Ezra had said he’d always planned to break Roman and pass him off to Jake. Had he really been planning it from day one? Roman’s mind was lost in the layers of manipulation, the web of lies, the fog of deceit. He couldn’t see through any of it, not truly, and he worried he never would.

“Welcome to another evening of the most riveting competitions you’ll ever experience,” Warden Sadler came on the mics and livened up the crowd. “Normally, we warm you all up with a few preliminary battles, but tonight, we have something mighty special. A Challenger’s Chance made by Levi Pierce and graciously accepted by Ezra Delgado, our strongest champion.”

The crowd booed Levi’s approach, offering no support, but the stoic expression he wore didn’t falter for a second. Ezra stood from his gaudy throne chair, raised fists to fuel the crowds’ cheers for a moment, and then quickly took his place. Neither man had come tonight with the intention of putting on a show. All they wanted was to strike down the other.

Warden Sadler sounded off the match, and both fighters moved in to attack each other. Ezra came in fast and hard, not bothering to conserve his strength because this was the only fight that mattered to him. Roman could see it in his hateful green eyes; he could see it in every brutal punch, in the swift kicks, in the dangerous fake-outs. Ezra moved with deadly force.

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