The underground loading dock of the arena was a cavernous, chilly concrete tunnel, smelling of exhaust fumes and stale popcorn. Dave's heart was drumming against his ribs a thousand times faster than the Amapiano beats he had just been dancing to. He walked down the ramp alone, his bare chest glistening with performance sweat under the open leather vest, his hands stuffed into his pockets to hide the violent shaking.
00:08:45. Less than nine minutes on the clock.
"Hood, you in position?" Dave whispered into the microscopic mic pinned to his inner lapel.
"Tucked behind the structural pillar, forty yards out," Hood's voice crackled back softly. "I've got a clean line of sight to the production truck's tinted windshield. The moment he steps into the light or clears a window, I drop him. Do not get between me and the glass, Chris."
"Easy for you to say," Dave muttered under his breath.
He approached Production Truck 4—a massive, silver semi-trailer packed with millions of dollars of broadcasting equipment. The engine was idling, a low, mechanical growl that vibrated through the soles of Dave's unlaced Jordans. Dave took a deep breath, forced his face into the cockiest, most arrogant "Breezy" smirk he could muster, and violently slammed his fist against the metal door.
"Marcus! Open the damn door!" Dave roared, letting his voice echo authoritatively through the concrete tunnel. "I've got your fifty million, but I ain't transferring a single cent into a ghost account until I see the kill-switch!"
For a tense, agonizing five seconds, nothing happened. Then, the heavy pneumatic door hissed open, folding outward.
Marcus stood in the doorway. He was younger than Silas, with a chaotic, wired energy and a twitching jaw that screamed high-grade amphetamines. In his left hand, he held a heavy tactical walkie-talkie modified with a glowing red LED screen—the remote detonator. In his right hand, a compact, black submachine gun hung loosely by his side.
"Step inside, superstar," Marcus sneered, waving the barrel of the gun. "Keep your hands where I can see the diamonds."
Dave stepped up into the cramped, claustrophobic interior of the truck. The walls were lined with glowing green and blue monitors displaying the empty stage upstairs and the ticking countdown.
00:06:12.
"The transfer," Marcus demanded, shoving a ruggedized tablet into Dave's chest. "Type the authorization code. Now. Or we all go up in a cloud of dust."
Dave didn't touch the tablet. Instead, he leaned back against a rack of servers, crossed his arms, and let out a loud, mocking laugh. It was pure Dave Burd weirdness, completely breaking the standard hostage protocol.
"You know, Marcus, I look at you and I just feel profound sadness," Dave said, his voice dripping with an bizarrely calm, analytical tone. "You're a logistics guy, right? Explosives, timing, wiring. You clearly understand infrastructure. So explain to me how your long-term financial model makes any sense?"
Marcus blinked, his twitching jaw freezing for a fraction of a second. "What the fuck are you talking about? Type the code."
"Think about the macroeconomic scale of what you're doing!" Dave pressed on, stepping slightly to the left, trying to bait Marcus into moving toward the front windshield where Hood was waiting. "You blow up the Crypto.com Arena. Great. You kill me, you kill twenty thousand people. The global financial markets panic. The US dollar destabilizes. Do you honestly think the federal government is going to let an offshore bank in the Cayman Islands hold fifty million dollars tied to a mass-casualty terror event? They freeze the assets within twenty minutes, Marcus! You'll be sitting in a ditch in Mexico, starving, trying to buy a taco with a frozen debit card! The mustard-to-risk ratio is completely off!"
"Mustard?!" Marcus screamed, his eyes widening with absolute fury and confusion. He realized he was being played, but he couldn't grasp the utter insanity of the lecture. "You think this is a joke?! You think I won't press it?!"
Marcus lunged forward, abandoning his stance, and rammed the butt of the submachine gun into Dave's injured shoulder.
CRACK.
A white-hot explosion of pain ripped through Dave's chest. The stitches tore instantly, and dark blood began to soak through his leather vest. Dave let out a high-pitched, un-Breezy yelp and fell backward into the main control console, his body smashing into a bank of audio sliders.
Outside, forty yards away behind the concrete pillar, Hood swore under his breath. He brought his rifle up, aligning the crosshairs with the truck's windshield. But inside the cramped trailer, Marcus had descended on Dave like a rabid dog.
"I'll take your head off myself!" Marcus roared.
He tackled Dave further into the back of the truck, away from the windows. They tumbled into the narrow aisle between the server racks. Hood's scope was suddenly filled with nothing but empty, flickering green light from the monitors. He had completely lost sight of the target.
"Chris! I don't have the shot! Repeat, I don't have the shot!" Hood hissed into the comms, breaking into a dead sprint toward the truck.
Inside, Dave was fighting for his literal life. He didn't know how to box, but Chris's body had raw, explosive power. As Marcus tried to pin him and bring the barrel of the gun down onto his throat, Dave brought his knees up, slamming them into Marcus's ribs with the force of a hydraulic press.
Marcus gasped, the air leaving his lungs, but he managed to retain his grip on the modified walkie-talkie. The red LED screen was flashing: 00:01:15.
Dave scrambled on his back, his hands wildly sweeping across the floor of the truck. His fingers wrapped around a heavy, braided thick-gauge power cable. Without thinking, he swung it like a whip, catching Marcus directly across the eyes.
"AHHH!" Marcus blinded, screamed in agony, dropping the submachine gun. But his thumb was resting right over the red button of the detonator. He began to squeeze down, a frantic, blind reflex to end it all. "Die, you freak!"
Dave didn't have time to punch. He didn't have time to act like a star. He threw his entire 200-pound, athletic frame forward in a desperate, uncoordinated belly-flop, grabbing Marcus's wrist with both hands, trying to pry his thumb away from the trigger.
00:00:34.
Marcus's thumb was millimeters from the button. The sheer drug-fueled strength of the lieutenant was overpowering Dave's strained, bleeding shoulder. Dave's grip was slipping on the sweat and blood.
"Hood!" Dave shrieked, his voice cracking into a panicked falsetto. "HOOD!"
The heavy steel doors of the truck didn't just open; they were violently torn back.
Hood materialized in the doorway like a shadow made of steel. He didn't take time to aim. He vaulted over the front console, diving into the narrow aisle, and drove his heavy, combat-booted foot directly into Marcus's jaw with a sickening, bone-shattering crunch.
Marcus's head snapped back, his eyes instantly rolling into the back of his skull. He went limp, collapsing onto the floorboards.
The detonator slipped from his hand, rolling across the floor. Dave scrambled forward on his knees, his heart stopping as he watched it slide toward a metal rack. He snatched it out of the air just as the digital timer ticked down to the final numbers.
00:00:04.
00:00:03.
00:00:02.
Dave slammed his thumb down on the green "Abort" toggle on the side of the device.
The screen flickered. The red LED light went dead. The silence that filled the production truck was deafening, broken only by the ragged, wheezing gasps of Dave Burd trying to find his breath.
Hood stood over them, his gun still raised, his chest heaving slightly. He looked down at Dave, who was covered in blood, clutching his torn shoulder, and hyperventilating on the floor.
"Close timing, Boss," Hood said, his voice finally dropping back into its calm, gravelly baritone. He reached down, grabbing Dave by his uninjured arm and hoisting him up. "Too close."
Dave leaned against the server rack, his body shaking so violently he could barely stand. He looked at Marcus, who was out cold, then at his own blood-soaked vest.
"The mustard-to-risk ratio," Dave whispered, a weak, hysterical laugh bubbling up in his throat. "I told him, Hood. I told him it was a bad business model."
Hood just shook his head, a rare, genuine smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "You're a maniac, Chris. But you saved twenty thousand people tonight. Get to the dressing room. We need to patch that shoulder before the afterparty starts."
Dave walked out of the truck, the cool air of the loading dock hitting his face. He had survived the stadium, he had survived the cartel, and he had survived the bomb. He was bleeding, he was exhausted, but as he looked up the ramp toward the bright lights of his dressing room, he knew one thing for certain.
The King wasn't going anywhere.