Chapter 13 · Old Xu Bets His Life

Chen's knuckles were still sticky with blood when the gate slammed open again.

Old Xu stepped through.

The crowd noise punched Chen in the chest. He hadn't even made it out of the cage. His right hand was still half-metal, cooling down slow, the iron creeping back under his skin like it didn't want to leave. He shook it. Flexed the fingers. They moved but they felt wrong. Heavy.

Old Xu walked past him without looking.

"Wait." Chen grabbed his arm. The old man's sleeve was damp with sweat that wasn't his own. "You can't—"

"Let go."

"You'll die in there."

Old Xu turned. His face looked ten years older than it had this morning. The ring lights made every wrinkle a shadow. "You think I don't know that?"

Chen's hand dropped.

The enforcer was already waiting in the center of the ring. Big guy. Shaved head, neck like a oil drum, arms that looked like they'd been carved out of something harder than bone. He wore a leather vest and nothing else. His right hand was wrapped in an iron glove that went all the way to the elbow.