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are done,” shouted the mayor. “Everybody fought well, but only the fifteen highest ranking fighters are moving onto the final round. We’re dividing them into three groups of five by the luck of the draw. Five men, every man for himself, will fight each other. Whichever man is still standing at the end will choose which woman he wants to have. Gentlemen, are you ready? Come on up here and draw your number.”
    The crowd of men roared and stomped their feet as several of them pushed their way to the stage. Ellie felt Mel grab her hand and hold it in a death grip. Two of the men who strutted across the stage were her brothers-in-law. The third one wasn’t there. He must not have made the final cut. One of them smiled as he curled his hand into a gun shape and pointed it at Mel.
    “Bang, you’re dead,” he mouthed as he passed them.
    “I swear, I’m gonna kill him,” Mel vowed in a voice that shook. “Just let me get my hands on my gun.”
    “They’re not going to give you your gun,” Sara said, raising her voice to be heard over the spectators.
    Ellie looked at the fifteen men gathered around the mayor. Their shirtless state showed most of them were bruised, and some bleeding, from the fights that had gone on while the women were locked in the closet. Ellie stared hard at the back of one. His black hair was in one long, thick braid, folded and tied in a neat bundle at the back of his neck. It would have made him look feminine, like a woman with her long hair in a low bun, except his shoulders were far too broad to look feminine. He wasn’t Taye. Her cousin wore his hair short, or had when she’d last seen him, and his hair wouldn’t have grown that much in only three years. But this man might be Native American, so he reminded her of Taye.
    Each man reached a hand into the bag the mayor held and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
    “All right,” said the mayor after all the men and drawn a paper. “Number ones, over on that end of the stage. Twos, here in the center. Threes, over on the other end of the stage.”
    The men opened their papers to see which group they were in and moved to the appropriate spot according to the number on the paper they had drawn. Mel cursed when she saw that both Fosse brothers were in Group One.
    “If either of those jackals wins, they’ll pick me.”
    “Maybe they’ll kill each other,” Sara said in a consoling tone.
    Mel snorted.
    As the man who reminded her of Taye turned to go to join Group Three, his gaze shot to Ellie with a smile. Her heart jerked against her breastbone. She knew him! She hadn’t seen him in three years, but she was sure it was Jelly, one of Taye’s youngest friends. He must be eighteen or nineteen now. What was he doing here? Had Taye sent him? But why would Taye send someone so young? Ellie thought the other four men that Jelly would be fighting looked as though they were in their thirties, all thick with muscle, whose hard faces and scarred bodies showed they had years of fighting experience behind them. Jelly was broad-shouldered, but slender and lithely built.
    Sara noticed her stare. “Found one you like?” she said with a sniff.
    “No…yes. That’s one of my cousin’s men.”
    Sara craned her head to watch Jelly take his place with his group. “He’s just a kid!”
    “I know.” The relief she’d first felt at seeing Jelly was swallowed by helplessness. Where was Taye?
    Mel had her arms folded over her chest. “The kid must be a good fighter. He wouldn’t have made it to the finals if he wasn’t. I wouldn’t mind him for a husband. Better than Jim or Steve.”
    “He’s a little young for you.” Sara looked out at the men on the gym floor. “So, where’s your cousin, El?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t see him.”
    Sara made a rude sound in her throat. “This is the best he could do? Send a teenager to rescue us?”
    Ellie didn’t answer. She had just noticed a man in Group Two staring intensely at her. That wasn’t