Sloane
He didn’t just fight up there in the ring.
He dominated.
The first time he landed a hit, it felt like thunder. I swear I felt the floor shake under my boots. The guy he was up against—huge, angry, built like he bench-pressed trucks for fun—barely had time to breathe between blows. Nikolai moved like he was made of fire and steel and dark mystery.
Every hit was precise. Brutal. Beautiful somehow.
The crowd went wild, but I couldn’t hear any of it. It was like there was a wall between me and the noise, like the air was vibrating too fast to carry sound.
I’ve never seen anything like him.
He wasn’t just powerful. He was pure and utter control. He conquered every inch of that ring like it belonged to him.
I didn’t blink when blood splattered outside the ring. I didn’t flinch when the guy—Volkov, someone said—tried to tackle him. I just watched. Hypnotized. Every nerve in my body tuned to him.
Then he finished it.
A strike across the temple, vicious, clean, and Volkov dropped like a sack of bricks.
Nikolai didn’t gloat, didn’t smile. He just stood there, breathing hard, blood dripping from his knuckles, eyes burning with fire.
And then those eyes found me.
I froze.
His gaze was… terrifying. Electric. Unshakable. He looked at me like he already knew who I was. Like he was deciding what he was going to do about it.
My throat went dry.
Because I swear to God, in that moment, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to run… or get closer to him.
He didn’t look away.
Neither did I.
For one long, unbroken second, it was just us in this warehouse full of heat and blood and screaming bodies, staring at each other like we were the only two people in the room.
Then the ref grabbed his arm, the crowd erupted in cheers again, and it was like someone broke the spell between us. He took a step back, the moment shattered.
But I still felt it.
In my chest. In my throat. Between my fucking thighs.
Goddamn.
Who the hell was this man?
I looked around, noticing that the crowd was starting to thin after the fight, people stumbling out with laughter, adrenaline, and dollar signs in their eyes. It was like the whole place just exhaled—drunk on blood and victory.
I didn’t move right away. I should have left. I knew I should, but I wanted to see one more thing first.
Near the far wall, there was a makeshift payout station: a long folding table with two men behind it counting thick stacks of cash with gloved hands and dead eyes. People lined up like kids waiting for candy, clutching slips of paper, trading them in for rolls of bills fat enough to snap rubber bands.
I edged closer, just enough to see.
Some guy got handed four thousand dollars in hundreds, grinning like he’d just gotten laid twice.
Four grand.
For betting on the right guy.
On Nikolai.
Curious, I lifted my brow. That wasn’t just shady warehouse fun—that was business. That was rent money. That was power.
Suddenly, I wasn’t just watching anymore.
I started calculating.
I could do this. I knew I could. I’d been raised around sharks in cocktail dresses my whole life—hedge fund assholes and dirty lawyers and PR snakes. I knew what a stacked game looked like.
This wasn’t any different.
It just had blood on it.
I turned on my heel and slipped out the blue door into the cold Boston night, adrenaline still humming through me like a drug I can’t quite come down from.
By the time I slid into the backseat of my rideshare and started heading home, my brain was already spinning.
I could bet on fights if I knew who was going to win.
If I had… I don’t know… an edge.
Wheels turning, I pulled out my phone and opened Instagram, scrolling mindlessly for a second, watching the stream of curated smiles and clout-chasing chaos—until an idea hit me.
What if I could tilt the odds?
What if I made it seem like one of the favored fighters wasn’t at one hundred percent?
Injured. Off his game. Whatever. Something. Anything really.
People talk online, and they believe what they read. All I’d have to do is make it plausible enough.
A photo. A vague caption. A few ‘did you hear?’ comments in the right threads. I could make a killing. All I’d need is access to a few burner accounts. Or bots.
And I knew exactly who can help me with that.
I pulled up my thread with Ghost and typed:
Me: Hey. I have a question that may or may not be legal.
Ghost: That’s my favorite kind. Hit me.
Me: If I wanted to spread a rumor online that someone got injured—not huge, just enough to shake betting confidence—could you help?
Ghost: You want fake accounts, manipulated engagement, and maybe a doctored photo?
Me: Yeah. But make it subtle. Strategic. Not like ‘troll farm,’ more like ‘gossip with teeth.’
Ghost: Done it before. Can do it again. Who’s the target?
Me: I’ll send you a name soon. Just wanted to see if I could pull the trigger.
Ghost: You already did. You just haven’t admitted it yet.
I smirked.
He wasn’t wrong.
By the time my rideshare pulled up to my house, the plan was already half-formed in my head. I climbed back up the trellis, slid inside my window, and collapsed onto my bed in the dark.
I didn’t sleep that night.
I couldn’t.
Not with the image of him burning behind my eyes.
The way he moved. The way the room shifted when he stepped into it. Like gravity recalibrated around him and everyone just went along with it.
I thought about his tattoos, crawling up his arms like stories he had yet to tell. The way he never smiled, not even once. Like he didn’t need to. He knew people were watching him, already afraid of what he might do.
He wasn’t a man in a ring.
He was the king of an empire made of fists and fear.
That’s when it hit me.
The way the crowd moved around him. The way people didn’t just cheer, they bowed, in their own way. The way he never looked surprised to win. Those weren’t fighter things.
They were boss things.
Like Bratva.
The word drifted through my mind like smoke—the Russian mafia. Whispers I’d overheard at Lila’s townhouse yesterday, at charity galas in the past, gossip my father quickly shut down with a tight smile and a change of subject. I remembered hearing about it once from a cop at a fundraiser, said quietly so that no one else but the two of us could hear.
“They don’t ask twice. The Bratva make the Irish look like Boy Scouts.”
Could he be?
A part of me knew I was reaching, that maybe I was just looking for reasons to peg him as dangerous.
But another part—the part that had been around power long enough to recognize it—thought I was right.
He wasn’t just some underground brawler, he was something else.
And if the rumors were true? If Nikolai was part of the Bratva, then I just locked eyes with someone who could end me.
Or claim me as his.
I hated that the second thought made my skin flush.
I hated that I was even thinking about him. That I was lying in my bed, fully clothed, makeup smeared, heart still pounding like I was standing ringside instead of safe in my designer sheets.
I didn’t get like this.
Not for anyone.
I didn’t chase.
I didn’t ache.
But God help me, something about him stuck in my chest like a knife.
And the worst part?
I wasn’t even sure I wanted to pull that knife out yet.
