Kalumba roared and charged.
He was a monster in close quarters—raw power, years of underground dominance, the instincts of a man who had never lost a fair fight. He swung the bat like a club, two-handed, aiming for Shupto's head. Shupto ducked under it, the wood whistling past his ear, but the follow-up punch caught him in the shoulder—his bad shoulder—and spun him into the wall. He hit hard, his head snapping back.
Marina rushed in from the side, throwing a desperate hook. Kalumba blocked it with his forearm and backhanded her across the face, his gold rings splitting her lip wider. Blood sprayed.
They fought harder than they ever had.
Shupto danced around Kalumba's power, landing precise kicks to the legs and body—thigh, knee, ribs, thigh again—trying to cripple the bigger man's mobility. Each kick was a prayer. Each impact a hope. Marina pressed the attack with furious combinations, her speed the only thing keeping her alive. Jab-cross-hook-uppercut. Jab-cross-hook. Every punch she landed sent fresh waves of agony through her bruised ribs. Every breath was fire.
Shupto took a heavy elbow to the temple that opened a deep gash above his eye, blood pouring down his grey hair and into his vision. He blinked it away, kept moving.
Kalumba laughed through the pain, swinging wildly, his power undiminished despite the damage. "Two against one? Pathetic! I've killed better fighters than you. I've killed them in this ring. I've killed them on this floor!"
He grabbed Shupto by the collar and slammed him into the chain-link, the cage rattling, then turned and drove a knee into Marina's stomach. She doubled over, vomiting blood onto the concrete.
The fight was brutal. Physical consequences were immediate and punishing.
Shupto's left arm was going numb from the earlier hit—dislocated, maybe broken. Marina's breathing was shallow and ragged, cracked ribs making every movement torture, every breath a knife. Both of them were slower now, bloodier, their bodies failing them. But they refused to fall.
Kalumba was too strong. Too experienced. He was wearing them down.
While Kalumba focused on Shupto—pinning the smaller man against the wall and raining heavy punches into his guard, each impact making Shupto's arms drop lower—Marina saw her opening.
She moved low and dirty.
She grabbed the baseball bat Kalumba had dropped earlier. It was heavy in her hands, slick with someone's blood. Instead of swinging it like a weapon, she drove the thick end forward like a spear, jamming it hard between Kalumba's legs with every ounce of remaining strength.
The champion howled in agony—a high, animal sound that echoed off the walls—as the bat crushed his groin. He staggered, his hands dropping instinctively to protect himself, his face contorted in pain.
Marina didn't stop.
She swung the bat upward in a vicious arc, the fat end cracking against the side of Kalumba's head with a wet, sickening thud. Bone gave way. The sound was unforgettable—the sound of something breaking that wasn't meant to break. Kalumba's eyes rolled back, showing white.
Shupto, seeing the opening, pushed off the wall and delivered one final, precise spinning back kick to Kalumba's already damaged knee. The joint buckled with an audible pop, folding sideways in a way knees weren't designed to fold.
Kalumba dropped to the concrete floor—the same floor where he had killed Marco.
He landed face-down, his body twitching, blood pooling beneath his head.
Marina stood over him, bat still in her bloody hands, chest heaving, tears mixing with blood on her face. Her arms were shaking. Her whole body was shaking.
She raised the bat one last time.
"This is for my brother."
The final swing came down hard on the back of Kalumba's skull.
The champion's body jerked once—a violent, full-body spasm—then went still. The blood spread faster now, a dark halo around his head.
Silence filled the room. The buzzing lights seemed louder in the absence of sound.
Marina dropped the bat. It clattered loudly on the concrete, the sound unnaturally sharp.
She looked at Shupto—both of them battered, bleeding, barely standing. Shupto's left eye was swelling shut, the skin around it already purple. Marina's ribs felt like fire with every breath, every heartbeat a fresh agony.
They had won.
But the cost was written in blood and broken bones on both of them.
Shupto and Marina limped out of the fight room together, supporting each other's weight.
Marina's left arm was draped over Shupto's shoulders; his right arm was around her waist. They moved like wounded animals, slow and careful, each step a negotiation with pain. Marina's ribs screamed with every breath. Shupto's left arm hung useless at his side, the shoulder clearly dislocated, blood still dripping from the gash above his eye.
They moved slowly through the dimly lit hallway, stepping over the bodies Shupto had left behind. Seven men in various states of unconsciousness—or worse. Shupto didn't look at them. Neither did Marina. Neither spoke. The only sounds were their ragged breathing and the distant drip of water from a leaking pipe somewhere in the darkness.
The hallway seemed longer than before, each step an effort. The adrenaline was fading now, leaving behind a hollow ache that went deeper than the physical wounds.
As they passed a small side room—an office, maybe, or a storage closet—Shupto noticed an open locker. Inside, visible through the gap in the door, were stacks of cash. Kalumba's fight money. Bundles of hundred-dollar bills, neatly stacked, held together with rubber bands.
They both stopped.
Shupto glanced at Marina. She stared at the money for a long moment, her amber eyes unreadable in the dim light. Then she gave a small, exhausted nod.
He grabbed a black duffel bag from beside the locker—military surplus, heavy canvas—and quickly stuffed the money inside. No celebration. No counting. Just survival. The bag grew heavy in his good hand.
They continued toward the warehouse loading dock.
The night air hit them like a blessing—warm and humid, smelling of salt and diesel and the distant sweetness of jasmine from someone's garden. The contrast with the basement's blood-and-rust stench was almost overwhelming.
An old white van was parked near the dock, keys still in the ignition. One of Kalumba's crew vehicles, probably left there for a quick escape that had never come.
Marina slid into the driver's seat, wincing as her cracked ribs protested the movement. Shupto climbed into the passenger side, clutching the money bag to his chest like a wounded animal.
She started the engine.
Her pager buzzed loudly on the dashboard.
Marina snatched it up. One word from Nikki, typed in all caps, the letters seeming to burn into her eyes:
DANGER.
Heart froze.
She slammed the accelerator. The van screeched out of the warehouse, tires smoking on the wet asphalt. Shupto flinched hard as the sudden speed threw him back against the seat, his injured arm banging against the door. Pain flashed across his face, but he didn't cry out.
"Slow down—" he started, his voice tight.
"No," Marina growled through gritted teeth, her eyes fixed on the road ahead. The neon lights of VEX City blurred past, pink and cyan and green, bleeding together in her peripheral vision. She didn't see any of it. She saw Nikki's face. Nikki's belly. Nikki tied to a chair with guns to her head.