Chapter 6 - The Price of Arrogance
"Collateral for what?" I demanded, leaning against the cold metal of the ruined SUV while the academy’s private security cordoned off the parking lot.
"Trevor owes three hundred grand in sports gambling debts to a bookie syndicate tied to Sterling’s offshore shell," Marcus explained, paper shuffling on his end. "Sterling bought Trevor’s debt two weeks ago. He offered Trevor a clean slate on two conditions: first, Trevor had to provoke a feud that would destabilize your family and drain your legal attention. Second, Trevor had to deliver Brock to Kyle’s facility to fight in an unsanctioned regional showcase."
My jaw clenched so hard a sharp ache shot through my temples. "Trevor sold his own son into an illegal fighting ring to clear his own poker debts?"
"Trevor convinced himself Brock is an invincible gladiator," Marcus replied grimly. "He thinks the boy will dominate the circuit, get noticed by renegade recruiters, and make millions. The narcissism of a washed-up high school athlete blinded him. But David... Brock is fourteen. The kids at Iron Ridge are seventeen, eighteen, pumped full of black-market testosterone and unregulated peptides. They will break Brock’s spine in that ring."
I looked back through the academy's glass doors. Through the window, I could see Wren sitting on Sarah’s lap, sipping water from a paper cup, her small shoulders curved inward.
Brock was a bully. He was an arrogant, cruel teenager who had looked into my eight-year-old daughter’s face and deliberately crushed her hand beneath his heel while laughing beside a swimming pool. I had despised him for it. I had sworn I would never let him near my family again.
But he was still Marlene’s child. He was my father’s grandson. And beneath the layer of poisoned arrogance Trevor had drilled into him since birth, he was a child being fed into the furnace of an adult monster’s revenge against me.
"Where is the facility, Marcus?" I asked.
"Near Escanaba. An abandoned lumber mill converted into indoor turf and a concrete amphitheater. The showcase starts tomorrow night at midnight."
"Book a charter flight to Marquette," I said. "And call the Michigan State Police superintendent. I want a joint task force on standby."
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"David, state police won't raid on an anonymous tip without warrants, and warrants take forty-eight hours," Marcus warned. "By the time they cross the county line, Brock could be paralyzed or dead."
"Then we don't wait for warrants," I said, cold iron settling into my chest. "Marlene is Brock’s mother. The fraud on that guardianship paperwork invalidates Trevor's transfer under federal kidnapping statutes. We are going to get my nephew ourselves."
