Page 3 of Dravin

We used to say that before every mission. Sometimes, every godforsaken morning.

You can’t kill what’s already dead. That was us. Men that the higher ups weren’t afraid to throw away. Except we were good at it. Too good. We became so good at being disposable that we become indispensable and we got so good atthat, we turned into ghosts. The kind of men who don’t officially exist. The kind you send in when all else fails.

“Die well, my friend.”

I hang up before I can do something stupid like getting sentimental. Marcus doesn’t have the time. Neither do I.

Within a few seconds, an address appears on my screen. I memorize it before I dismantle the phone, breaking the SIM and taking out the battery.

I charge into the boardroom, walk straight up to Prince, and grab him by the collar of his twelve thousand dollar suit.

He’s so shocked that he stops mid rant. The table in front of him is wet with sprays of spittle. Around the room, mouths literally gape open and eyes pop.

All these rich corporate fucks are seeing me now.

“Sorry,” I rasp in my thick, ruined voice. Compliments of time six out of seven. Smoke inhalation. I nearly burned to death. “There’s been an emergency. You’ll have to excuse us.”

I march Prince out of the room. He stumbles and whimpers in front of me. “W- what emergency?” he gasps out as I toss him into the elevator like a ragdoll. He rights himselfagainst the back wall while I punch the button to take us down to the basement, where his driver is waiting.

“You’re flying to Chicago for business.” I pull my 9mm out of the holster of my black suit jacket. For this job, I’m dressed just like all the rest of these pricks, but seeing as I’m private security, I’m allowed certain liberties. “Say a word or pull out your phone at any time from now until we land and you’ll paint your daddy’s SUV or that jet with your lovely brain matter. Stay quiet, do what I say, and as soon as we land, you’ll never have to see me again. You can take the plane straight back here. Do you understand, or do you want to make bets on exactly what shade your head will be when it pops like an overripe melon?”

He whimpers, tears filling his eyes, his muscles quaking.

“Don’t you dare piss yourself. That would be hard to explain. This needs to look legit. You act the part for the next few hours, and you get to keep all your limbs. Yeah?”

He sniffles, so I slap him across the face. The smack echoes through the elevator, so damn satisfying. I’ve wanted to do that formonths.

“Stop sniveling and get your shit together. You have five seconds before we’re off this elevator.”

To his credit, he draws himself up, smears the back of his hand over his eyes and nose, and wipes the mess on his immaculate jacket.

Big surprise. This little asshat wants to live to see another day in his spoiled, enchanted, life. Here I thought that Prince would never do a single favor for me and that I couldn’t have been saddled with a more useless piece of human waste.

I’m not wrong very often. In this case, I’m glad I am.

Chapter 1

Thirteen Months Later

Kael

The screams of a few thousand people thirsty for blood sends a biting jolt of adrenaline straight to my heart. It’s already racing in my chest, jackhammering my ribs into dust.

The man across from me is a beast, a giant with one eye. The other one is just an empty socket, gaping like a cavern that’s half caved in. His face is more scar than skin. A fresh line of jagged black stitches runs across what’s left of a shaggy dark eyebrow.

Don’t get me wrong. I’d normally feel terrible about beating down a one-eyed man, but this guy outweighs me by at least a hundred pounds and he’s a good foot taller.

Giant? No.Juggernautmore like. He’s just about as wide as I am tall.

I bounce from side to side, though I’ve already warmed up before that long walk down the cement tunnel into the cage.

This place bears zero resemblance to the trappings of a professional fight. The cage is made of chain link fencing. Razor wire glistens silver in the spotlights. Of course the floor is bloodstained. The smells of piss, sweat, and metal are just as choking and cloying as the screams of the crowd are eager andviolent. This is the kind of fighting that people make or lose their fortunes on. It’s the seediest of the seedy, and anything goes.

My opponent doesn’t move. He’s big, but probably not slow. In this place, slow equals dead.

I have no one in my corner. No trainer. No coach. That’s a laughable notion. I came alone. Alvaloe would kill me if he knew I was doing this. He’s been training me for the past year, but he’d tell me it certainly wasn’t so I could throw my life away here.

The giant opens his arms wide before he rips off his shirt, revealing a whole lot of mismatched, badly done ink. Some of those tattoos get cut off by more scars. He’s not lean, and he certainly doesn’t have a fighter’s toned body, not like I do, but that doesn’t make him any less dangerous. He probably grows that paunch just so people underestimate him.

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