Chapter 12: The House Champion

On Saturday night the hall at Dragon Gate was full to the walls.

Word had spread that number six was fighting the house champion, and a hundred masks turned to watch him walk in.

Molly stood behind the bar in a black vest, pouring drinks with a steady hand.

She caught his eye over the crowd.

She did not smile.

She nodded once, and he nodded back.

The junior assistant caught his arm at the foot of the stairs.

She was alone, and she was whispering.

"Ms. Wainright's father came to her bedside last night."

"And?"

"Since then she has had no phone, no visitors, and she is forbidden to speak your name."

"Why are you telling me?"

"She sent me ahead. She said to tell you to stay on your feet."

Troy looked at the stairs down to the ring.

"Is she safe?"

"She's pregnant, she's bleeding, and she's furious," the assistant said. "She's coming anyway."

At the ringside table sat a man in a gold mask with his legs stretched out.

A woman in a charcoal suit stood behind him with her right arm in a sling.

Troy knew the sling.

He knew the jaw under that mask better.

"Falk," Dane Ostrow said lazily, as Troy passed. "Fifty thousand says you're on the floor by round two."

"Then you'll be out fifty thousand."

"Cute."

"Mr. Ostrow," Greta muttered. "He's not the same man."

"He's a bellboy in boxing gloves."

Troy climbed through the ropes.

The champion was already there.

He stood a head taller than the last man and twenty pounds heavier, with a shaved scalp and scarred knuckles, and he had not lost in three years.

The bell rang.

The first punch took Troy across the jaw and spun him half around.

The crowd roared.

Pain flooded the side of his face, bright and total.

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