The screams of the damned echoed.
Gunfire.
Running feet.
Another scream.
One last shot.
Then—silence.
Gideon's eyes snapped open.
A name he hadn't heard in years crawled through his skull.
"Daddy…"
He sat up slow. The bed groaned beneath six-foot-eight of muscle stacked like rebar and regret.
Sweat slid down his face. Not panic. Not fear. Routine.
This happened often.
Beside him—three women.
Different flavors of distraction.
None of them permanent.
None of them real.
He peeled a hand off his forearm—no guilt. No warmth.
Rolled a thigh off his stomach—dead weight.
Nudged a redhead with his foot—nothing.
He stood.
Massive. Silent. Brutal.
The room was cold. The air familiar.
He'd built this den to keep the ghosts at bay.
It never worked.
Across his chest, the Delta Force tattoo stared back from the mirror—
a dagger split by a jagged scar,
like a promise broken in flesh.
Maybe it was.
He pressed fingers to his temple.
Not liquor. Not pills. The memory.
The cage.
The voice.
The thing in the rafters.
"Price…"
It came soft—scraping like bone on bone.
He yanked the curtain open.
New York blinked back at him.
Neon veins. Skyscraper scars.
Alive. Indifferent. Rotting.
But for a moment—a flicker, a breath—it wasn't the city.
It was something older.
Twisted skyline. Fractured light.
Gone.
The illusion passed.
From the bed behind him, a whisper:
"Come back to bed, Gideon…"
Wrong voice. Wrong time.
He didn't turn.
He didn't answer.
His hand hovered near the gloves on the nightstand.
Bloodied. Cracked.
Waiting.
Below, the city sighed.
Sirens crawled across concrete like ghosts trying to climb home.
Then it hit.
Memory. Like a freight train.
The cage.
The crowd.
The roar.
Rick's voice in his ear:
"You sure you're ready for this?"
"Right after the ward? You're asking for a body bag."
Across the cage—Suarez Jaile.
Cartel brute. Gold chain. That smile that vanishes when bones break.
Flesh for sale. Muscle with a price tag.
The crowd howled.
Thirsty. Blind.
Gideon didn't blink. Didn't breathe.
He'd fought in Afghanistan.
But this?
This was where the animal lived.
Rick gripped the cage.
"Take the fall, Gideon. Walk out breathing."
But something watched.
Not the crowd.
Not the cameras.
Yellow pinpricks.
In the rafters.
Waiting.
"They're here," Rick muttered.
The bell rang.
Suarez danced forward. Mouth running.
Trying to bait him.
Gideon dropped his stance.
Simple. Final.
Like a gravestone.
He raised his guard.
Eyes locked.
"Shut up—"
Voice like a verdict.
"—and punch me."
The cage demands blood. The watchers get more than they bargained for.
Mark it, if you're coming back. The Fold remembers who watches.