Chapter 34 · The Lot Number on the Board

"That's not my lot number." Levi's voice cracked over the intercom before I even got the tape off my hands. "Osei, pull it down. Pull it down right now."

The screen over the check-in desk didn't blink. Big as a scoreboard, hung there since the building went up for exactly this — fighter names, weigh-ins, panel results scrolling green when clean, red when flagged. Right now it was neither. It was a lot number. Six digits, glowing white, and under it, stamped in the corner where nobody was supposed to look close: FORGED — SOURCE UNVERIFIED.

I still had gauze wrapped around my own knuckles from taping Levi's ribs an hour ago. He'd bled through the wrap twice trying to walk it off like a man who didn't just get worked over by his own family's paperwork.

"You wanted eyes on this," I said. "Now everybody's got eyes on it."

D. Osei came around the corner with a laptop tucked under one arm like a briefcase full of bad news.