Chapter 81 Nightclub.

Chapter 81: 81 Nightclub.

Arman’s fights, bars, and various operations made him a difficult man to track down. He wasn’t in the same ring every night, and there were plenty of nights when he wasn’t in one at all.

He knew being in the mob put a massive target on your back, and it wasn’t exactly a forgiving one.

Steve called me that morning. "Miles! How you doing, man?"

"Uhhrr." I glanced toward the other side of the bed, where Psyren—his sister—murmured in her sleep and pulled the blankets tighter around herself. I couldn’t help smiling at the sight. "Nothing much. Just waking up. What’s the news?"

His voice lost its casual edge. "Got you the meeting with the Armenian. He’ll be at the one downtown tonight. Good luck."

There wasn’t much time to waste after that. I got up and dressed, knowing I was walking into a fight that could be just as dangerous as dealing with a street-level villain, maybe even a hero.

Probably worse, actually. I trusted my powers, but with Arman Glint, things weren’t going to be settled by whoever could throw the harder punch. And even if it did come down to that, I wasn’t sure which one of us would be left standing.

I needed a plan.

I left the chalet, climbed into my car, and drove back toward Downtown Metropolis. I made good time, and before long I was surrounded by the familiar skyscrapers and cramped shops of downtown again.

The architecture started thinning out as I got closer to the street and the Death Rumble itself.

The Rumble had a few different locations, and they liked to keep things moving. The last one had been in an old civilian bunker. This time, they’d taken over one of the Mole Man’s subterranean spaces.

Of course, from above, it just looked like another exclusive nightclub. As exclusive as the place was, that was mostly a gimmick to drown out whatever noise was coming from underneath.

There was definitely a fight happening tonight. The parking lot was packed with cars, and I barely managed to squeeze mine into a space before making my way toward the line.

I cut ahead and stopped beside one of Arman’s suits, a large man with sunglasses, a broad frame, and a face that looked permanently pissed off.

I stepped out of his way. I’d fought in enough of these places that they knew I wasn’t there to cause trouble, and they also knew what I could do if I was.

The bass from the speakers hit me first, loud enough to make me wince and probably shave a few years off everyone’s hearing.

I pushed through the crowd of sweaty chads and gold-digging women until I reached the service elevator.

Arman was making serious money off this place, that much was obvious. Technically, most of it was above board, even if plenty of super teams and other heroes weren’t exactly fans of it.

Heroes had a real problem with powered people beating the crap out of each other for an audience willing to pay for it.

They weren’t particularly fond of my work either, but since I was a "villain" who always lost in the end, and the corporations hiring me covered the damages and used their own heroes, people like me were generally left alone.

Personally, I was mostly indifferent to the Death Rumble. There was plenty of shady shit surrounding the place, including fights that were meant to end with someone dead.

Those were kept strictly hush hush, and there was certainly nothing tying them directly to Arman. I’d even been offered one of those matches once.

That was when I knew I was out.

I had standards. I’d fight someone for money, sure, but I wasn’t going to kill someone for it.

Besides, being a freelance villain suited me better. I had more freedom that way.

The downside was that if the jobs stopped coming, so did the money, but things had been pretty quiet lately. Of course, that usually meant something was coming, and it was probably going to hit hard.

Maybe we’d get another multiverse crisis, or discover that half the heroes we’d been trusting were aliens in disguise. Who knew?

Either way, work would get pretty scarce when that happened. Most heroes would be too busy dealing with the end of the world, and nobody would care much about me "robbing" a bank while reality was falling apart. So I needed to build up my savings while I could.

Feast or famine, baby.

As I approached the service elevator, I found a man waiting for me. He was a big guy in a nice suit, though the clothes did little to hide the fact that his skin looked like volcanic rock. His face was rough and craggy, his jaw massive, and his entire body looked like a powerlifter who’d spent too much time around cement.

I’d never asked why so many people in the mob had skin-related powers. I figured the answer would probably come with another weird backstory I didn’t need.

"Miles?" he rumbled.

"Yeah."

He nodded toward the elevator with a noise that sounded like rocks grinding together, and I followed him down into the Death Rumble.

At least the further we went, the quieter it became. The club’s music faded away, leaving only the cheers and boos of the spectators below.

Screens had been mounted along the concrete walls, showing the ring. A guy with fur and a tiger’s head was getting the shit beaten out of him by a humanoid robot, while a topless woman stood nearby as the referee.

Nice. Stay classy, DR.

But we weren’t going toward the ring.

Instead, my escort took me past several doors marked "Employees Only" and a collection of huge bruisers whose skin had the same stony appearance as his.

They were imposing bastards, I’ll give them that. I also noticed they weren’t wearing any metal.

So that was how it was going to be, huh?

We eventually reached an upper floor where the concrete gave way to carpet and the walls were covered in wood paneling, as if someone had decided to hide the ugly brutality underneath with a little class.

A set of twin doors stood ahead of us. My escort spoke quietly with another pair of stone-skinned bruisers before they finally let me through.

I rolled my shoulder and cracked my neck.

Alright. Let’s do this.