Book excerpt: Carl Merritt comes from a world where no rules apply, where violence has always simmered close to the surface. Still in his teens, he became trapped in a world of illegal fighting. The men who owned Carl built him into an awesome opponent, and plunged him into a world of appalling violence, crime, and retribution. Armed with firsts, elbows, feet, teeth, and forehead, Carl would target his opponents inside the cage, from which there was no escape. Only the strongest survived.Some of Carl's opponents were even slaughtered by their own supporters, as so much money had been gambled and lost on them. London, Paris, Dublin, Melbourne, Los Angeles, Las Vegas--Carl lost track of the number of times he was smuggled into a deserted underground car park or an empty warehouse, in a strange land. Carl's most recent fight nearly proved fatal to both fighters, and once and for all he has left the bloody metal arena behind. Now he wants to break the cage's strict code of silence to reveal how it has become the most deadly sport in the world.