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some regret in his voice. Don Luciano fanned through the pages with a single hand, skirting over a number of entries to reveal plenty of blank pages waiting for more. “I keep a record of all my sins in this book—in my own special code, of course, that no one else can read. I file my sins away in the appropriate place, careful to note when and where each occurred and, on occasion, to whom. Do you know why I do this, picciriddu ?”
    Michael noticed there was writing on all seven of the tabs, dull and faded now, one for each of the seven sins.
    â€œNo, sir,” he said.
    â€œTo remind myself of how many acts of goodness I must perform to atone for them. A man must achieve his own balance in life. This is how I keep mine.”
    *   *   *
    Michael wanted to explain to Alexander how this exhibition bout was mostly about keeping his. Mostly. The rest was about truly wanting to face a man feared through the world of Mixed Martial Arts as a test of his own mettle. The cage was just another metaphorical ring in which to prove himself. But he had no intention of trying to articulate that to Alexander.
    â€œTell me again why Segura threw that car dealer through a windshield,” he said to him instead.
    â€œHe said he didn’t like the way the man was smiling at him.” Alexander shook his head, gazed toward the caged ring. “Just know one thing, Michael: At the first sign of trouble, I’m going to intervene.”
    â€œYou won’t have to.”
    â€œTyrant, Tyrant, Tyrant!”
    The chanting grew even louder, as a “Tyrant Girl” named Kim, one of the resort’s personal concierges, held the cage’s door open so Michael could enter. He moved to his corner and found himself standing directly across from the undefeated champion, conscious of the flashes flaring in the murky half light beyond. He’d never been in any kind of ring before and was amazed at the sensory enhancement and deprivation it created at the same time. On the one hand, Michael was acutely aware of every stitch in the canvas fabric of the thinly padded ring beneath his bare feet, a bright shaft of light all that separated him from the man known as the Executioner sneering from the other side. On the other hand, the world seemed to end at the cage’s perimeter, as if it were enclosed by one-way glass that allowed the crowd gathered at ringside to see in while Michael could not see out. The sense of isolation, the insular nature of the sport, gave Michael a fresh appreciation for the fighters who made their living being bloodied and battered by men like Segura.
    It shouldn’t have bothered him, given that his office in the Seven Sins was a bubble glass structure at the bottom of the Daring Sea, the world’s largest self-contained marine environment and one of the resort’s most popular attractions. Built at a cost of four hundred million dollars, the Daring Sea featured a trio of great white sharks prowling about. The largest of these, a thirty-footer named Assassino, had grown especially interested as of late in Michael’s office, poking his nose against the thick glass and seeming to peer inward. Assassino meant “assassin” in Italian, Michael having named the creature in the wake of the deadly expedition to capture him that cost a trio of sailors their lives.
    But Assassino had nothing on Durado Segura’s glare from across the ring. Tomorrow night he would fight the challenger for the heavyweight crown in the most highly publicized MMA fight in the sport’s history. An expected record number of five million fans watching on Pay-Per-View on top of a sold-out crowd of near twenty thousand here in the Seven Sins’s Magnum Arena that would be transformed into a modern equivalent of the Roman Coliseum. For tonight’s exhibition the two thousand attendees at ringside stood on their feet, ready to watch Michael spar with the champion and then