Killed at Eighteen, Billionaire Alpha at Dawn

The crowd roared out of a thousand mouths. Arashi felt it like an earthquake in his bones.

Arashi Ren tasted copper and salt. Blood from somewhere. His lip maybe. The other guy's nose definitely. The canvas under his feet was slick with it. He spat it out. 

"You got him, Ren! Finish it!"

He didn't know who was yelling. Did it matter? Talking to yourself now, Ren? Matron Shae had always called him crazy. He almost laughed at the thought now. 

The warehouse was packed wall-to-wall, bodies pressed against the cage, phones out, cash changing hands in the back rows. Two hundred people watching him try not to die on his eighteenth birthday.

Chicago had its ironies. 

The guy across from him was Travis something. Arashi didn't remember. Travis was bigger and built like a tank. He had reach; those arms looked like they could uproot trees. He'd been fighting in this circuit for three years while Arashi was still pulling shifts at the laundromat to eat.

Travis spat blood on the canvas. "That all you got, orphan?" His voice was a nasally growl. Arashi had broken his nose earlier. 

Arashi didn't answer. Talking wasted oxygen.

He'd learned that at seven, the first time the older kids at the group home cornered him in the bathroom. You didn't talk. You watched, you calculated. You waited for the opening…

Travis lunged.

… And when the opportunity came, you attacked.

Arashi slipped left, felt the fist pass his ear close enough to disturb air. His counter came fast. He drove his elbow into the Travis’s ribs, then a knee to the liver, before he pivoted away before Travis could clinch.

Travis grunted. His eyes were dazed now. He stumbled. 

The noise heightened. Arashi could read the emotions of the crowd in their voices. Anticipation. Hunger. 

Arashi didn't let himself feel it yet. Feeling things got you killed. The distraction would be beyond costly. 

He moved in, launching himself from the balls of his feet. He sent two jabs to Travis's body. Travis misread the front and raised his guard. Arashi went low instead, sweeping the leg, and when Travis dropped to one knee Arashi's shin was already coming around.

The kick caught Travis clean across the temple. Bone cracked against bone. Travis's eyes went white in his skull. Spittle flew out of his mouth. 

He went down like a puppet with his strings cut.

The referee was pushing Arashi back, checking Travis, waving his arms. Victory. The crowd exploded. Arashi's chest heaved. The adrenaline was like a storm inside of him. His hands were shaking now that it was over. 

He'd won.

He'd actually won. Holy fuck. Holy fucking shit. 

"Ladies and gentlemen, your winner by knockout. Arashi Ren!"

Someone was climbing into the cage. Marcus, the old bear who ran the circuit and took forty percent off the top. He was a greedy bastard but right now he was looking at Arashi like he'd seen Jesus. He grabbed Arashi's wrist and raised it high.

"Eighteen years old today, people! Youngest fighter to ever take the main card, folks! You saw it here first!” Spittle flew out of his mouth as he yelled.  

The noise was deafening. Arashi's vision swam. Adrenaline crash hitting hard. His whole body buzzed with it. 

Marcus leaned in close. "Five fucking grand, kid. I'll have it ready in twenty minutes. You earned it."

Five thousand dollars.

Arashi had never held more than three hundred at once in his entire life.

"Yeah," he managed. His throat was raw. "Thanks."

Marcus released his hand. "Go clean up. Meet me in the office." The man looked him up and down. Then his lips split in a dirty grin. “Champ.”

Arashi climbed out of the cage. People were patting his shoulders, shouting congratulations, trying to hand him beers he didn't want. He pushed through toward the locker room, head down, trying not to throw up from exhaustion.

The room was empty. Fluorescent lights buzzing overhead Arashi sat on the bench and put his head between his knees.

Five grand.

He could pay rent for six months. Buy a phone that worked. Maybe even—

"Good fight."

Arashi's head snapped up.

A girl was leaning in the doorway. 

She looked nineteen, maybe twenty. Dark hair pulled back. She looked familiar too but he couldn't place it.

"Thanks," he said.

"You always fight that smart?"

He felt nervous around her for some reason. He said the only answer that had come to mind. “I fight to win.”

The girl smiled. "Marcus said you grew up in the system."

Arashi's jaw tightened. He didn't go spreading that information for a reason. People tended to act like being raised in a foster home was a crime. "So?"

"So nothing." She pushed off the doorframe. She had long legs that looked really good in her mini skirt. Wait, why was he looking at her legs? Girls like this were way out of his league. But he had five grand now. Maybe that would change. 

She yawned. "Just wondering if you're looking for more work. Better work."

"I got work." Marcus couldn't afford to kick him out now. As the champ, there would be people gearing up to put him into the mat. 

"Caging yourself for crowds?" She shook her head, her lips wrinkled in amused disgust. "You're better than this, Ren. You know it."

He stood. At 6’1”, he nearly dwarfed her. He was also well built with lean muscles that had been moulded by endless fights. Each scar told a story. She didn't seem intimidated by him in the slightest. 

"I don't know you,” he said carefully. 

"You don't need to. Just think about it." 

She pulled a card from her pocket and set it on the bench. "For when you're ready to stop bleeding for pennies."

She left.

Arashi looked at the card. No name. Just a phone number.

It couldn't hurt to have options, could it?

He shoved it in his pocket and headed for the showers.

Twenty minutes later he was walking down Morgan Street with five thousand in cash folded inside his jacket. He still owed Marcus for the loan he'd taken last month, but he could pay that back next week or so. The night was cold. March in Chicago, snow mostly gone but winter still hanging around like a guest that had forgotten to leave. 

Arashi's ribs hurt. His knuckles were swelling. He'd need ice. Maybe tape for the cut over his eye.

But he'd won. The thought gave him a heady thrill. 

For the first time in his life, something felt like it might actually work out.

He cut through the alley behind the closed mechanic shop. Shortcut to the bus stop. He didn't even notice the smell of piss and alcohol anymore. He'd taken it a hundred times.

Halfway through, footsteps sounded behind him. Arashi turned.

The gunshot was so loud for a second he didn't know what had happened. Just light. 

Then pain.

Pain erupted in his back, white-hot and spreading. His legs stopped working. Arashi staggered then he was on the ground suddenly, face pressed against cold concrete… couldn't breathe, couldn't… Oh shit. His lungs felt like they were on fire. 

Footsteps approached. Casual. Almost bored.  

He tried to turn his head. He couldn't summon the strength to manage it. God, everything hurt. 

"Confirmed," someone said above him. Male voice. The man sounded bored. 

A pause.

"Yeah, he's done. Moving to extraction."

Arashi's vision was going dark at the edges. His fingers twitched uselessly.

He'd finally won something. For the first time in his life, he hadn't been Arashi the useless degenerate orphan. He'd been Arashi the champ. 

And it didn't matter at all.

The bitterness was acrid on his tongue. He wanted to curse. 

The darkness took him.

Somewhere above,in a car parked three blocks away, a man in a gray suit lowered a tablet and spoke into a phone.

"Package secured," he said. "Beginning transport."