The city doesn't sleep. It just mutates.
Some nights, it hums low like a threat. Other nights, it screeches — sirens, fists slapping skin, tires bleeding rubber down wet roads. But tonight? It's quiet. Which makes it worse. Because quiet means something's waiting.
I sat on the gym bench, tape still tight around my fists, the blood under it dried into the skin. Coach had already left — said nothing, just tossed me a towel like it was a white flag. Aamir didn't show. Not since the last fight. Since the hospital. Since the blood.
Didn't blame him.
My ribs still barked every time I breathed. I liked the pain. It kept me company.
The bulb above me flickered. The gym smelled like sweat, disinfectant, and something old — regret maybe. I stayed because I didn't want to go home. Not that I had one. Just walls with no photos. A mattress with no sheets. I lived like I was always about to leave.
But I couldn't run. Not anymore.
Not with the news I got this morning.
---
It was a knock at the door. Not the front door — the fire escape. Which was already wrong.
I opened it slow, like the barrel of a gun might be behind it.
It wasn't a gun.
It was **Rayyan**.
Shirtless, knuckles split open again, breathing like he just came from war.
"Junaid's setting something up," he said. No hello. No pause.
I stared at him. "I told you I'm done with him."
"You're not." He stepped in without permission. "And if you don't listen, you're gonna be done. Period."
---
Rayyan dropped a flyer on my table. Unmarked. No logos. Just a date, a time, and two words:
**"The Basement."**
I knew the name. Everyone did.
The Basement wasn't a club. It was a **graveyard with music**. A fight pit buried under the old textile district, where they don't call medics — they call cleaners. Where bets are made in blood weight, not money. Where **men disappear after losing**.
"You trying to die?" I asked.
Rayyan sat down. "I don't have a choice. And now neither do you."
He looked me in the eye. That's when I saw it.
Fear.
Not of the fight.
Of something else. Something worse.
---
He leaned in. "They're not making this a match. They're making it a **message**. You think Junaid's mad about what happened in the alley? With those kids? With the knife?"
I stayed silent.
"Bro... you embarrassed him. You didn't just win. You made him bleed. In front of his people."
I closed my eyes.
"Now he's throwing his champion at you."
My jaw tensed. "Who?"
Rayyan didn't blink.
"**Zia.**"
---
I hadn't heard that name in two years.
Zia wasn't a boxer. He wasn't even a fighter. He was a **weapon someone forgot to lock away**. A prison-born, bone-breaking monster that used to spar with Khalid — back when Khalid was alive. Back when the world still made some kind of sense.
Zia didn't punch to win. He punched to change your bone structure.
He'd vanished after Khalid died.
Now Junaid was bringing him back.
Just for me.
---
"You show up," Rayyan said. "Or Junaid comes to you."
I didn't answer. I didn't have to.
Rayyan stood, then hesitated. "You're not ready, Malik. You haven't healed. You haven't—"
"I never f\*\*king healed from anything," I snapped.
He left without another word.
---
I sat there for hours, still taped, staring at the flyer. Wondering if I was about to end my story in a basement.
And maybe... hoping I would.
---
**The Basement** wasn't marked. You had to know someone who knew someone. But that night, the door was already cracked open like it was waiting for me.
I walked in alone.
No entourage. No music. Just me and the dead air.
It was built under an old cotton mill — brick walls, low ceilings, metal beams dripping condensation. Sweat and smoke hung in the air like fog. No ring. Just a **square of duct tape on concrete**, blood-stained and wide enough for violence.
The crowd circled tight. No seats. No refs. Just teeth and tension.
Everyone knew why they were here.
Everyone knew **who** they were here to see.
Me.
And **him**.
---
Zia hadn't changed.
If anything, he looked worse — like prison stripped the man and left only meat behind. His arms were thicker than my legs. Face full of scars. One eye lazy from a knife fight. He stood like he owned gravity, like the floor held still because **he said so**.
When he saw me, he smiled.
It wasn't joy. It was hunger.
---
Junaid sat in the back, flanked by two guys I didn't recognize — both holding heat under their jackets. He didn't stand. Didn't speak. Just sipped something gold from a crystal glass and nodded once.
That was the bell.
---
Zia came at me like a truck. No rhythm, no setup — just brute force.
First punch grazed my cheek. I still saw stars.
Second one caught my ribs and I **swore I felt bone crack**.
I stumbled.
Crowd roared.
Blood in my mouth already.
This wasn't boxing.
This was survival.
---
But pain… pain is old. Familiar. It's where I live.
And Zia?
Zia got **sloppy** when he thought he was winning.
So I let him think it.
I backed up, let his hits glance off arms, rolled with them — and then I hit him with a short left hook to the liver so hard his eyes went empty.
He didn't drop. But he froze.
And I remembered: **he feels pain like the rest of us.**
---
That was all I needed.
I **dug into him** — body shots that echoed like sledgehammers, uppercuts that bent his neck sideways. We didn't talk. We just traded trauma.
Blood on the floor. Not sure whose.
The crowd stopped cheering. They were just watching now. Like they were witnessing something sacred or **damned**.
Then Zia headbutted me.
---
Skull to nose. Sharp. Fast. Dirty.
I reeled back, face gushing red. My vision blurred. Zia charged.
I stepped left.
He missed.
I spun.
And threw a punch I didn't know I had in me.
**Crack.**
His jaw turned the wrong way.
**He went down.**
---
The room went **dead silent**.
Zia twitched on the floor.
Then stopped.
No ref to count. No medic to check. Just silence.
I stood over him, chest heaving, fists soaked. My nose crooked. My ribs on fire.
But I was standing.
Junaid stood now. And clapped.
Slow. Disrespectful.
"You're finally ready," he said.
I didn't reply.
"You think this is over?" he smiled. "This wasn't the fight. This was **the audition.**"
Then he walked out.
---
I stayed.
Until the last person left. Until the blood dried on the concrete.
Until Zia's body was dragged out by two men who didn't flinch.
And still I stood.
Because something in me **needed this.**
Not the win.
The war.
I didn't go home that night.
I walked until my legs gave out.
Until the streets thinned and the neon lights bled into grey.
Eventually I found myself in front of the gym.
**Jab & Cross.**
Still open. Still lit.
But empty — like it was holding its breath, waiting for the version of me that used to belong there.
I went inside.
Sat on the bench near the heavy bag. The same one Coach Reza made me hit till my knuckles bled when I was 14. The leather smelled like memory.
I leaned back. Looked at the ceiling.
Didn't cry.
Didn't scream.
I just… stared.
---
I didn't hear her come in.
Not until she was already across from me.
**Aaliya.**
Hair tied back. Hoodie zipped high. Same piercing stare from years ago, like she could read every crack in your soul and measure what was left.
We hadn't spoken in two years.
Last time I saw her, she was throwing a glass at my head in a hospital hallway.
Now, she just sat. Quiet. Like none of that had happened.
"How long you been back?" I asked, voice hoarse.
"Few weeks," she said. "Didn't think you'd want to see me."
"I don't."
She nodded like she expected that. "I saw what happened at the Basement."
Of course she had.
"You back in it deep again?" she asked.
I shrugged. "It's not like that."
"Yeah," she said. "It never is."
---
I didn't look at her. I couldn't.
The guilt was too raw.
Aaliya had seen me at my worst — and not in the ring. In the hospital. After **what happened to Kamil.**
Her little brother. My best friend.
The night everything fell apart.
The reason I changed.
She still didn't say his name. Neither did I.
Some things hang too heavy to lift.
---
"You think this ends with your fists?" she asked. "You think fighting these animals will fix whatever's eating you?"
I didn't answer.
"I came back because I heard your name in places it didn't belong," she said. "People are talking. The kind of people you don't want remembering you."
I finally looked up. "Like who?"
"Junaid," she said.
And suddenly everything felt colder.
---
"He's setting you up, Malik. You think you're climbing out, but he's just pulling you deeper."
I swallowed. My ribs throbbed. My nose was still bleeding slow.
"What do you want me to do?" I snapped. "Walk away? Pretend none of it ever happened?"
"No," she said, calm. "I want you to stop running from the thing that's really killing you."
I hated how right she sounded.
"I didn't kill him," I said, finally. "Kamil made his own choices."
Her face didn't change.
"You think I don't replay it?" I continued. "You think I don't see it every damn night? Him laying there—"
My voice cracked.
Silence.
---
She stood. Walked to the heavy bag. Pressed her palm against it.
"I know you didn't kill him," she said. "But you stopped fighting for him."
That one cut deep.
She turned.
"Make the next fight count, Malik. Not for money. Not for pain. For him. For yourself."
Then she left.
---
I sat alone in that gym until sunrise.
And when I finally stood, I didn't feel better.
I felt **clearer.**
---
### **A Week Later**
The fight was already sold out.
Underground posters called it **"Southpaw vs. The Bullet"** — Malik Ali vs. Rico "Bullet" Navarro, a Puerto Rican brawler with a kill count and an ego the size of Jersey.
The fight would be public. Crowded. Legal but barely.
And Junaid was bankrolling the whole thing.
I knew what that meant: this wasn't just a fight. It was a **message.**
A test.
A trap.
Maybe all three.
---
I stepped into the ring as the crowd screamed my name.
But it wasn't adoration. It was **bloodlust**. They came to see someone die.
And if I was lucky, it wouldn't be me.
Rico stood across from me — neck covered in tattoos, gloves already stained before the bell even rang.
He winked.
"You ready to die, pretty boy?"
I didn't respond.
The bell rang.
---
Rico rushed in like a bullet from hell.
But this time, I didn't just react. I countered.
He swung wild. I slipped left. Hooked his ribs.
He grunted. Swung again.
I ducked. Uppercut to the chin.
He stumbled.
The crowd howled.
But I wasn't listening to them.
I was hearing **Kamil's voice**.
*"Keep your hands high, Mal. Don't chase the knockout. Let it come."*
I fought like I used to.
Not angry. Not wild.
**Precise. Focused. Sharp.**
And for the first time in years, I didn't feel dead inside.
I felt alive.
---
Round 3.
Blood in both our mouths.
Rico was slowing.
I wasn't.
I cracked him with a southpaw jab. Then a straight left.
He dropped to a knee.
Ref started counting.
*One.*
*Two.*
*Three.*
Junaid stood at ringside, arms crossed, stone-faced.
*Four.*
*Five.*
Rico stood.
Barely.
The ref backed up.
I stepped in.
And I stopped.
---
Because I saw it.
**The glint.**
Tucked under the corner pad. A wire. A small camera.
Hidden.
Recording.
Not for the crowd.
**For blackmail.**
Junaid wasn't just testing me.
He was documenting **his control.**
I looked at him.
He didn't flinch.
---
I turned back to Rico.
And I did something unexpected.
I didn't finish him.
I stepped back.
Let the round end.
Let the fight continue.
Because this fight? This wasn't mine anymore.
The next one would be.
And when I came for Junaid…
**There wouldn't be cameras.**
There would only be **blood.**
---