Delilah
Free City of Antarctica – Private Gym, Later That Morning
I watched him walk away—shoulders wide with fury, fists still clenched like he hadn't finished the fight that was only playing in his head.
Samson was always like this after a broadcast. If it wasn't Smith, it was someone else. A rising star. A viral clip. A whisper of a name that hadn't even fought professionally yet. He'd sneer, scoff, call them flukes, fads, amateurs.
But this? Lachlan?
This was different. I wrapped my arms around myself as the gym emptied out slowly. Javier gave me a nod before leaving, but I barely returned it. My heart was still lodged somewhere between the look in Samson's eyes and the way he said peasant.
He didn't just hate Lachlan.
He feared him.
Not in the way most men feared another fighter, but in the way a king feared a prophet. Like somewhere deep down, he knew the crowd didn't want the champion anymore. They wanted the story.
And Lachlan was a story.
The kid from Detroit with haunted eyes and fists like falling bricks. The Ghost. The underground's worst-kept secret turned legend. He never asked to be worshipped, never played to the cameras, and yet the world followed him anyway. Like it couldn't help but look.
I closed my eyes and remembered those nights. Me, Lachlan, the others. Windows down on Woodward, cigarette smoke curling in the air, laughter too loud and too rare. He never tried to own the room—just sat with that quiet confidence, like he knew something the rest of us didn't. Like he'd already been to hell and made peace with it.
We used to joke that he was cursed.
Maybe he was. Maybe that's what made him impossible to ignore.
My phone buzzed. I didn't look. I knew it was Samson. Probably pacing some hallway, angrier now that I didn't chase after him. That was the pattern: anger, silence, apology sex, repeat. And I kept letting it happen.
But this morning hit different.
That line on the broadcast hadn't left my head either: "The most dangerous man since Chakrii himself."
Because even though Samson had the belt, the sponsors, the empire… Lachlan had something else.
A gravity. A weight.
People didn't just watch him fight. They felt it.
And me? I still remembered what it was like to touch that gravity. To feel him close enough to break me open.
The way he used to look at me—like he saw everything, and didn't flinch.
Not like Samson. Not like the others.
I opened my eyes and walked toward the locker room, heart hammering a beat I thought I'd forgotten. Because if Samson was serious—if he really meant to chase that fight, no matter the class, no matter the risk—then the storm wasn't coming.
It was already here.
And somewhere out there, Lachlan was watching too.
He'd seen the broadcast. He'd heard the whispers.
And I knew exactly what he'd do.
He'd keep training. Keep bleeding. He wouldn't respond with words. He never did.
But the next time they met—if it happened—it wouldn't be just a fight.
It would be a reckoning.
And I didn't know who I feared more.
The king trying to hold his throne.
Or the ghost coming to bury it.