Chapter 213: "Secret Admirer"

Aren continued forward at the same steady pace, as though the shouts crashing down around her were little more than meaningless noise in the distance.

She walked alone beneath the spotlight, yet in her mind, she wasn’t alone.

A large hand enveloped hers.

Cold.

Impossibly still.

The imagined weight of it anchored her, keeping her heartbeat steady and her attention fixed on nothing but the cage ahead.

From the center of that cage, Jeremiah watched Aren approach with growing amusement.

With an arena full of people laughing at her, jeering at her, waiting for the slightest crack in her expression, she looked as emotionally invested as someone walking to an appointment.

Naturally, this made Jeremiah want to provoke her. Perhaps if he poked hard enough, something interesting would come out.

"I believe our Swan Queen needs no introduction at all," he announced, watching Aren rather than the audience. "She’s the lovely heiress to the largest luxury hotel empire in the city. Darling of society. Devoted patron of champagne. And tonight — apparently — a cage fighter."

The entire arena erupted.

Laughter rolled through every level, accompanied by whistles and jeering applause.

Unfortunately for Jeremiah, Aren didn’t so much as glance at him. She crossed through the open cage door, passed Jeremiah without acknowledging his existence, and continued directly toward the white corner opposite Nico’s black one.

Jeremiah’s smile deepened.

’How adorable.’

Deciding he’d extracted approximately nothing from that attempt, he turned his attention toward the true centerpiece of the evening — or, more accurately, the reason House Castellano bothered organizing these elaborate blood sports in the first place.

Money.

"Now, ladies and gentlemen," Jeremiah announced, turning toward the audience, "for those of you who have somehow survived the evening with money still in your possession, final wagering is officially open."

The arena immediately came alive.

Betting had continued throughout the intermission, but the books remained open until the final minutes before the fight.

At Jeremiah’s announcement, attendants began moving between rows, private tables, and VIP booths to collect the last wagers.

Jeremiah waited until the attendants were in position, then glanced toward the enormous display above the cage.

The illuminated fighter names flickered once, and a new set of numbers appeared beside them.

NICO BALDI — 1.20

ARIANA LOMBARDI — 10.00

The reaction was immediate.

Laughter rolled through the arena.

Even by the Pit’s standards, the disparity was brutal.

Most competitive bouts settled somewhere in the broad territory between roughly 1.50 and 3.00 on either side, depending on how heavily one fighter was favored.

A line of 1.20 against 10.00, however, communicated the market’s opinion with almost insulting clarity.

Nico Baldi was overwhelmingly expected to win.

Ariana Lombardi was expected to survive long enough to make the spectacle entertaining.

At 1.20, a ten-thousand-dollar wager on Nico would return twelve thousand dollars if he won — the original ten thousand plus a modest two-thousand-dollar profit.

Hardly thrilling by the standards of the people sitting here tonight, but Nico’s victory was regarded as close enough to certainty that the miserable return barely mattered.

Ariana represented the opposite proposition. The same ten thousand dollars placed on her at 10.00 would return one hundred thousand.

An intoxicating payout, perhaps. All it required was for Ariana Lombardi to somehow defeat Nico Baldi.

Unfortunately, almost nobody in the Pit believed she could. So while a handful of gamblers chased the seductive possibility of a tenfold return on the Swan Queen, most treated Nico’s victory as easy money, however small the profit.

Fortunately, nearly every spectator present was wealthy enough to compensate for a poor return in the only way they knew.

They bet bigger.

Much bigger.

The laughter hadn’t even finished before betting slips began flying into attendants’ hands.

Within moments, the enormous display started updating.

$80,000 — NICO BALDI

$100,000 — NICO BALDI

$500,000 — NICO BALDI

$1,000,000 — NICO BALDI

$350,000 — NICO BALDI

$750,000 — NICO BALDI

The numbers flashed so rapidly that following every individual wager became increasingly difficult. Within seconds, millions shifted across the betting system, overwhelmingly accumulating beneath Nico Baldi’s name.

From the black corner, Nico watched the numbers climb with a broad grin.

Eventually, his gaze drifted toward his opponent, traveling over her comparatively small body with something almost resembling pity.

Aren, however, didn’t return his gaze even once. She was too busy looking upward, toward the VIP section where Jordan had told her he’d be sitting.

’Where is he...?’

The spotlights aimed toward the cage made it difficult to see into the darker glass-fronted booths, but after several seconds, she found him.

Jordan sat at the front of his booth with Biscuit beside him, already waving at her.

Inside the booth, an attendant approached Jordan’s table.

"Excuse me, sir. Would you like to place a final wager on this bout?"

Jordan barely glanced at the woman.

He slid a completed betting slip across the table and returned his attention to Aren.

The attendant raised an eyebrow at being so thoroughly ignored, but she didn’t take it personally. Working the VIP level meant dealing with men and women wealthy enough to regard staff as extensions of the furniture.

She reached for the slip.

Then looked down.

Her expression froze.

Written beneath the wager amount was a number large enough that she had to check the zeroes again.

$5,000,000

Beneath it:

ARIANA LOMBARDI

The attendant stared.

By that point, not even the largest individual wager she’d handled on Nico had exceeded one million dollars.

Immediately, she spun on her heel, seized her communication device, and hurriedly relayed the order to the betting booth.

"VIP booth seven. Five-million-dollar wager," she said rapidly. "Ariana Lombardi. Confirming five million on Lombardi."

A few seconds later, one of the men stationed inside the betting booth touched his earpiece. The moment he heard the name, his fingers stopped above the controls.

"What?"

The attendant repeated it.

The man stared at his screen, verified the authorization — and nearly choked anyway — then hurriedly switched channels.

"Young Boss," he said urgently, "there’s some lunatic in the VIP section who just put five million on the Swan Queen."

Inside the cage, Jeremiah went very still. For the first time that evening, his smile actually faltered while he was standing in full view of the audience.

Slowly, he turned his head toward the VIP booths.

His manager hadn’t identified the lunatic in question, but Jeremiah didn’t need him to. His gaze traveled upward, searching the glass-fronted sections until he found exactly the man he’d expected.

’Ah. There you are.’

Jordan sat comfortably behind the glass, looking altogether too relaxed for a man who had just risked five million dollars on a fighter listed at 10.00.

Jeremiah’s lips curled.

Internally, however, a considerably less amusing calculation was already taking place.

At those odds, if Ariana Lombardi won, Jordan’s five-million-dollar wager would return fifty million.

Fifty.

Million.

Jeremiah’s gaze then shifted from Aren to Nico, as though seeking reassurance that House Castellano wasn’t about to pay out fifty million dollars over this ridiculous fight.

Nico still looked capable of uprooting a small tree with his bare hands.

Aren still looked considerably smaller than the two-hundred-and-sixty-eight-pound monster waiting across the cage from her.

Jeremiah relaxed instantly.

’No. What am I worrying about?’

Statistically, physically, logically — everything favored Nico.

Realistically, Jordan had just handed House Castellano five million dollars.

So Jeremiah looked back toward the VIP booth, his confidence returning.

’You’ve got far too much money to throw around, old friend.’

’You could’ve saved us both the paperwork and transferred the five million directly into my account.’

Up in the VIP booth, Jordan caught Jeremiah staring at him. He leaned back in his seat and calmly returned the look, without the slightest trace of uncertainty.

’We’ll see who’s transferring money to whom.’

Jeremiah seemed to understand the challenge perfectly. His grin returned at full strength as he turned back toward the audience and lifted the microphone.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it seems we’ve received a rather pleasant surprise tonight. Our Swan Queen has a secret admirer."

As though summoned by his words, the enormous board above the cage flashed once.

The latest wager appeared in enormous glowing numbers.

$5,000,000 — ARIANA LOMBARDI

For one stunned heartbeat, the arena seemed unable to process what it was seeing. What followed was a collision of disbelieving shouts, laughter, and astonished murmurs.

One after another, spectators twisted in their seats, searching the galleries and VIP booths for whoever had been insane enough — or confident enough — to risk that amount of money on the night’s overwhelming underdog.

Jeremiah, meanwhile, couldn’t help laughing outright.

"Five million dollars, ladies and gentlemen!" he announced over the chaos. "Was it placed on love? On faith? Or perhaps on nothing more than catastrophic financial judgment?"

The crowd erupted into laughter, followed almost immediately by thunderous applause.

The sheer absurdity of someone staking that much money on Ariana Lombardi seemed to encourage them, and plenty of spectators suddenly became eager to demonstrate just how foolish they believed the mysterious bettor to be.

More wagers flooded in.

All of them went to Nico.

The figures on the enormous display climbed at a dizzying pace, updating so rapidly that individual bets became impossible to follow.

Jeremiah allowed it to continue for several more moments, watching the money pile up beneath Nico’s name. The moment he decided House Castellano’s profit would be quite satisfactory, should the obvious outcome occur, he raised one hand.

"Last wagers."

The crowd immediately became frantic.

"Three."

Attendants hurried to collect the last slips.

"Two."

Several final bets flashed across the display.

"One."

Jeremiah snapped his fingers.

"The book is closed."

The betting system locked.

One last wager slipped through before the cutoff, then the numbers froze.

Almost instantly, something in the arena changed. The laughter hadn’t disappeared, but anticipation now ran beneath it like an electrical current.

Millions of dollars had been committed. Fortunes were riding on the next few minutes, and hundreds of spectators were eager to collect their profits.

More importantly, many of them were eager to see how Ariana Lombardi was about to get demolished by a two-hundred-and-sixty-eight-pound undefeated fighter.

Inside the cage, the referee finally stepped onto the main stage and took his place in the center.

He looked between both fighters, then recited the rules in the practiced voice of a man accustomed to being ignored by people eager to hurt one another.

"No weapons. No interference from outside the cage. No attacking the referee. Victory is by knockout, submission, or referee stoppage. A submission may be given verbally or by three clear taps. Once surrender or stoppage has been called, you disengage immediately."

He paused.

The corner of his mouth lifted.

"Beyond that... I encourage creativity."

A few knowing laughs rose from the audience. Everyone familiar with the Pit understood precisely what creativity meant.

Sometimes it meant broken bones.

Sometimes stretchers.

And, on the rare nights when creativity went too far, an obituary the following morning.

The moment the referee finished, Nico surged out of his corner. He stalked toward the center of the cage, then jabbed a thick finger in Aren’s direction.

"Hey, princess! Hope that rich idiot who put five million on you enjoys watching me knock that pretty little face into the floor."

His mouth twisted into a sneer.

"Do yourself a favor and tap early. Maybe I’ll leave enough of you intact for your next society party!"

He waited for Aren to throw something back at him.

Unfortunately, Aren gave him absolutely nothing.

She regarded him with a completely blank expression, rose from her chair, then took a moment to smooth the feathered skirt of her outfit, carefully making certain nothing had folded awkwardly beneath her while she’d been sitting.

Once satisfied, she walked toward the center of the cage with her hands politely clasped in front of her.

"Excuse me, Mister Referee. Can we start now, please?"

The referee blinked.

Aren glanced briefly toward the clock, then regarded the men in the cage with complete seriousness.

"It’s already past eleven, which is past my normal bedtime. The sooner we finish, the sooner everyone can go home and sleep."

She looked around at the spectators.

"Insufficient sleep has negative effects on concentration, cardiovascular health, hormone regulation, and general well-being. So I don’t think keeping everyone here unnecessarily would be healthy."

Silence.

The referee stared at her.

Nico stared at her.

Even several people in the front row seemed uncertain whether they’d heard her correctly.

Aren looked back at the referee.

"May we begin?"

Nico’s face turned red.

"You fucking—"

He never finished the insult as Jeremiah stepped smoothly between them.

"Ah, now, now." Jeremiah smiled. "Let’s not fight before the bell, shall we?"

Among everyone present, Jeremiah somehow remained the most composed — and entertained — person in the room. His smile turned almost wicked as he raised the microphone again.

"Ladies and gentlemen! Enough anticipation. Enough wagering. Let’s get our main event started!"

With that, Jeremiah headed for the exit. The referee followed him as far as the threshold, opened the cage door to let him through, then pulled the heavy steel door shut behind him.

CLANG.

The lock engaged.

The lights narrowed until the cage seemed to exist alone within the surrounding darkness.

Nico moved toward his starting position, his jaw clenched, his expression ugly with anger.

Aren followed with considerably less drama, the white ribbons and feathers of her outfit almost luminous beneath the overhead lights.

The referee stepped between them.

For one suspended moment, the entire underground arena held its breath — until the bell sounded.

BRZZZZZTTT!

Outside the cage, Jeremiah began descending the stairs. His thoughts had once again moved on to more important matters.

The evening had been extremely profitable.

The casino upstairs was packed. The undercard had performed beautifully. Food and alcohol sales had been obscene.

Of course, there would be payouts once Nico won.

Still, at 1.20 odds, even with millions poured onto him, the margins remained perfectly manageable. The only real irritation was Jordan’s ridiculous five-million-dollar bet sitting on the opposite side of the book, but once Ariana lost, that money would simply—

THWACK.

Jeremiah stopped.

His shoe had just reached the final step.

’What the—’

He hadn’t even registered what the sound had been when another impact shook the cage behind him.

THUD.

This one was unmistakable.

It was the sound of something extremely heavy hitting the floor with absolutely no conscious attempt to soften the impact.

Jeremiah’s eyes widened.

Very slowly, he turned around.

Across the cage floor lay a massive body.

Nico Baldi.

Flat on his back.

Motionless.

His arms had fallen uselessly beside him. His head was turned slightly to one side, his eyes unfocused beneath the glaring white lights.

Around the cage, the entire arena had fallen dead silent.

Not gradually.

Instantly.

Hundreds of people stared down at the scene as though their minds had collectively refused to process what their eyes had just witnessed.

After all, less than five seconds had passed since the bell.

Within those few seconds, they’d just watched millions of dollars evaporate into thin air.