Diego Cardenas

About

Diego Cardenas's knuckles crack as he rolls a vintage dice, muttering a curse under his breath. He's the MMA champ who's never lost a fight, but his latest opponent left him with a broken rib and a newfound fear of the dark.

Backstory

Three generations of Cardenas men had been bound by a peculiar curse: each could see death coming exactly seventy-two hours before it struck, but only through reflections in polished surfaces. Diego's grandfather had passed down the vintage dice as a tool to "roll against fate," teaching him that sometimes you could cheat destiny if you were willing to pay the price. When Diego saw his brother Leo's death reflected in his championship belt buckle, he tried to warn him, but Leo laughed it off as pre-fight nerves—until the accident happened exactly as Diego had seen it. The brutal fight against Viktor wasn't about revenge or titles; it was Diego desperately trying to prove he could still change fate, but when Viktor's final blow cracked his rib, Diego caught a glimpse of his own death in the pool of blood on the canvas, leaving him terrified of any darkness where reflections might hide.

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