by Tillie Cole
362 had been the one to make me write Durov’s name on my cell wall, I didn’t remember him doing that, but he told me he had when I first arrived. He too had a name on his wall. Those inscriptions drove us. They gave us a past when there wasn’t one left in our heads. They gave us a reason to live.
We stood there, matching each other’s stares, when 362 pressed his hand onto my arm, gripping my bicep tightly.
“Go kill the one that condemned you, 818. You’re ready. You’ve been ready for this day for far too long.”
Mirroring his action, my hand hit his arm. “You too.”
362 dropped his hand but looked up to say, “Hopefully we’ll meet again, 818. If not, get back the life you lost and I’ll see you in the next.”
With a nod of his head, he turned on his heel and sprinted out of the large metal gate. Dropping down to the guard scum, I fisted his shirt, my anger flaring when I saw recognition flash across his face.
He need be scared. I was going to gut the fucker for keeping me in this hell, for hurting me when I was a kid, for doing things to me when I was a kid…
“Don’t… don’t hurt me!” he cried, and my lip curled in disgust.
Shaking his puny body until his teeth chattered, I demanded, “Which way to New York?”
The guard paled and my fists tightened, threatening to choke him. “Which direction?”
The guard’s mouth opened and closed, but he couldn’t breathe through my grip. I loosened my hold just enough to let the asshole speak.
“East. New York is east.”
The sound of trucks approaching in the distance prompted me to lean down and ask, “And where the fuck are we?”
The guard started to lose consciousness, and by the pool of blood on the floor, gushing from his stomach, I knew it was only a matter of seconds until he passed.
“Fucking answer me!” I snarled. “Where the hell are we?”
“Al-Alaska,” he replied.
I threw him to the ground, done with the bastard now that I’d gotten what I needed. The trucks neared the Gulag and I knew I had only a few minutes to leave before more guards arrived and locked this place down.
Alik Durov.
Brooklyn, New York.
Revenge.
Kill.
Reminded of my purpose, I rose to my feet when the guard laughed and my eyes shot straight to him.
“We… we made you who you are…” he whispered, blood now dripping from his mouth. “We made you strong… unrivaled… a champion…” He trailed off, coughing and spluttering, choking on his own blood.
I saw red.
Incensed at his words, I raised both fists, the sharpened spikes of my knuckledusters facing down, and with a rage-fueled roar, I pushed the spikes straight into his chest. The guard’s mouth dropped open as he released a silent scream, and pushing down all of my muscled weight into his chest, I snarled in his face and slowly twisted the spikes of my knuckledusters. Victory surged through my body as his eyes bulged and, fighting for breath, he gagged for the last time. I witnessed the life leave his eyes, nothing remaining but the unseeing stare of death.
Panting with the victory of the kill—what I was trained to do, all I was created to do, all they had trained me to do—I slowly rose to my feet, then set off at a sprint.
Within minutes, I broke through a line of trees into a dense forest, heading east.
And I wouldn’t stop until I reached my destination. I wouldn’t stop until I killed a certain…
Alik Durov.
Brooklyn, New York.
Revenge.
Kill.
Chapter Four
818
After a month of sneaking on fishing boats to the mainland, stealing food, and hitching a ride on cross-country freight trains, I arrived in New York City.
I wasn’t prepared for what awaited me: bright lights, a bustling city packed with ever-moving tides of people—completely the opposite of all I’d ever known. Yet strangely, it all felt familiar and comfortable—the stink of thick smog, the vapors of tobacco and liquor, and the sounds of fast cars with their horns blaring.
Stumbling into a back alleyway on the edge of Brooklyn, a searing pain shot through my head. I pressed down hard on both temples. Disjointed images were zapping through my head, a group of kids playing, a small group of older men kissing three boys on their heads, proudly smiling as they were introduced to a large gathering of people. My head felt like it was going to explode and that conditioned feeling of fire running through my veins engulfed me as memories tried to push through. For a month now I’d had no shots, no drugs the guards pumped me full of daily to keep me big, to keep me strong, to keep me angry, and more and more unfamiliar images were filling my head.
The visions dissolved as quickly as they came and I found myself huddled against a hard, damp wall with sweat drenching my skin. Then the numbness I’d felt my whole fighting life settled back into place.
I ran the name and address through my mind. Within seconds, I was jogging down unfamiliar streets, somehow knowing exactly where to go. My feet were carrying me forward to an area with large brownstones, expensive cars, and well-dressed people.
As I entered one particular street, a sense of excitement coursed through my body. Quickly, I searched the numbers of the houses… until I found myself outside a block of luxurious apartments. Somehow I was certain it was the address I wanted.
Security guards paced menacingly in front of the glass-walled entrance. I slunk back into the mouth of a nearby alley, melding with the shadows, eyes fixed on the door.
I waited for hours, hours spent skulking around the building, scoping out a way in. But it was impenetrable, far too protected. Then when dawn broke, a large dark-haired man with a buzz cut, looking as though he was in his mid-twenties, walked out of the building, strutting his built frame like he owned the fucking world. Every hair on the back of my neck pricked, followed by rage igniting in my stomach.
It only took one glance to know I was looking at Alik Durov, the cunt I was going to kill. Everything about him from his Slavic face and closely shaven head to his built body screamed wealth and arrogance—I detested the fucker on sight. I would take pleasure in making this kill. I’d draw it out to intensify the bastard’s pain.
A few seconds later, a large black car pulled up in front of the building. The dick, Durov, stepped in the driver’s side and took off down the street. Like lightning, I took off at a sprint, hugging the still-darkened edge of the pathway. I tried to keep up with the car, but I knew even at my fastest pace I couldn’t track the car.
Two blocks down, the car was held up in heavy traffic. Crossing the busy road, horns blared at me, but I had a single-minded purpose—to confront this asshole alone, somewhere.
The car turned right and I followed it three blocks down to a deserted parking lot, a deserted parking lot next to a large warehouse, a warehouse that Durov parked in front of, and slowly he got out.
Reaching into my pockets, I slid on my prized bladed knuckledusters and clenched my fists, enjoying their cold touch on my skin. I stared at Durov’s back, imagining where I would sink the spikes—his skull so I could watch his blood spurt like a geyser, the top of his neck, circling around his body to witness the life leave his eyes, his kidneys so I could watch his body die slowly, internal organs shutting down one by one, or straight into his heart, quick, effective, mortal.
Moving stealthily round the lot’s perimeter, I made my approach, stopping only to swipe dirt below my eyes, leaving the choice of killing blow to my instincts. Suddenly, a side door flew open, an older, hard-faced man stepping through.
“Durov! Get your ass in here. You’re late!”
Durov.
It was Alik Durov.
My target… my kill.
Durov laughed at the man and, within seconds, he was in the building. Pissed at the missed opportunity, I checked around to make sure I wasn’t being watched. Then I jogged across the warm asphalt, making sure my hood covere
d my head and hid my face. Something about this whole scenario felt too much like I’d been here before. Like I hadn’t spent my life trapped in the Gulag hell, killing for survival, piercing flesh and taking lives. No, something, some twist of my gut told me Brooklyn, New York, meant something to me, like some sense of my past was clawing its way out from under my skin.
Circling the warehouse, I found a small window. Ducking down to the ground, my chest to a patch of dirt, I peered inside and my blood began pumping at the sight.
A training gym… and Durov walked up to a bag and began throwing punches.
He was training to fight.
Fight.
I was made to fight.
It’s all I knew how to do.
My eyes flared, anticipation running through my veins. I knew this setup. I’d lived this for years and years. And the cage… every link of metal, every spring of the floorboard, every inch of razor wire was my home. Every stain of blood on that white surface had made me the man—the monster—I was today. But what really made my heart race was the row of weapons lined on the wall. The chains, daggers, and blades told me all I needed to know: the fights in this place were to the death.
This was a death match ring.
It called to everything I had become—a stone-cold killer, a fighter—and by the look of things, Alik Durov was also a fighter to the death.
As my nostrils flared, my hands began to shake with the rush, the adrenaline, with the plan of revenge forming in my mind. I would join this fight ring, I would slaughter this cunt, and I wouldn’t lose. Never had.
Rising to my feet, I walked through the entrance, the smell of sweat and blood filling my nose. It calmed me right down.
“Who the fuck are you and what do you want?” My attention snapped to a short, squat man sitting at a small desk. He had pulled out a gun and aimed it right at my forehead. I kept my hood low, shielding my eyes. I would never meet another’s eyes. Something deep inside never let me.
His eyes widened in fear when I stepped forward, the gun not fazing me. “I want to fight. Want in the cage. I want to kill,” I growled in a deep, rumbling voice. I saw the man sizing me up, pissing himself—I wasn’t surprised. I was tall, built like a fucking tank, tattooed, scarred… fucking dead inside.
I had nothing to lose. I feared nothing, not even death. Death would be a welcome end to the life I’d lived. But before my end, I would be taking down one Alik Durov with me… and I wanted to finally know why.
“You got a sponsor?”
I said nothing, and the asswipe took my silence for a no.
Standing up, he kept the gun aimed at my head. He took out a cell and called someone. I recognized the device; the guards were always yapping on the fucking things, depriving me of sleep. Someone obviously answered and a sharp grunt sounded through the speaker.
“Yiv? You’re needed out front.”
He snapped the phone shut, but I never once moved. I wanted this fucker intimidated enough to let me in. I needed to fight. I needed to kill.
“What the fuck’s wrong at this motherfucking hour?” a graveled, gruff accent complained, and then a big middle-aged guy came into view.
As soon as he saw me, his eyes narrowed and he folded his bulky arms across his chest. “Who the hell are you?” he snapped.
“Your fucking cage’s wet dream and your fighters’ worst nightmare,” I replied icily, bringing my fists to my chest and cracked my knuckles. The sound of each crack echoed off the bare walls.
The dick holding the gun and this Yiv glanced to each other. Yiv pushed the gun from the guy’s hand and stepped forward.
“You fought in a cage before?”
“Yes.”
His lip curled. “This ain’t no pissant MMA or WWE ring, you get that? Stakes are higher. Prices are paid with blood… with pieces of flesh. This is The Dungeon.”
My silence encouraged him to step forward, sizing me up. “You Russian?”
His question caught me off guard. I didn’t fucking know. My number was 818. I was raised in the Gulag. I was trained to kill. I had slaughtered over six hundred opponents. This was all there was to me. No history, no name, no family.
Just numbness.
The guy said something to me, only this time it was in another language. “I said are you fucking Russian?”
He’d spoken a different language than the guards, but somehow I understood it. He was speaking Russian? How the fuck did I know Russian?
Without thinking, I replied yes in the same language, and the guy’s face lit up.
“You haven’t got a sponsor, which means you’d be a buy-in.”
“What have I got to do?” I asked, the strange language pouring from my lips. My body tensed with the fact that I might get a way into this hellhole, this fucking heaven on Earth to me.
“You need to pay. That’s the only way in. We got a trainer that’s just lost a fighter, but it’s going to cost you.”
“How much?” I asked. Yiv jerked his thumb at the guy who handed me a slip of paper with a number written down.
As Yiv was walking away, he shouted, “You get that cash, you’re in. Training has already started for the rest of the men. The Dungeon begins in two weeks. It’s a three night ultimate battle to the death. The survivors fight in the final. You win, you win big. You have until then to get it together.”
The Dungeon.
Two weeks.
Revenge.
Alik Durov.
Kill.
I was going to do anything to get that cash.
Slamming the doors open, I fisted the paper in my hands, secured it in my pocket, and tried to think of what to do next. Then I saw a bunch of men sleeping on the street, hats out in front of them, begging money from passersby.
In a split second, I headed in that direction, grabbing a candle jar off some house’s tree. Tipping the candle to the ground, leaving it in my wake, I found a spot on the street, sat down, pulled my hood farther over my head, and placed my jar on the ground.
Two weeks.
I had two weeks to get the cash.
And I’d do anything to get in that cage and slice open Durov’s chest.
Chapter Five
Kisa
“Are you okay, miss?” Serge asked as he drove me through the awakening streets of Brooklyn toward the docks.
I pulled my gaze from outside the window and nodded my head, offering Serge an appeasing smile.
“It’s just a hard day. That’s all.”
Serge’s expression turned sympathetic in the rearview mirror. “Luka Tolstoi’s birthday,” he said, and I momentarily lost my breath just hearing those words out loud.
I stared down at my fidgeting fingers and nodded my head. It always pained me to think of Luka. Twenty-six years ago, the three Bratva bosses were all married and each had a son. Luka was born first, then Alik only a few months later. My brother Rodion and I followed a year later—we were twins. And finally, a year after that, Talia was born, Luka’s sister.
We all grew up together, the heirs of the New York Russian underground. We played together, spent days together in school, or hid together in secret when a threat to our mafiya was made by a rival. It was during these years that I became obsessed with Luka Tolstoi. He, my brother Rodion, and Alik were tight, the three male heirs to the Bratva rule. Rodion was destined to lead, Alik was second to him and Luka the third and final heir.
Luka and I shared something special. From toddlers, we were best friends. Then as the years passed, I knew I had fallen in love with him. I may have only been a child, but I loved him completely. Heart-crushing love.
Mama always said the stars aligned when we were born, that God made us a match. From the first time we saw each other, Luka took me in his arms and swore his protection over me to my mother. Mama used to say she caught him staring into my crib only hours after I was born. Then when she asked what he was doing, he asked her if he could have me. My mama joked and told him it would be my choice when I was old enough to
crawl, and from the minute I was old enough to crawl, my mama told me I only ever crawled to one boy… Luka Tolstoi.
I’d agreed to let him have me. After all, God had created us to match.
Luka had a kind smile and the most beautiful dark-brown eyes. But it was Luka’s upper left iris smudged with a small splash of blue that made our mothers think we were destined to be. Mama said God placed a piece of my eye within his so we would always know we shared one soul. Luka was my protector. I adored the way he always held me close, making me feel safe, especially from Alik.
Alik was jealous that Luka had my heart.
When the three boys became teenagers, it all went to shit. In one fateful night, I lost Rodion and my Luka, leaving Alik the sole heir. That was when he immediately staked his claim on me.
Still now, at twenty-five, I missed Luka as if he’d just died yesterday. The pain was still as raw as the day I’d been told he was gone forever. A part of me just never believed that he did what he was accused of. I just couldn’t think him responsible for killing my brother.
“Keep your head up, miss, and the day will pass by just like any other,” Serge said sagely. Laying my head against the leather, I closed my eyes.
I was sick of so much loss… so much death.
Ten minutes later, after a silent journey, I entered the gym, my black-skirted business suit firmly in place, and headed to my office. I passed by the busy room of shirtless men training, punching bags, and lifting weights. I searched the room. A certain pair of light-blue possessive eyes locked onto mine and a slow, determined smile curled on a familiar set of lips.
Yiv, Alik’s trainer, was pushing him hard at a renegade, his every muscle in his tight, packed body straining with the technique. Throwing the fifty-pound dumbbells to the ground, the thud echoing around the gym, pulling fighters from their programs, Alik’s eyes flared with need and he thundered toward me—no, stalked toward me until I’d backed up into my office. Dropping the fighters’ personal files on the table, Alik stormed into the office, slamming the door and closed the blinds.
“Myshka,” Alik growled in a graveled, craving voice as his hungry gaze ate me up. His flushed skin glistened with the sweat from the intensity of his workout, his thigh muscles protruding under his shorts. “Fucking missed you last night, Myshka. Don’t like sleeping alone.”
