The buzzer’s shriek still hung in the air when Greg’s shoulder slammed into Cole’s midsection like a battering ram.
I screamed. I couldn’t help it.
The sound ripped out of my throat before I could stop it — raw, desperate, the kind of sound you make when you’re watching a car crash in slow motion and you know you can’t do a single thing to stop it.
But Cole didn’t fall.
He didn’t sprawl. He didn’t bend.
He absorbed the impact like a steel post planted in concrete, and in the same breath, his hips shifted — just two inches, barely visible — and Greg’s momentum carried him straight into a trap.
Cole’s arms closed around Greg’s neck.
Not the neck. The trapezius. The thick, meaty muscle between the neck and shoulder.
I’d trained at Apex for almost two years by then. I knew what a front headlock looked like. But this wasn’t a sport technique.
This was a snare.
Greg’s face buried into Cole’s chest, and I watched the gym owner’s eyes go wide.
Cole wasn’t just pulling him down. He was locking Greg’s skull in place — one hand on the back of his neck, the other cupping his tricep, the pressure coming from a place of absolute mechanical certainty.
Greg’s arms flailed, searching for leverage that wasn’t there.
“Get off me!” he snarled, his voice muffled against Cole’s rash guard.
Cole said nothing.
He just held.
Greg’s feet scrambled against the mat, trying to find an angle. He planted his toes and bridged — a massive, explosive movement that should have thrown anyone off balance.
Cole adjusted his weight by maybe three degrees.
That was it.
That was all he needed.
The gym was dead silent. No one was even breathing.
I could hear my own heart pounding in my ears, could feel the cold sweat drying on the back of my neck. My throat still ached from where Derek’s forearm had crushed it. My ribs still screamed every time I took a breath.
But I couldn’t look away.
Greg’s face was turning purple. His arms were still pushing, still fighting, but the movement had changed — less explosive now, more desperate. He was gasping for air, and every inhale was a tiny, choked thing.
Cole’s breathing was completely steady.
In, out. In, out.
Through his nose.
Down on the mat, Derek had finally pushed himself up onto his elbows. His face was pale, his jaw slack. He was staring at the two men in the center of the mats like he was watching a nightmare unfold.
“You… you have to let him go,” Derek stammered, his voice cracking. “You’re going to kill him!”
Cole didn’t look at Derek.
He didn’t even acknowledge that Derek had spoken.
He just kept his grip — patient, inexorable, like a python that had already decided its prey was dead and was simply waiting for gravity to finish the job.
Thirty seconds passed.
Then a minute.
Greg’s arms dropped to his sides. His legs stopped scrambling. His entire body went limp in Cole’s grip, a dead weight that my brother continued to hold without any visible strain.
“Is he…?” someone whispered from the crowd.
“No,” Cole said quietly. “He’s still breathing.”
He released the headlock.
Greg collapsed face-first onto the mat, gasping, coughing, his massive chest heaving. He rolled onto his side and curled into a fetal position, one hand clutching his own throat.
Cole stood over him, perfectly still.
The gym owner’s eyes were glassy with shock. He tried to say something, but only a thin wheeze came out.
Cole crouched down next to him, balancing on the balls of his feet.
“I’ve been doing this for ten years,” Cole said, his voice low enough that only Greg — and maybe I — could hear. “I’ve been choked, strangled, burned, shot at, and buried alive. I’ve had to hold men down while they died just so they wouldn’t take me with them.”
His voice never rose above a whisper.
“You think five minutes on a clock makes you tough? You think a trophy on a shelf makes you a fighter? You’ve never had a man’s life in your hands. You’ve never had to make the choice between your own survival and someone else’s. You’ve spent your whole career playing a game and calling it war.”
Greg’s lips moved. A single word escaped. “Please…”
Cole stood up.
“Your clock’s still running,” he said flatly. “Get up, or don’t. I don’t care which.”
He turned his back on Greg and walked toward me.
The entire gym watched him move. Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. It was like the room had been frozen in amber, every person locked in place by something they couldn’t name.
Cole stopped in front of me.
He was breathing a little harder than before — the first sign of exertion I’d seen all night — but his face was still calm. Concerned, even.
“Can you walk?” he asked me softly.
I nodded, even though my legs felt like they were made of wet paper.
“Good.” He reached down and picked up my gym bag from where I’d dropped it near the wall. “Let’s get your shoes on. We’re leaving.”
I fumbled with my sneakers, my fingers shaking so badly I could barely tie the laces. Cole waited without a word.
Behind us, I heard Greg finally push himself up. His voice was hoarse, shredded, almost unrecognizable.
“You can’t just… you can’t just walk out of here.”
Cole didn’t turn around.
“Watch me.”
“This is my gym!” Greg shouted, his voice cracking. “Those are my students! You think you can come in here and—”
Cole stopped.
