“What the fuck was that?” Viktor hissed as I stood in the center of the room, my head spinning from flashbacks … A hot sunny beach, a boy and girl kissing … a girl pissed at a boy but forgiving him with a smile.
Kisa’s question about my name and age stabbed at my brain. But nothing, nothing came through; no answers emerged to answer the questions she had asked. I’d always been numb. I’d learned to only ever be a fighter of the Gulag who had a burning need for revenge. I’d learned to never give any thought to my name. I’d learned to never think about my age, where I’d come from. I’d learned to always accept I just … was …
Fuck!
“Raze!” Viktor snapped. For the first time, the booming of his familiar accent made me freeze.
I stared into the drunk’s eyes and stomped forward until I towered above him. My head tilted to the side as I studied his face. Viktor was well built, tall, and, if his accent was anything to go by …
The tattooed 818 on my chest felt like it was burning, and I said, “You’re not Russian. Everyone here is Russian, but you … you sound different.”
Viktor paled and glanced to my tattoo, then again to my face. He shook his head and answered, “No. I’m not Russian.”
Stepping even closer, smelling the burn of alcohol on his breath, my teeth ground together and I demanded, “Where are you from? And don’t lie.”
Viktor swallowed hard, a defeated expression veiling his face. “Georgia.”
“You speak like them,” I growled, thinking of the guards, the guards of the Gulag who would beat me, belittle me, dismantle me piece by piece … come into my cell at night …
Viktor slumped to the chair behind him. “That’s because I was one of them,” he whispered. I burned with rage. A storm, a fucking hurricane of violence built up inside me.
“You were a guard?” I hissed through clenched teeth, my neck aching from the tightness of my muscles.
“Not a guard, a transporter. But I attended the fights in the Gulags, even helped train some of the fighters.”
“Gulags?” I repeated, shock in my voice. “There’s more than one?”
Viktor nodded and sighed. “There are many. Places where souls are forgotten, places where young men disappear from the face of the earth, places where they become nothing more than fighting monsters.”
“And me?” I asked through gritted teeth. “Do you know me?”
Viktor shook his head. “No, not personally. I’ve never seen you fight. But that tattoo on your chest comes from one and only one gambling ring: Georgian. Your tattoo tells me you came from a Georgian Gulag. I knew it the instant I saw you. You have the same dead look in your eyes all the inmates have. The look that remains after they’ve had their humanity ripped out of them.”
“I’m from Alaska. My Gulag was in Alaska,” I pushed.
Viktor looked up at me and said, “I went there only once. I took the fighters where they needed to go, delivered the fighters to the Gulag’s door. I had no choice until I’d paid my family’s debt. Then they took me on as a trainer. I spent years training fighters for the Gulag’s cage until I was bought by the Pakhan and came to train fighters full time here in New York, for the Bratva.”
My eyes narrowed. “You were successful in the Gulag? Your fighters won?”
Viktor nodded. “I was. They did. My fighters were undefeated until I was brought here. I’d have been killed if I failed.”
“And had you heard of me? 818 … Raze? The guards called me Raze because I would raze down anyone in my path. The warden forced me to have the tattoo on my back, for the spectators.”
Viktor stared just that second too long, telling me everything I needed to know.
“Everybody in the Gulag had heard of Raze.” His eyes dropped and he pointed to my chest. “Of … you. Everyone believed you were the meanest son of a bitch out of all the death cages.”
Reaching down, I hauled him to his feet, his drunken eyes losing focus. I didn’t give a shit what he’d done in his past. He could train champions. All I needed was for him to get me to the final … against Durov.
“Then you’ll train me. You’ll train me to kill Durov.”
Viktor glanced away, a strange look on his face. “I can’t create any more death. I can’t deal with how many kids I turned over to those sick fucks. Can’t deal with how many kids I got killed, training teens to be monsters. I’m fucking broken because of it.”
I shook him and his neck lolled back. Then I made him meet my eyes again.
“I don’t give a shit about your conscience. There’s no pussying out of this life. We kill. And you’ll add one more death to your bloodied hands: Durov’s. I won’t stop until he’s bleeding out from his throat. I won’t stop until he breathes his last breath, knowing it was me who sent him to hell. Then you can go and drink until your liver rots. I couldn’t give a fuck. But you will train me. You will make me win.”
“Why? Why is Durov so important? What’s his history with you, if you’ve been in the Gulag all your life?”
Viktor’s face wore a strange expression. Was he holding something back? But he looked away and the expression was gone. “Not that I’m complaining. The asshole is evil. The way he treats Kisa is disgusting. But why the hell is it so important to you to kill him?”
My mind clouded over; it always did when I thought too hard about revenge on Durov. Somehow Durov’s name was there in my conscience, a beacon shining red, telling me he had to die. “I don’t know why or how he did it. All I have is the need for revenge on Alik Durov. But I do know he took everything from me. I can feel it. I sense it. I just know he has to die. And I have to win. Nothing else matters to me but that.”
Viktor’s chin dropped, and as I released him to the ground, he ran his hand down his face. “Okay. I’ll train you. But you’re the last one. Fuck, maybe you’ll be my redemption. Finally righting what I’ve helped make wrong all those years.”
I didn’t care what the fuck he was talking about, what demons he fought. He was just a drunken fool. But I was going to defeat Durov if it was the last thing I ever did. And Viktor was going to get me there.
A hard knock sounded on the door, and a voice called, “Raze! You’re up!”
Viktor squared his shoulders as I slipped on my knuckledusters, rolling my neck to loosen up my muscles. I breathed in Kisa’s lingering scent, and it gave me the strength, the adrenaline kick to awaken my muscles.
Viktor opened the door and we went outside, storming down the tunnel like a fucking tornado coming to raze anything its path. I could hear the sound of stamping feet echoing off the cold walls. The tunnel was dark, but soon a light appeared, showing me the mouth of The Dungeon. The Dungeon that would help me carry out my vengeance.
Viktor glanced back at me as we approached. “Your opponent is new, unskilled, the Chechen Viper. He’s a sadistic murderer picked up by the Chechens to fight in exchange for keeping him from the Feds. Viper uses a bladed chain, so stay low, strike his torso, his vital organs, when he withdraws to swing the chain. Aim for a quick kill. No showboating. Make it quick and simple. Shock and awe, stun the crowd. Make the other fighters fear your efficiency. You do that, it’s a less-than-a-minute match. You’ll have shooed yourself in as the one to beat. The Bratva’s new star and a potential opponent for Durov. You only have a couple of fights to win to get to the final. Keep that in mind because Durov will always make the final.”
I drank in what Viktor said, taking note, locking the information down. I cracked my knuckles and cracked my neck, prepping for the fight. A nervous excitement surged through my legs and stomach, causing me to bounce on my toes, readying me for the addictive feel of fist hitting flesh, for getting in the ring and spilling blood. My pulse thumped as I visualized the first hit, the spray of my opponent’s blood on my chest, the crack of his bone under my feet. I would take down this animal, slaughter him and cut him up like meat.
Viktor slapped his hand on my face and my bulging eyes met his. “You’re Raze. You’re death. Let’s fucking RAZE HELL!”
Growling through my teeth, my pumped-up traps tensed, and with a determined focus, I stormed down the walkway to the cage, running up the steps and into the arena. The animal I was sent to kill paced the other side. I knew with one look this fucker killed for kicks, scraped off the street, no training in fighting to the death.
The telltale signs of his fucked-up mind were there: the twitching of the neck, the smug smirk on his mouth, the jumping of his muscles. His body needed to kill, needed to feel the rush that only comes with stopping someone’s heart. But this cage was my motherfucking domain, all I’d ever known. What this sadistic fuck, who probably killed women and kids by the boatload, didn’t know was I had killed bastards much more fucked up than him.
I killed because I had to. I had no other choice. I was already dead, no more than a number—stripped of morals, stripped of freedom, and stripped of life. I was an animal conditioned to inflict pain without remorse. And you couldn’t kill someone who had no soul.
The door to the cage slammed shut, trapping us inside, the bolt sliding into place. The red mist I used to defeat opponents infused my body. The monster I harbored deep inside was freed.
The Chechen Viper wrapped the chain around his fist, the triple spiked ball swinging in circles at the bottom.
He smiled at me, his teeth gleaming gold. I paced my side of the cage, waiting for the gun to fire so I could end this fucker’s life. A few seconds later, a member of the Bratva walked to the side of the cage. I didn’t lose focus on the Viper, my target. I never take my eyes off the walking dead.
The gun fired.
The crowd erupted, screaming at the top of their lungs. The Viper leapt forward, swinging his favorite chain above his head. As Viktor had predicted, the Viper showed a lack of skill as he hurried to get in the first blow. I ducked as the spiked ball traveled over my head. Using his raised arm to my advantage, I swung my right fist, piercing my blades deep into Viper’s kidney. Then with my left fist, I quickly pierced a lung. I kept walking forward, not looking behind. I watched the mouths of the crowd drop open and eyes widen at my speed. Then I heard the sweetest sound of all. The sick fucker I had to slaughter dropped to the floor; my blows had brought him to his knees.
Turning my head, bladed fists clenched by my sides, as expected, I saw my opponent on his knees, head bent, chain at his side. Leaping to stand in front of him, I jerked the chain from his hand, planted my foot on his chest, and kicked him until he fell on his back, blood pouring from his wounds as he gargled for breath. As his dulling eyes looked up at me, I swung his chain and ploughed the spiked end straight into his face, sending him to hell with his own weapon. His face was gone, no longer visible, not even to the devil.
As his skull crushed in, the spectators went wild and the victory gun sounded. Dropping the chain to the bloody ground, I released a victorious roar and paced around the ring, dragging my knuckledusters along the metal links, waiting for the door to open. When I was halfway around, something made me look up, some magnetic pull. I never looked up, never showed my eyes to anyone but the man I was about to kill. But this time, I couldn’t resist. High up in a box way above the crowd, Kisa’s face came into focus. Her palms were pressed against the protective glass. Her face was awash with relief, a small smile flickered on her lips, and happy tears shone in her blue eyes.
I could barely drag my eyes off her. But when the cage door opened, I stormed out, too much aggression still coursing through my body to stay still, too much hatred for the sick fucks in the crowd to accept their fake fucking adulation.
A pathway cleared as I stormed through the crowd. Like prey flees from a predator, instinct told them to move, to get far away from danger. Viktor dropped in step by my side. As I approached the mouth of the tunnel leading back to the waiting room, Durov stepped in my way, a pissed look on his face. His fight was next, once the cage had been washed down. Without stopping, I knocked him out of the way with my shoulder, and a laugh came out of his fucking mouth.
I kept walking, needing to burn off my excess aggression, when he taunted, “So you know, 818, I can still taste her dripping pussy in my mouth. I just fucked her hard, real hard.”
As if a leash had been jerked on a collar around my neck, I came to a dead stop. A burning fire coiled in my gut, a protective surge taking grip as I thought of Kisa. Inhaling deep, I tried to calm my anger, but it didn’t work. Nothing fucking worked. That woman was crashing through my defenses, breaking down walls I didn’t want to come down.
Viktor moved in front of me, out of Alik’s view, and advised, “Move. Don’t give him the satisfaction.”
I nodded my head, but I couldn’t stop my rage, when pain blinded me and a memory hit me hard …
* * *
“Get the fuck off her, Durov,” the boy ordered.
Durov’s expression turned to stone.
“She’s mine. She belongs to me!”
“She doesn’t want you.” The boy stepped closer and, dropping his voice, said, “Durov, she’s mine, and I’ll kill you if you touch her again.”
Durov smiled a cold, unnerving smile. “I’ll get her some day, and there’ll be nothing you can do about it. I couldn’t leave her alone in that bikini. I had to touch her. I want to fuck her.”
Without thinking, the boy drew back his fist and, fueled with rage, sent it straight into Durov’s psychotic face, the sheer force of it knocking him to the ground.
“You’re insane! You’re fucking sick in the head!”
Durov smiled, as if not feeling the blow. “Maybe, but she’s going to be mine. I want her. I need her. She calms me, and I’ll do anything to own her and have her all to myself and fucking away from you…”
* * *
The image flash caught me off guard. As I turned my head to look back at Durov through hooded lids, I saw that same cold expression on his face … same as the memory. I’d had a memory of a teenage Durov …
Durov smiled that same psychotic smile. “I own her, fucker. Always have. You go near her, or if I find you looking at her again, I’ll kill you.”
Shaking, on the threshold of losing control of my anger, I whispered to Viktor, “Get me to the gym. I need to train, work off this rage, or I’m going to kill him, here and now!”
Viktor didn’t question my demand. I followed him down the tunnel, away from that fucking dead man walking, Durov. I smirked knowing his days were numbered and I would soon be spitting on his cold corpse.
Then my mind drifted to Kisa and the look of relief on her face, palms pressed against the glass. That small warm smile pulling on her lips, those tears of relief in her eyes. And for the first time in … forever, something besides rage ached in my chest.
It was a foreign and strange feeling, but as I thought of Kisa’s face, it felt familiar.
It felt … right.