BLOOD BUYS THE SILENCE

Neutral Ground

Dorian followed Reyes for six blocks before Reyes even noticed he had a shadow.

His knee ached with every step, a deep grinding protest that had gotten worse since the loading dock. He kept his distance, hood up, moving through the after-midnight crowd like just another tired man walking home. Reyes checked over his shoulder twice and saw nothing. Panic made men sloppy. Reyes had been sloppy since the fight ended.

The trail led north, past Cross Creek Scrapyard, into a stretch of the city Dorian had heard about but never entered. Neon spilled out from behind a row of shipping containers converted into stalls — food, weapons, information, anything a man could want if he had the right cash and asked the right questions.

The Bazaar.

A hand-painted sign near the entrance read a single rule in block letters: NO BLOOD ON BAZAAR SOIL. Below it, smaller: ENFORCED.

Reyes disappeared between two container stalls. Dorian followed at a distance, weaving through vendors selling everything from stolen electronics to off-market pharmaceuticals. Nobody looked twice at anyone here. That was the point.

He found Reyes at the back, standing in front of a man who made the whole alley feel colder.

Silas Vance didn't look like muscle. He looked like an accountant — trim suit, wire glasses, a tablet in one hand instead of a gun. But the two men flanking him carried themselves like violence was a language they spoke fluently, and Reyes stood in front of all three like a man facing a firing squad.

"The confirmation never came," Silas said. His voice was quiet. Almost bored. "That's a problem."

"I sent the address exactly like you asked." Reyes's hands were shaking. "I don't know what happened."

"I know what happened." Silas tapped the tablet. "Your fighter happened. He's more resourceful than the file suggested."

Dorian went still behind a stack of crates, close enough to hear every word, far enough to stay a shadow.

"He doesn't know anything," Reyes said. "He's just asking questions about his dead friend—"

"He's asking the right questions." Silas's voice didn't rise. It didn't need to. "Which means someone's going to have to finish what your contact couldn't. And Mr. Calder, when that happens, I need to know you're not a loose end walking around with my name in your phone."

Reyes's face went gray. "I'm not a loose end. I've done everything you—"

"Prove it." Silas held out the tablet. "The next shipment moves through the undercard fights Thursday. I need the fighters sedated on schedule, not knocked out from an honest beating. Can you manage that, or do I need someone else running my end of the Pit?"

*The product isn't drugs. It's the fighters.*

Dorian's stomach turned. The undercard bouts — kids like Jonah, fighters with no family to ask questions when they didn't come home — weren't just rigged for gambling. They were cover. A reason for unconscious bodies to leave the building in vans nobody questioned.

Reyes nodded fast, too fast, and Silas's men peeled away without another word, leaving him alone in the alley with his phone still shaking in his hand.

Dorian shifted his weight, and a crate scraped an inch across the concrete.

Silas's head turned. Not toward Reyes. Toward the shadows.

"Someone's here," he said, calm as ever.

Two of his men were already moving, fanning out between the stalls. Dorian backed away, careful, silent, and collided with a third man stepping out from behind a container — Bazaar security, judging by the earpiece and the black armband. The man's hand went for a weapon.

*No blood on Bazaar soil.*

Dorian couldn't shoot him. Couldn't cut him. He caught the man's wrist before the weapon cleared its holster, twisted it up and back, and drove him face-first into the container wall. The man went limp, unconscious, no blood spilled — just a headache waiting for him when he woke up.

Two seconds. One guard down, clean.

Dorian didn't wait to see if Silas's men had eyes on him. He moved through the gap between stalls, ducked under a hanging tarp, and kept moving until the neon light of the Bazaar faded behind him and the ordinary dark of the city closed back around him like water.

His knee gave out three blocks later. He caught himself against a wall, breathing hard, the adrenaline draining out fast and leaving pain in its place.

*Not tonight. Not yet.*

He pulled out his phone. Nadia had texted twice, asking if he was alive. He typed back four words — *I'm fine. Learned something* — and stared at the screen a long moment before he added the rest.

*They're not moving drugs. They're moving people. The undercard fighters. Thursday.*

The reply came fast.

*Jonah fights Thursday.*

Dorian's jaw tightened. The kid he'd pulled off the floor two nights ago. The kid who had no family, no one to ask questions, exactly the kind of fighter men like Silas Vance built an entire operation around erasing.

He had three days to figure out how to stop it, and the only man who could tell him how the whole operation worked was Reyes Calder — a man who'd already tried to have him killed once and would probably try again the moment he thought Dorian knew too much.

*Should Dorian go straight to Reyes and force the truth out of him, or try to save Jonah first and deal with Reyes after?*