Chapter 2 - Stepping Into the Ring
The murmurs through the crowd started low, bubbling up like dirty water through a drain, before swelling into an incredulous wave of laughter and shouts.
"Look at that! Is the kid lost?" a scarred enforcer barked, pointing a thick finger at Maisie as she stepped out from the shadows into the blinding glare of the industrial overhead lights.
"Get her out of here before she gets herself ripped to shreds!" another shouted.
Julian Hart lowered his arms, his smirk freezing as he tracked the small, braids-wearing girl walking steadily toward the center of the dirt ring. He didn't blink. He didn't wave his guards away. He simply watched, his dark eyes narrowing in a mixture of profound shock and cold amusement. No one stepped forward for a million dollars of their own free will—especially not a child holding a white cane that hovered just above the dirt.
"Hey! Little girl!" Julian’s voice cut across the arena like a whip. "Did you take a wrong turn looking for a petting zoo? That cage holds a killer."
Maisie stopped twenty feet from the steel kennel. She didn't turn toward Julian. Instead, she tilted her chin upward, her sightless eyes facing the rattling metal bars where Cyrus was foaming at the mouth, his massive paws shredding at the steel mesh.
"He's not a killer," Maisie called back, her voice remarkably steady in the echoing warehouse. "He's just surrounded by too many loud, cruel noises."
Cyrus let out an ear-splitting bark, lunging forward with a force that made the entire kennel shudder on its frame. Several men in the front row flinched, instinctively ducking behind the chain-link fence.
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Julian stepped closer, his boots crunching in the dirt. "One million dollars says you don't last five seconds within arm's reach of that gate, kid. Go on back to whoever brought you before you become a tragic headline."
Maisie didn't answer him. She slowly lowered herself down onto her knees, right there in the dusty dirt of the arena floor.
