Page 164 of Reckless Obsession

“You have two minutes,” I tell him. “Say what you came to say, then leave.”

“Two minutes?” Jake repeats, amused. “Tristan, you should make it ten.”

“I should not.”

“You’re going to need the time.” He leans back in the chair, hands loose on the armrests, perfectly at ease in a room where he is deeply unwanted. “What I have to say is very interesting.”

I look at him properly then.

There is something beneath his usual arrogance—a contained satisfaction, the look of a man who believes he has finally found the one card I cannot counter.

A familiar chill moves through me.

“Your time started when you sat down.”

Jake’s smile deepens. “Then I suggest you start listening.”

He takes his phone from his jacket, taps the screen a few times, and places it directly in front of me.

I don’t look at it.

“Look,” he says.

His voice is still calm. Almost kind.

I hold his gaze for another second, refusing to move on his command. Then I lower my eyes.

The footage is dim and unsteady, filmed from somewhere within a crowd. Red and white lights flash over a ring packed with bodies, all of them shouting too loudly, too eagerly.

I know where it is before the image fully settles.

The Elite Circuit.

My stomach drops.

Then Maksim comes into view.

There is blood along his jaw. His hand wraps are darkened with it. He moves with the same brutal discipline I have seen in every fight of his, the kind that looks less like rage and more like instinct. His opponent comes at him hard. Maksim takes the hit, recovers, and returns it with enough force to send the man crashing to the floor.

The crowd explodes.

But Maksim doesn’t stop. He keeps moving until the man beneath him goes still. Then he stands over the body for one beat too long before the video cuts.

“Keep watching,” Jake says.

I don’t want to.

He swipes anyway.

The second video is worse because I know what I’m looking at now. Different night. Different opponent. Same ring. Same terrible, methodical violence.

Then a third.

By the time the screen goes dark, my jaw aches from how hard I have clenched it.

I look up at Jake.

“What is this?”