Crisis averted, I went back for replacement food as VanZant led our most inebriated Hunter away. I caught sight of a small man with a gigantic red beard waving at me from the entrance, and so I pointed Milo in the direction of our table. The last of the MHI dinner party had arrived.

Plate partially reloaded, I was preoccupied with using tongs to pick up some crab legs when somebody bumped into my arm. Another solid fellow had been reaching under the sneeze guard at the same time. “Pardon me,” he said politely.

“Sorry about that,” I answered as I moved a bit to the side. “Didn’t see you. Easily distracted by crab legs, you know.”

“Thanks.” He scooped up several pounds of crustacean and dumped them onto his plate. Crouched, he still barely fit under the sneeze guard. He straightened his back and towered over me. I’m 6'5", was wearing thick-soled combat boots, and he still had me beat by a few inches.

“If you’ve seen that show about how hard these are to catch, that just makes them taste even better…” I trailed off. The man seemed strangely familiar. Probably thirty, he was thickset, with biceps like hams stuffed under his black T-shirt. His enormous head was stubbly with short, dark hair, and there was a crease running down the middle where he’d had a severe skull injury or maybe brain surgery. Beady eyes narrowed as he got a better look at me. One of his eyes wasn’t pointing in quite the same direction as the other one. A look of confusion crossed his wide, flat face.

Where did I know this man from?

Of course I hadn’t recognized him at first. He’d aged. After all, it had been several years, and he hadn’t had that scar on his head nor the bad eye. Plus the last time I’d seen him I’d been kneeling on his chest and dropping elbows against his bloody and unconscious face until his eye had popped out and his skull had broken in half.

“You!” we exclaimed at the same time.

His tray hit the floor with a clatter. The other patrons around the seafood area were suddenly quiet. The giant’s mouth turned into a snarl and his hands curled into a fist. “Son of a bitch!”

The final illegal, underground money fight I’d ever participated in had been against this monster. All I’d known going in was that he was a killer, a prison-hardened, brutal machine of a fighter, and then he’d beaten the living hell out of me until I’d finally taken him down, lost control, and nearly beaten him to death. I’d never even known his name.

I took a step back. He was right to be mad. I’d lost it. It was the worst thing I’d ever done. “It was an ac—”

“Accident?” Veins were popping out in his neck. “I was out, and you didn’t stop hitting me until they dragged you off! You put out my eye!”