The Pit Fighter Heiress and Her Gilded Cage

§01

The air hung thick with the stench of sweat, blood, and cheap beer.

A roar from the crowd slammed into Willa Keating, a physical force of noise and raw adrenaline.

It barely registered.

Her vision was a tunnel, focused on the hulking man panting across the makeshift ring in the center of the derelict warehouse.

He was twenty years her senior, outweighed her by a hundred pounds, and had a tattoo of a coiled serpent crawling up his neck.

Willa tasted copper in her mouth.

Her left eye was swelling shut, and a searing pain shot up from her shin with every shift of her weight.

A hairline fracture, probably.

Another one.

She didn't care.

The serpent-necked man lunged, a clumsy, telegraphed right hook slicing through the humid air.

Willa ducked under it, the movement fluid and economical, born from years of necessity.

She drove her shoulder into his soft midsection, a grunt of pained surprise escaping his lips.

Her world was simple.

Here, in the grime and chaos of the underground fight circuit, you either won or you disappeared.

And Willa had no intention of disappearing.

He staggered back, giving her a precious second.

She didn't waste it.

She exploded forward, a flurry of precise, vicious strikes aimed at his ribs, his throat, the side of his knee.

It wasn't about strength.

It was never about strength.

It was about endurance.

It was about knowing exactly where to hit a man to make his body betray him.

The crowd roared again, a single, bloodthirsty beast.

He swung wildly, connecting with her shoulder.

Pain flared, white-hot, but she gritted her teeth and pushed through it.

She was a predator, and he was finally tiring.

She saw the opening, the flicker of exhaustion in his eyes.

With a final, desperate surge of energy, she launched herself into the air, her good leg scissoring around his head, twisting with a brutal efficiency that sent him crashing to the canvas floor.

Silence.

Then, pandemonium.

The man lay on the ground, groaning, unable to rise.

Willa had won.

That was all that mattered.

She limped toward the promoter, a greasy man named Sal who was grinning from ear to ear.

"You're a damn animal, Keating! One hell of a show!"

He peeled off a thick wad of cash from a roll in his pocket.

"Two grand, like we said. And an extra thousand for that finish. You never disappoint the customers."

Willa took the money, her hands shaking slightly from the adrenaline crash.

She turned to leave, her body screaming in protest, and walked straight into a wall of expensive wool.

"Oof," she grunted, stepping back, annoyed.

She looked up, ready to snarl at whoever was in her way.

But the words died in her throat.

A man in a tailored suit, his face pale and his eyes wide with a strange, frantic emotion, was staring at her.

"Are you... are you Willa Keating?" he asked, his voice trembling.

"Willa... I'm your father."

§02

Willa froze, the wad of cash suddenly feeling slick and foreign in her palm.

Father?

The word was an alien concept, something from a language she'd never learned.

She stared at the man, Harrison Keating, his face a mask of shock and dawning hope.

Behind him, a woman in pearls, her makeup impeccably applied despite the tears welling in her eyes, stepped forward.

Catherine Keating.

Her mother.

"Willa, my baby," Catherine whispered, her voice choked with emotion. "We're here to take you home."

Home.

Another word from another world.

Willa's gaze flickered past them, landing on the girl standing shyly in their shadow.

She was about Willa's age, dressed in a delicate designer dress that probably cost more than Willa had earned in a year.

And the shape of her face, the curve of her brow... it was eerily familiar.

It was the face of Pamela Rourke, the woman Willa had been forced to call "mother" for seventeen years of hell.

Harrison noticed her stare and quickly made the introduction.

"Willa, this is your sister, Felicity Monroe."

"Seventeen years ago, Pamela Rourke, in a fit of twisted malice, switched you and Felicity at the hospital. We've been searching for you ever since."

He put a reassuring hand on Willa's shoulder.

"Don't you worry. Felicity is a good girl. She understands. She'll take good care of you."

Pamela Rourke.

The architect of her pain.

The woman who used Tabasco as eye drops and a needle and thread to teach her silence.

So this was her game.

It wasn't enough to steal Willa's life.

She had to install her own flesh and blood in its place.

And now, Felicity, the beneficiary of that grand theft, stepped forward, extending a perfectly manicured hand.

A polite, practiced smile graced her lips, but her eyes... her eyes held a flicker of undisguised disgust as they swept over Willa's bruised face and torn clothes.

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