Page 111 of Jayson
Iwasn’t born Kanyan De Scarzi. I was born nothing. No name. No protection. Just a bruised boy in a rusted-out apartment with a mother who couldn't stop bringing monsters home.
Every man she let in tried to break something.
My voice. My ribs. My spirit. My belief in anything resembling family.
By fifteen, I’d already buried more bruises than birthdays. I didn’t cry. I didn’t beg. I just learned to watch. Wait. Count exits. Memorize how long it took a grown man to pass out after too many pills and two bottles of bourbon.
By seventeen, I was sleeping with a blade under my pillow and a hammer under the sink.
It was on my nineteenth birthday that the last one put his hands on her.
He didn't know I was home. But I was. And that night, something in me snapped.
Not loud. Not screaming. Just quiet. I waited until he passed out. Dragged his half-naked, snoring body to the basement. And I took my time. Not out of rage. But because I needed tounderstand what it felt like—to erase a threat so completely it could never crawl back.
When I walked out of that basement, my hands were soaked. My heart was calm.
And I didn’t feel like a victim anymore.
I felt like a man who finally understood his purpose.
That was the night I disappeared from the world that made me. And the night I entered Scar Gatti’s ring.
He was running back-room fights for the Gatti brothers. Blood sport. No gloves. No rules. You win or you leave in a body bag.
I didn’t say a word. Just walked in, took the next open fight, and left the reigning champ coughing teeth into a drain.
Scar watched from the shadows. Didn’t say a word. Just nodded. And the next week, he handed me a file. Thin. Blank.
No name. No history. Just a note clipped to the front:
“If you want to belong—earn it.”
Inside was a name. A man who trafficked girls from the east side. Twelve missing. Two dead.
I didn't hesitate. I hunted him like a dog and left what was left of him hanging in the alley behind his bar—barely breathing. Just enough to confess to everything before bleeding out.
Three hours later, I got a call. It was Scar.
“You’re not a stray anymore,” he said. “You’re De Scarzi now. Don’t fuck it up.”
And I haven’t. Because when you’ve crawled through hell to earn a name? You kill for it. You bleed for the men who gave it to you. And when someone—anyone—tries to touch that family? You don’t ask questions. You don’t wait for orders. You fucking annihilate them.
The phone buzzesacross the marble counter like a warning shot—sharp, sudden, and far too loud in the hush of early dawn. It skitters against the stone like it’s trying to escape what’s coming.
I don’t move right away. Just stare at it, jaw clenched, the weight of the night pressing down on my shoulders like a loaded weapon. I’m still in last night’s black dress shirt—sleeves shoved to my elbows, collar loose, the reek of smoke and sweat clinging to me like a second skin. Half a shot of espresso’s gone cold by my hand, untouched. I haven’t slept. You don’t sleep when the air tastes like war.
I grab the phone before the second buzz finishes vibrating and hit speaker. My voice is a blade, flat and dangerous.
“Cavalho.”
Emilio’s voice hisses through the speaker—tight, clipped, and far too early to be this fucking serious.
“I think you’ve got a problem,” he says.
I don’t blink. “Would said problem happen to be man made?”
There’s a pause. “Maddox.”
