The coldest, deadliest man in all London.
He knew what they saw when he removed his fine shoes at the side of the pit, certain that even in this den of thieves, no one would dare to swipe them.
Please—don’t hurt my son.
Those words had followed him around for two decades.
They’d hurt him plenty in the years after his mother died. The guards. The prisoners. Even his allies. In a world like Newgate Prison, pain was how one communicated, it was the only language they all understood. And once they’d hanged Wu Ping a couple years later, pain had become Argent’s new teacher.
His torso was a large, pale record of lessons learned, of lashes he’d returned and pain he’d answered in kind. Of brutish strength gained through forced labor, disciplined training, and pits like these in the early days, when he’d followed Dorian Blackwell into the hells of the East End. They’d each done what they had to do to earn money. Unspeakable things.
Like the cavern carved through time by a single trickle of water, Argent had honed himself into a sharp-hewn weapon, an instrument of death. And he’d never failed to deal the fatal blow.
Until tonight.
The question remained … Why?
Three men filtered into the round pit, a hole in the ground, really, the depth of a grave and the width of a small bedroom. Once you entered Pan Lee’s pit, you left broken or victorious. There was no in-between.
And no one had ever broken him.
Argent studied his opponents. Size never counted in his calculations, though only the large African outweighed him. It was skill he looked for, and only two of them had it. The dark man with Anglo features dressed in nothing but a dingy wrap about his waist. East Indian, Argent guessed. And more skilled with a weapon than his bare hands.
Though weapons weren’t allowed in the pit, that didn’t stop some, as the consequences weren’t enough to deter a dirty trick every now and again, as long as it pleased the crowds. Though where the Indian man would hide any weapon was beyond imagining.
The African was heavy-fisted and strong-jawed. Argent knew he’d better outmaneuver this one and avoid going to the ground.
And finally, the sharp-boned Spaniard was the least of his worries. More swagger than skill, and obviously overcompensating with bravado, loud threats, and crowd pandering.
He’d asked for three opponents, not two and a half. He had a great deal of thinking to do.
The gong had barely sounded before the first punch was thrown.
His opponents thought because he didn’t dance or weave, because he rooted himself to the earth and found his center line, that he would be an easy target.
Apparently, they were not locals.
He allowed the Indian to land the first blow to his jaw. Argent’s cheek ground against his teeth, his mouth filled with the metallic tang of blood. The pain pulled him back inside his body. Centered his awareness where it belonged, behind his eyes. It opened the cold void within his chest, and also filled its yawning mouth.
Argent had known it would.
Now he could think. Now he could consider the consequences of his actions and formulate a plan.
Spitting the blood into the Indian’s eyes, he used the element of surprise to buckle the man’s leg with a swift kick. Gripping the man’s hair, Argent felt the Indian’s cheekbone break against his knee.
The crowd erupted.
One down.
He never took a contract he didn’t intend to finish. So why could he not finish off Millie LeCour?
He’d killed women before. Mothers, even. One had been contracted by her own son, a desperate ploy by an aristocrat to stop her from signing away his inheritance to her beloved dog. Another had been a midwife, stealing bastard newborns from young, unmarried mothers and selling them to whoever paid the highest price.
He’d allowed Dorian Blackwell to offer a discount for her demise.
Once he’d strangled the madam of a whore he’d bought, who was trying to sell the whore’s twelve-year-old sister.
She’d paid him in trade. A good bargain, that.
Argent squared off with the African, aware that the Spaniard was moving behind to flank him. But really only one danger remained in this pit. He bared his bloodied teeth at his opponent. One of few men in this world he had to look up to see clearly. That’s right, he thought. You think I’m wounded. Cornered. You’ll come at me with all your strength.
It was that strength Argent would use against him.
And why couldn’t he use it against his lovely mark?
He’d like to blame it on the idea that forcing the boy to watch his mother die at Argent’s own hand affected him in a way he’d not expected. And, indeed, it had, quite intensely. However, he’d hesitated to snap Millie LeCour’s lovely neck before the child had been an issue.
And while her words, the exact replica of his own mother’s plea on his behalf all those years ago, pushed him over the edge of his cold, hard sanity, he’d been walking toward that edge since the moment he’d watched her die onstage.
The African lunged, his long arms swinging with wide hooks that would land like a steam engine. Instead of ducking the fists, Argent leaped toward the man, stepping inside his reach and stealing the power of his punch. Blocking one meaty arm with his own, he simultaneously struck his opponent’s throat. Or, rather, punched through his throat, as he’d been instructed all those years ago.
He caught a kidney punch from the Spaniard for his troubles, but it didn’t break his focus, and he leaped atop the falling African and landed two more devastating blows on his way to the ground.