Page 49 of Until You Break

He stared at the cash, eyes flicking down, then to the fighters below, then back to me. Doubt clouded his face, his throatworking. “I don’t—” He leaned closer, whispering sharp. “Don’t make me choose this.”

His gaze cut back to the pit, to Fox, then to Wolf, measuring, second-guessing. His eyes begged, raw and silent.Don’t make me do this.Don’t make me pick. He lingered on Fox’s jagged mask, then the sleek wolf, his jaw tight, breath shallow, hesitation dragging like it might buy him mercy.

“You do now.” My tone was cool, smug, watching the panic climb under his skin.

He wet his lips, eyes darting again, clinging to the volunteer as if choosing the lesser evil could save him. “Wolf.”

I raised my voice, final. “Ten thousand on the wolf. From my husband.”

Alessandro scratched it down. “Logged.”

“Smile.”

He did. It cut me.

The bell rang.

No gloves. No count. No referee. Just bone.

Wolf moved like he’d rehearsed violence in a mirror. First hit split Fox’s lip under the mask. Second hit sent him skating on blood. The glass turned slick. The crowd roared. Some shouted names, others slammed bills on tables, the noise rising like thunder.

“That’s debt.” My hand slid higher on Emilio’s thigh, feeling the heat through his trousers. “Debt makes you heavy. Volunteers are light. They don’t carry shame. They carry expectation.”

“This is what I heard.” His throat worked tight. “That first night, in the bed. Not the dungeon. The noise under the floor…”

My mouth brushed his ear, satisfied. “Now you know.”

“He’s going to die.”

“That’s the point.”

“Damiano.”

“You married a Bellandi. Now, watch.”

Wolf hooked Fox behind the knee and drove him forward. The mask smacked glass. A crack veined across the pane. Blood smeared. Someone screamed happily.

“Look at me.” My words pressed against his ear.

He didn’t. He watched. Stubborn. Proud. Sick. His stomach turned, bile creeping up like memory, flashes of Paris, of white walls and canvas, clashing against this neon spectacle of blood.

“Good boy.” My whisper cut under the roar. “Hold your nerve and I’ll let you breathe later.”

“You make breathing a reward now?”

“I make everything a reward.”

His pulse flickered at his throat. “You’re a bastard.”

“You like me that way.”

Wolf dragged Fox up by the back of the mask and kneed him in the ribs. Something cracked. Fox folded. The neon turned the blood electric.

Alessandro’s voice carried. “Odds shifting! Last call.”

Luca leaned over the rail, all grin and teeth. “Finish him already,” he sang. “I’m bored.”

“Luca.” My tone sharpened.