Winning wasn't glory. It wasn't pride.
Winning was survival.
And survival was the only thing I knew how to do anymore.
The underground fighting ring was buried under an old nightclub in Washington, D.C. It was all concrete, shadows and mold, the kind of place where no one had ever bothered to clean up the blood. It stank of old sweat, rot, and the faint sour sting of bleach that never quite covered what had soaked into the floors. The entrance was through a door disguised as a walk-in freezer. You had to walk past meat hooks and slabs of fake beef, and then down a narrow stairwell that hummed with the bass of the music upstairs. At the bottom, everything changed.
Thick steel doors. Guards with slick suits and eyes covered with sunglasses. The pit was a cage like a prison, surrounded by a circle of people dressed like they belonged in boardrooms, not in Hell. They drank champagne and laughed like they weren't watching men try to kill each other. They loved blood. They loved pain.
I gave them plenty of both.
Tonight's opponent was a guy named Manny. He Looked like he walked out of a fitness magazine. Bronze skinned, perfect teeth, the kind of guy who called his punches "strikes" and probably meditated before a match. He bounced on the balls of his feet, rolled his shoulders, grinned like he owned the cage.
He had style. I had something else.
The bell rang. He came in quick. Light on his feet, snapping out sidekicks like he was posing for a camera. The crowd loved it. I didn't.
I took one to the ribs. Let it hit. Let him think it landed.
Then I crashed into him.
I threw my shoulder into his chest like a battering ram. Heard the breath knocked out of him. He stumbled. I didn't let him breathe. I grabbed the back of his neck and drove a knee into his stomach, then another. Then I grabbed his arm and dragged him into the cage wall.
He tried to elbow me. Got me across the cheek. Blood filled my mouth. I tasted iron.
Pain didn't stop me. Pain reminded me I was still here.
I drove my head into his nose. Felt it break against my skull. He shrieked. Stumbled.
I followed.
Fists. Elbows. Knees. Whatever I could land. I pummeled him down, felt his body crumple under me. But I kept going. My fists rose and fell like hammers. He curled up, covering his face.
I didn't stop until the ref yanked me off.
I stood, blood dripping from my knuckles, sweat stinging my eyes. The crowd exploded. But I didn't hear them. I didn't care.
Manny lay broken behind me.
"Should've stayed home, asshole," I muttered.
------------------------
The backroom was worse.
Dim lights buzzed overhead, barely illuminating the peeling paint and grime on the walls. A rusted fan creaked in the corner, stirring up more dust than air. The place reeked of mildew, blood, and old sweat—like a locker room that's never been cleaned. I sat hunched over a flimsy metal table, hands still sticky with Manny's blood and mine, counting out a stack of crumpled bills. They were damp. Smelled like smoke and beer. Like the crowd.
"You really put on a show out there, Luca."
Lou's voice cut through the hum like a knife through fabric. I didn't look up.
"Thought you said this wasn't about putting on shows," I muttered, stacking twenties, fifties, and a couple of stained hundreds.
"Yeah, well," he said, voice light, casual. Too casual. I heard the squeak of his synthetic leather jacket as he leaned in the doorway. "Show or not, you gave 'em a night to remember. Manny's face? That shit's gonna be lopsided forever."
"Then he got off lucky."
Lou chuckled. A dry, ratty sound. "You always got that attitude. You know, you could go somewhere with it if you stopped trying to be a damn porcupine."
"And you always start talking sweet right before you try to sell me something."
He stepped inside. Closer. The air shifted. He dropped a fat envelope on the table between us. I picked it up, thumbed through. Lighter than it should be, but I didn't call him on it. I never did. He knew I knew. We just played the game.
"There's more where that came from," Lou said. His voice dropped to that greasy sales pitch tone. "You ever thought about something bigger? Real money. Out of this hole."
"I'm not buying whatever you're selling."
"You should," he said, pulling out the metal chair opposite me and dropping into it like we were friends. "Look, I know some people. Serious people. Government-adjacent. Black budget stuff. They train guys like you. Make you into something more than a pit fighter. You got the raw stuff—you're built for it."
"No."
He held up his hands. "Alright. No pressure. Just thought maybe you wanted more than this. Cot in a roach motel, half-cold takeout, betting your body every night."
I stood. The pulse in my neck was still hammering from the fight, adrenaline still scraping the inside of my chest.
"I'm not some product you get to flip for a profit."
"Didn't say you were," Lou said, rising slowly. "But the people I told you about? They already made an offer. Paid in advance."
I paused. The air got heavier.
"What?"
My knees wobbled. A thick, slow wave of vertigo swept through my head. My vision started to double, then smear at the edges. The floor felt tilted.
"What the hell..."
Lou smiled. Real slow. No humor in it.
"Cadmus paid for a name," he said. "And I gave them yours."
I stumbled into the wall, grabbing for the edge of the table to keep from falling. My hands didn't grip right. Numb. Distant. My body wasn't listening to me.
Two men stepped through the backdoor. Suits. Close-cut hair. Cold, bored eyes. The kind of guys you don't notice until it's too late.
"You sold me?"
Lou backed up a step, smoothing down the front of his jacket. "Hey, kid, it's not personal. It's just business. They made me an offer. You should be proud. They think you're valuable."
Rage snapped through the fog. I surged forward, my hands closing around Lou's throat before I could think. Slammed him against the wall. His eyes went wide. The cigar tumbled from his lips.
"You piece of shit!"
He gagged, kicking against the floor. "G-get him off!"
The suits moved. One grabbed my arms. The other drove a fist into my gut, then another into my jaw. My knees folded. They wrestled me down, slammed me onto the floor like I was nothing but a bag of meat.
I spat blood. My voice came out low and thick.
"I'll kill you."
It sounded sluggish. Slurred. My mouth didn't work right anymore.
Lou straightened his collar, already smirking through a fresh bruise blooming under his jaw.
"Sure you will. Maybe in your next life."
Then everything slid out of focus.
And I went under.
I woke to steel.
My wrists and ankles were clamped down, bound to a cold steel table under lights that buzzed too loud, too sterile. The kind of lights you only ever saw in hospitals or morgues. Everything was white. The walls, the ceiling, the floor. Bleached. Scrubbed clean of humanity. It felt like a place built not to comfort, but to erase.
My mouth tasted like old pennies and cotton. My skin burned like someone had power-washed it. I could still feel phantom hands moving across me, scrubbing, cutting, checking. Violating.
I twisted hard. The restraints didn't budge. Metal to bone. No slack. My breath came ragged as I yanked again. I wasn't testing the straps. I was trying to prove I was still here.
Then the door opened. Not slammed. Not creaked. Hissed.
A man walked in like he belonged here. White lab coat. Clipboard. Surgical gloves. Not a hair out of place. He didn't look at me right away. Just clicked on a recorder clipped to his pocket and said in a voice like lukewarm water, "Subject 93 is awake."
"Where am I?" My voice sounded cracked. Barely mine.
He finally looked at me. His eyes weren't curious. They weren't cruel either. They were... blank. Like a thermostat. Like something that only registered numbers.
"Cadmus," he said.
I yanked at the straps again, harder. Felt them cut deeper into my wrists.
"You drugged me."
"You were acquired," he said, as if the correction mattered. "Consent is inefficient."
He walked past me like I wasn't there, boots echoing off the tiles. He tapped a touchscreen on the far wall. Monitors flickered on, stacked in rows like something out of a security hub. They were all playing me. Every screen.
Footage of the fight. Then the one before it. Then ones from different cities. Different nights.
A file opened up on the center monitor. Photos. My face as a kid. My school ID from the foster system. A still frame from a camera I didn't know existed, catching me climbing out a shelter window. Another one from a bus station two states away. My last hospital visit. Every scar.
They had all of it.
"Lucas Navarro," the man recited, eyes still on the screens. "Born Gotham. Age six—parents killed during the invasion. Foster care, five homes in two years. Disappeared at fifteen. Underground fighting at seventeen. Documented in sixty-three unlicensed bouts. Peak physical condition. Mentally resilient. High tolerance for pain."
He turned to me, voice flattening like he was confirming something obvious. "Ideal candidate."
"You don't know shit about me," I hissed.
He tilted his head slightly, like I'd said something quaint.
"On the contrary. We've been watching you for years."
My heart kicked into my ribs.
"We first flagged your behavioral profile at twelve," he continued. "Monitored your movement after you disappeared. We allowed you to drift, to grow. Observe what nature alone would do. The fighting was a bonus. Proof of concept."
I stared at the screens. At my life sliced into frames and lines of text.
"You're not the first," he said, as he walked back toward me. "You won't be the last. But you might be the best. And you are ours now."
Something in me splintered. Not loudly. Quietly. Like ice cracking beneath your feet.
I met his eyes.
"I'm going to remember your face."
He raised an eyebrow. Not threatened. Amused. "Many say that. Few are able."
Then he pressed something on his tablet.
Pain hit me like a wire to the spine. Electric. Precise. Total. I arched against the table, teeth clamped so tight I thought they'd crack.
I didn't scream. Not right away.
Then I did.
I screamed until my throat burned raw and my chest went numb.
Welcome to Cadmus.
Author's Note:
If you're enjoying the story and want to read ahead or support my work, you can check out my P@treon at [email protected]/LordCampione. But don't worry—all chapters will eventually be public. Just being here and reading means the world to me. Thank you for your time and support.