3. Twisted Testimony

The days between Friday nights collapsed into a rhythm of pain and preparation. Dorian spent his mornings at Harker’s Auto, wrestling with rusted engines while his mind replayed the mechanics of violence. His afternoons belonged to Elara, whose room at St. Caelia’s had been moved to a ward with functioning heat, a small mercy he suspected was not random. Someone was watching. Someone was waiting. And his evenings, those long hours between sunset and exhaustion, he spent in the basement of an abandoned textile mill on Cinder Street, teaching his body to become a weapon.

The basement had once been a dye house. The concrete floor still bore the ghost-stains of indigo and crimson, and the air held the faint chemical tang of solvents long evaporated. A single heavy bag hung from an iron beam, its leather cracked and repaired with duct tape. Dorian had found the place years ago, when he was a restless teenager with too much anger and nowhere to put it. Now it felt like a sanctuary and a prison in equal measure.

He wrapped his hands with methodical care, winding the cotton strips between his fingers, around his wrists, anchoring the small bones that would soon be asked to absorb the force of another man’s skull. His knuckles were still tender from the Torc fight, the scabs fresh and pink beneath the wrap. He did not favor them. Pain was information. It told him what was healing and what was broken, what would hold and what would fail.

He hit the heavy bag until his arms burned and his breath came in ragged gasps. He practiced slipping, weaving, the small angles of deflection that turned a knockout punch into a glancing blow. He was not the biggest fighter in The Pit, nor the strongest, nor the fastest. But he was observant. He watched. He learned. And he understood, in the marrow of his bones, that survival in the ring was not about being better than your opponent. It was about being harder to kill.

Between rounds of shadowboxing, he studied Vincent Mathis’s notebook. The entries had become a kind of scripture, a testament of the dead that he returned to again and again. Vincent had not just recorded names and dates. He had recorded patterns. The betting odds that shifted inexplicably in the hours before a fight. The fighters who were suddenly sluggish, their reflexes dulled, their famous endurance drained. The men in tailored coats who always seemed to know when to bet heavy on the underdog.

One entry, dated three weeks before Vincent’s death, caught Dorian’s attention and held it: Met with Fain. Showed him samples. He looked scared. Said he would run tests. Said if I was right, we needed proof. Said if I was wrong, we were both dead already.

Dorian closed the notebook. Fain had confirmed Vincent’s suspicions. The paralytic. The tampered gloves. The betting syndicate that turned murder into profit. And then Vincent had stepped into the ring against Brick, wearing gloves that someone had prepared for him, and he had died exactly as predicted.

The question that gnawed at Dorian was not how the system worked. It was why Vincent had agreed to fight at all. He had known the risks. He had known what happened to fighters who got too close to the truth. And still he had laced up his gloves and walked into that circle. Was it desperation? Defiance? A miscalculation of his own mortality?

Or had someone forced him?

On Wednesday, Dorian took the transit to the Eastpoint District again, this time to a different address: a warehouse conversion that housed the private laboratory of Dr. Isla Voss. Otto Fain had made the introduction by phone, his voice tense and clipped, as though he feared the line was being monitored. “She’ll talk to you,” Fain had said. “But be careful. She’s been burned before. She doesn’t trust easily.”

The laboratory occupied the third floor of a building that had once manufactured marine engines. The elevator was a freight cage that groaned and shuddered as it rose, and the hallway smelled of old iron and new chemicals. The door at the end of the corridor was steel, unmarked, and opened before Dorian could knock.

Isla Voss was younger than he had expected. Early thirties, with sharp features and dark hair pulled back in a severe knot. She wore a lab coat over a black sweater, and her hands were gloved in pale blue nitrile. Her eyes, behind wire-rimmed glasses, were the color of slate and just as unreadable.

“Dr. Fain said you had something for me,” she said, stepping aside to let him enter.

The laboratory was a study in controlled chaos. Steel tables held racks of test tubes and petri dishes. A centrifuge hummed in one corner. Against the far wall, a refrigerator with a padlock on its door emitted a low, steady drone. The only window was covered with a metal security grate.

Dorian produced the vial Fain had given him. “Succinylcholine residue. From the Kellan Marsh case.”

Isla took the vial and held it to the light. Her expression did not change. “Fain was supposed to destroy this. I told him to destroy it.”

“He didn’t.”

“Clearly.” She set the vial on a steel tray and pulled off her gloves with a snap. “Do you know what happened to me after the Marsh case, Mr. Cole? I was the lead toxicologist for the Auberon City Coroner’s Office. Twelve years. Four hundred autopsies. A spotless record. And then I found succinylcholine in a dead fighter’s blood, and within a month, I was unemployed, unemployable, and facing three separate ethics investigations based on anonymous complaints that accused me of fabricating evidence.”

“Who filed the complaints?”

“No one knows. Or no one will say.” Isla leaned against the counter, her arms crossed. “The investigations were eventually dropped for lack of evidence, but the damage was done. My reputation was destroyed. My professional contacts stopped returning my calls. I spent six months tending bar in the Docklands before a private investor offered to fund this laboratory. No questions asked, no oversight, no publication requirements. I test what he asks me to test, and I keep my mouth shut.”

“A private investor,” Dorian repeated. “Who?”

“I don’t know. The money comes through a shell corporation registered in the Valmont Islands. I’ve never met him. I’ve never even heard his voice. The instructions arrive by encrypted message, and the results go back the same way.” Her eyes narrowed. “You think my benefactor is connected to The Pit.”

“I think it’s a small city and a smaller world. And I think men with money like to keep eyes on people who might cause them trouble.”

Isla was silent for a long moment. Then she moved to the refrigerator, unlocked the padlock, and withdrew a sealed evidence bag. Inside was a single boxing glove, its leather scuffed and darkened with old sweat. The laces were knotted in a complex pattern that Dorian recognized instantly.

“Vincent Mathis,” he breathed.

“His sister brought this to me two days ago,” Isla said. “She said she found it in his apartment, hidden behind the water heater. It wasn’t the glove he wore into the ring. It was a spare. But the lacing pattern is identical. She wanted me to test it.” She turned the bag over in her hands. “I found traces of succinylcholine in the lining. Not enough to kill. But enough to prove that someone had been experimenting. Testing delivery methods. Calibrating the dose.”

Dorian’s heart hammered against his ribs. “You have proof. You can take this to the police.”

“I took it to the police,” Isla said flatly. “I called Detective Hawthorne myself. He listened. He took notes. And then he told me that a single glove with trace residue was not enough to bring charges against a family like the Stewarts. He said the district attorney would laugh him out of the office. He said I needed more—the gloves from the fight itself, or a confession, or a financial trail that connected the Stewart family directly to the tampering.”

“The gloves from the fight disappeared.”

“Of course they did.” Isla returned the evidence bag to the refrigerator and locked it. “Which means the only other source of physical evidence is the gloves currently being worn by the man who killed Vincent Mathis.”

Brick. The champion. The fist that had delivered the fatal blow. If his gloves were also tampered—if he was not just the weapon but also the unwitting carrier of poison—then his gloves would contain the same residue as Vincent’s. And the only way to get Brick’s gloves was to be in the ring with him.

Dorian understood now why Lena Mathis had approached him in the rain. He understood why Fain had given him the vial and Isla had shown him the evidence bag. They were not just asking him to witness. They were asking him to be the mechanism of proof. A living, breathing evidence collection device wrapped in handwraps and desperation.

“How long does the residue last?” he asked. “In the gloves. If they’re used repeatedly.”

Isla considered the question. “Succinylcholine degrades with exposure to air and moisture. But if the gloves are being re-treated before each fight, the residue would be consistent. Fresh. Detectable within hours of application.” She met his eyes. “If you could get me Brick’s gloves immediately after a fight, before anyone had a chance to clean them or replace them, I could run a full panel. I could give you proof that would stand up in any court in Auberon.”

“And if I can’t get the gloves?”

“Then Vincent Mathis remains an unsolved death, and the men who killed him keep drinking their wine and counting their money.” Isla’s voice was cold but not unkind. “I didn’t ask for this fight, Mr. Cole. Neither did you. But here we are.”

Friday arrived with a sky the color of old pewter and a wind that cut through the Kiln District’s narrow streets like a blade. Dorian spent the morning at St. Caelia’s, sitting with Elara while a cardiologist named Dr. Hesse explained the latest test results. Her condition was stable, the doctor said, but stable was a precarious word. It meant she was not getting worse. It did not mean she was getting better. The transplant list was long, and suitable donors were rare, and every day that passed was a day borrowed against an uncertain future.

After the doctor left, Elara fixed him with the look she had been giving him since she was old enough to know when he was hiding things. “You’re fighting again tonight.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re going to keep fighting. Until you have enough money.”

“Yes.”

She nodded slowly, her expression unreadable. Then she reached under her pillow and withdrew a small object wrapped in tissue paper. She pressed it into his hand. It was a Saint’s medallion, old and worn, the figure on its surface rubbed almost smooth by years of handling.

“It was Mom’s,” Elara said. “She gave it to me when I was little. She said it was for protection. I don’t know if I believe in that anymore. But I believe in you.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Come back. Whatever happens. Come back.”

Dorian closed his fingers around the medallion. The metal was warm from her skin. “I will.”

That night, the old ironworks was lit like a cathedral of industry. Floodlights mounted on the rusted gantries cast harsh shadows across the loading bay, and the line of spectators stretched around the building, their breath steaming in the cold air. The men in black polo shirts worked the gate with practiced efficiency, checking names against a list that existed only in their memories. The thin man in the crimson waistcoat was there too, his quick eyes missing nothing.

Dorian was escorted not to the fighters’ entrance this time but to a private room on the mezzanine level. The room was paneled in dark wood and furnished with leather chairs that smelled of old cigars and older money. A window of one-way glass looked down on The Pit below, where the preliminary fights were already underway. The crowd’s roar was a muffled thunder, felt more than heard.

Caspian Stewart was seated in the largest chair, his pale suit immaculate, his honey-colored hair gleaming in the soft light. The hatchet-faced man stood behind him, silent as a shadow. On a low table between them sat a bottle of amber spirits and two glasses, one of which was already half-empty.

“Rivet,” Caspian said, his smile as polished as his shoes. “Please, sit. I wanted to speak with you before tonight’s proceedings. Man to man.”

Dorian sat in the chair indicated, keeping his posture loose, his face neutral. The room was designed to intimidate, to remind visitors of their place in the hierarchy of power. He refused to give Caspian the satisfaction of seeing him uncomfortable.

“You’ve caused quite a stir in the betting circles,” Caspian continued. “Your debut against Torc was genuinely impressive. Unpolished, certainly. But there’s a rawness to your style that the spectators find compelling. They see themselves in you. The common man, fighting against impossible odds. It’s a powerful narrative.”

“I’m not fighting for a narrative.”

“Of course you’re not. You’re fighting for your sister.” Caspian’s smile did not waver, but something in his eyes shifted, a flicker of cold appraisal. “I make it my business to know things, Rivet. I know about Elara. I know about her condition. I know about the bills on your kitchen table and the landlord who has been remarkably patient, all things considered. And I want you to understand that I am not your enemy. I am your benefactor. Your patron. The man who is going to give you the money you need to save your sister’s life.”

“In exchange for what?”

“In exchange for your performance. Tonight, you will fight a man named Mercer. He is experienced, dangerous, and currently favored to win. The betting pool is substantial. If you beat him, your purse doubles. If you beat him convincingly—if you give the crowd a show they’ll remember—I will personally guarantee your sister’s surgery. Not the transplant itself. That requires a donor. But the preparatory procedures, the medications, the specialists. Everything she needs to survive until a heart becomes available.”

Dorian’s throat tightened. The offer was exactly what he had been fighting for, and it was being handed to him on a silver tray by a man who might well have ordered Vincent Mathis’s death. The cruelty of it was exquisite. “Why me?”

“Because you’re interesting,” Caspian said. “Because the crowd loves an underdog. And because I believe you have the potential to challenge Brick in the championship. That fight, if it happens, will be the most lucrative event in The Pit’s history. The narrative will be perfect: the young challenger, the reigning monster, the stakes of life and death. The bettors will empty their accounts.”

“And if Brick kills me the way he killed Mathis?”

For the first time, Caspian’s smile flickered. It was barely perceptible, a tightening of the muscles around his mouth, but Dorian saw it. “Vincent Mathis died because his body failed him. A tragic accident. Brick is a powerful fighter, but he is not a murderer. Accusations of foul play have been investigated and dismissed. You would do well not to repeat them.”

“I wasn’t accusing anyone. I was asking a question.”

“And I have answered it.” Caspian rose, signaling that the conversation was over. “Fight well tonight, Rivet. Give the crowd their spectacle. And think about what I’ve offered. There are very few ways out of the Kiln District. I’m offering you one of them.”

The fight against Mercer was a brutal education. Mercer was a slab-shouldered brawler with a shaved head and a beard that bristled like steel wool. He had been fighting in The Pit for two years and had never been knocked out. His strategy was simple: absorb punishment, wear down his opponent, and finish them with a left hook that had broken more jaws than Dorian had fingers.

The iron bell rang, and Mercer came forward like a landslide.

Dorian had prepared for this. He had watched footage of Mercer’s previous fights—grainy cell phone videos that Otto Fain had provided, filmed from the crowd—and he had noted the patterns. Mercer always led with his right. His left hook, devastating as it was, required him to plant his front foot and pivot. He was vulnerable in the split second between the plant and the swing.

The first right hand came at Dorian’s head. He slipped it, felt the wind of its passage, and drove his fist into Mercer’s ribs. The impact jarred his arm to the shoulder. Mercer grunted but did not slow. He reset and came again, relentless, a machine of bone and sinew.

The crowd was a blur of sound and motion beyond the barricades. Dorian could feel their hunger, their bloodlust, the electric charge of violence shared. He had hated them once, these spectators who paid to watch men hurt each other. But now he understood something that made his stomach turn: the crowd was not the enemy. The crowd was a tool. It could be manipulated, directed, used. The real enemy was above, behind the one-way glass, watching with pale eyes and a cold smile.

Dorian took a punch to the shoulder that numbed his arm. He took another to the side of the head that sent stars wheeling across his vision. But he kept moving. Kept slipping. Kept watching for the plant of Mercer’s front foot.

It came in the third exchange. Mercer planted, pivoted, and swung. Dorian was already moving, ducking under the hook, rising with everything he had. His fist caught Mercer under the chin, snapping his head back. Mercer’s eyes went glassy. His knees buckled. He fell.

The iron bell rang. The crowd erupted. Dorian stood breathing raggedly, his hands hanging at his sides, blood dripping from a cut above his eye that he did not remember receiving. Men in black polo shirts were already lifting Mercer, carrying him toward the service door with the same perfunctory efficiency they had shown Vincent Mathis’s body.

The thin man appeared at Dorian’s elbow. “Mr. Stewart is pleased. Your purse has been transferred. He looks forward to your next bout.”

Dorian did not respond. He was watching the service door swing shut behind Mercer, and he was thinking about the one-way glass, and he was wondering how many more fighters would have to fall before someone finally held the men upstairs accountable.

As he turned to leave, a figure stepped out of the shadows near the fighters’ entrance. It was Brick. The champion was even larger up close, a mountain of muscle and scar tissue, his face a ruin of old breaks and poorly healed cuts. His hands, wrapped in tape, were the size of cinderblocks. And his eyes, deep-set beneath a heavy brow, were not the eyes of a killer. They were the eyes of a man who had been broken so many times that he had forgotten what wholeness felt like.

“You’re Rivet,” Brick said. His voice was a low rumble, like distant thunder.

“Yes.”

“You beat Mercer. That’s not nothing.” Brick studied him for a long moment. “Stewart wants you to fight me. You know that.”

“I know.”

“Don’t.” Brick’s voice dropped, and something flickered in his eyes—fear, or warning, or both. “Whatever he’s paying you, whatever he’s promised you, it’s not worth it. Find another way. Walk away while you still can.”

Before Dorian could respond, Brick turned and vanished into the darkness of the service corridor, leaving only the echo of his footsteps and the weight of his words hanging in the air.

Dorian walked out of the ironworks into a night that had turned bitter cold. The crowd had dispersed, and the loading bay was empty save for a single black sedan idling at the curb. Lena Mathis was behind the wheel, her face pale in the glow of the dashboard lights. She rolled down the window as he approached.

“I heard you won,” she said.

“I heard you gave your brother’s glove to Isla Voss.”

“She told you.”

“She told me it’s not enough. I need Brick’s gloves. After the fight.” Dorian leaned against the car, exhaustion washing over him in waves. “Brick just told me to walk away. He sounded scared. Brick. The champion. The man who kills people with one punch. Scared.”

Lena was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Vincent was scared too. The last time I saw him, the night before he died. He said he had found something. Something that went higher than The Pit. Higher than the Stewarts. He said if he was right, the whole city would burn.” She looked at Dorian, and her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “He wouldn’t tell me what it was. He said he was protecting me. And then he went into that ring, and he never came out.”

Dorian straightened, his exhaustion momentarily forgotten. “Higher than the Stewarts?”

“That’s what he said. I didn’t understand it then. I’m not sure I understand it now.” She reached through the window and gripped his arm. “But if you’re going to fight Brick, you need to know what you’re walking into. It’s not just a championship bout. It’s not just a betting pool. There’s something else going on in The Pit. Something Vincent died trying to expose.”

The wind picked up, rattling the chain-link fence, and Dorian felt the cold settle into his bones. Somewhere in the city, Elara was sleeping in a hospital bed with a Saint’s medallion tucked under her pillow. Somewhere in the Eastpoint District, Isla Voss was running tests in her locked laboratory. And somewhere above the rusted gantries of the old ironworks, Caspian Stewart was pouring himself another glass of amber spirits, watching the world burn slow and low and entirely to his liking.

Dorian Cole walked toward the transit station, his split knuckles throbbing, his sister’s medallion cold against his chest. He had won his fight. He had earned his money. But the real battle was still ahead, and the deeper he dug, the more he understood that Vincent Mathis had not just been murdered. He had been silenced. And the question that kept Dorian awake that night, staring at the water-stained ceiling of his apartment, was not whether he could survive a fight with Brick.

It was whether he could survive the truth that Vincent Mathis had died to protect.