The Threat

The roller door went up in the middle of the second bout, and the sound was wrong before I understood why it was wrong, a metal shriek that didn’t belong to Terry’s careful, unhurried hand on the chain.

Terry wasn’t the one who’d pulled it.

Two men came under the door without ducking, which told me something about their height before I’d properly looked at either of them. The whole warehouse changed temperature at once, the way it had the night Otto said the name Reeves and forty men found something urgent to do with their hands. This was worse. The fighters in the ring stopped mid-exchange, gloves still up, both of them turning toward the door before the referee had called anything, before Sana had moved an inch from her folding table.

Kit was already crossing the floor. I had never seen him move that fast, not even the…