the view from the balcony of my assigned bedroom, a little in awe. The island really was beautiful. Clear, crystal blue waters. White, sandy beaches. Stunning, well-maintained forestry with towering palm trees and huge meadows surrounded by tall grass and wildflowers.
It was entirely self-sufficient. I’d been given a brief tour when I first arrived late the night before. It was as if an entire city had been packed up and dropped right there. There was a mall that was filled with every kind of store you could think of: clothing stores, grocery stores, book stores. Even a hair salon and a bowling alley. There were even a bunch of bars and clubs.
There were several large, resort-style hotels, built with an almost gothic/castle-like feel. Three made specifically for guests, one for the workers and one for Talon, each one capable of accommodating a few hundred people, at least. Elegant five-star restaurants. Five-feet deep Gunite swimming pools with all the latest amenities. Casinos. State-of-the-art movie theatres. The place literally had it all.
And then there was the Arena.
Built to be every bit as grand and opulent as I’m sure the Colosseum was back in its day, it was what caught my attention the most. It was easily 1000 by 1000 feet wide with enough space to seat at least 100,000 people.
I highly doubted there were that many people attending the games, but one thing I’d already deduced about Talon was that the man did absolutely nothing in halves.
He was the epitome of “Go big or go home.” Of “If you’ve got the cash, why the fuck not??
Talon’s net worth was in the billions, so he clearly had it, and I didn’t think that included the money he made from the games he held annually.
Made entirely of stone and concrete, the structure stood over seven stories high and had a large oval in the centre. There were sections that were split off into different terrains. One filled with sand, another with grass. Weapons lined the metal cage surrounding it: swords, machetes, axes, long-staffs, nunchucks, spears and even scythes. It had everything except for projectile weaponry.
The arena-style seating cascading upwards ensured everyone would be able to see what was going on.
It was the perfect fighting arena.
Figures that my father would piss off one of the richest and most powerful men in the world. Only someone with high volumes of money and incredible resources could put something this extravagant together.
I turned and made my way back into my one-bedroom hotel room. I hated to admit it, but the whole place was actually pretty impressive. Not only the island itself, but everything I’d seen and experienced since stepping off that plane. They were well-organised, thorough and extremely vigilant. All of the security precautions Mikhail had mentioned were completely true.
After I’d landed in Naples, I was taken to a secure room where I was searched meticulously, as were my belongings. They’d even made me stand in a huge body X-Ray to make sure I wasn’t carrying anything internally. I was then blindfolded before being put in a car and driven to a dock to board a boat. I was searched again there. Each time I was transported to a new location, I was searched, all the while remaining blindfolded the whole time.
Like I said, extremely thorough. It was a good thing I didn’t try and sneak any trackers or weapons with me, because they definitely would have found them.
Once I arrived on the island, I was given an orientation, where it was explained in great detail what my role was. Myself, along with six other men who had travelled with me on the boat were to join the other low-ranking soldiers to help maintain order within the island and make sure none of the guests stepped out of line.
Nothing was mentioned about what exactly would be happening on the island, nothing of the games or the illegal activities, so I had to assume it was something that was already covered in the original interview process that was set up by the security firm I had “come from”. Something I should already know. Our only job was to run regular patrols, monitor the area and keep the guests from doing anything Talon deemed unsuitable (which was basically vandalising his property).
Being part of the security team, I was allowed access to certain areas other workers were not, which worked well in my favour. I had a keycard that gave me entry into restricted areas of the resort, as well the Arena itself, which was where I suspected the prisoners were being kept—and where I needed to get into.
I picked up my watch on the bedside table and slapped it across my wrist. I couldn’t stop the smirk from curling on my lips as I buckled the clasp. The sex with Tatiana a few nights prior had left both of my wrists bruised and bloody, just as I’d anticipated. Not that I minded.
Saying goodbye had been harder than I thought it would be. Not just to Tatiana, but my siblings as well. There was a very real chance I wouldn’t make it back from this alive. One wrong move, one wrong word and my cover was blown, most likely resulting in a bullet to the head. It was something that was always at the forefront of my mind, even as I left my room and walked the gilded halls of the workers’ accommodation, heading towards the security tower that was situated smack in the middle of this building and the guest accommodation.
Several other employees were leaving their rooms at the same time, dressed in different uniforms to signify where they worked on the island. My uniform was a black, long-sleeved sweater and black pants. It wasn’t too tight, so I was able to wear the outfit Tatiana had made me. The one she insisted I wear.
Even though I was most likely going to pass out from a heatstroke because it was a 1000 fucking degrees and I was wearing two outfits, I’d made her a promise, and I was damn sure going to keep it.
People greeted me as I made my way down the stairs and out into that cool, refreshing air. I tried to smile politely, nodding my head, but it was a movement I wasn’t accustomed to. It felt incredibly foreign to me.
Lukyan was good at it. He was generally a happy guy. Always smiling, always cracking jokes. Aleksandr was the king of adapting. He was able to change himself into whatever he needed to be to get the job done.
Me?
I just wasn’t built like that. I didn’t talk unless I had something to say. I didn’t smile unless I wanted to (usually only in Tatiana’s presence).
I walked the marked cobblestone path from the workers’ accommodation to the security tower, trying to commit everything I saw to memory. Despite having a pretty good memory, I feared it would take me a few tries to properly memorise the correct paths to take. The place was kind of like a maze. So many twists and turns, footpaths leading into different directions. It would be confusing for our people to infiltrate unless I could give them a clear-cut path of where to go.
The security tower came into view. It was a long, tall building with hundreds of clear windows and sharp, angular architecture. Guards patrolled the ground floor to its entrance. More could be seen in the distance on the balconies that wrapped around it, focused, vigilant expressions on their faces and machine guns in their hands. They not only looked out over the island but also out into the deep, blue sea, looking for any boats that might try to arrive undetected.
It was going to be harder than I thought.
When I arrived at the front door, one of the guards stopped me, hand up in the air. “Badge,” he demanded.
I held up the badge I’d been given when I first arrived. It had my name (fake name, anyway), my picture and my level of clearance.
“I was told to report here in the morning to begin work.”
The guard nodded. He scanned the barcode under my photo, checked something on the computer and gestured me inside with a flick of his head. I thanked him and walked in.
Another thing I’d quickly noticed about the place was that there were different types of guards/soldiers. There were the ones like me, whose main job was to patrol. We were given a baton and some mace to use in case any of the guests stepped out of line. Then there were the other ones. The ones who had the guns and were dressed in tactical gear, like they were about to run off on some secret, undercover mission. I suspected they were Talon’s personal security team and the ones he trusted the most, hence the weapons.
The bottom floor was buzzing with activity, people coming to and from quickly with a sense of urgency. Today was the first day of arrivals, guests already starting to make their way to the island, and it was clear people where freaking the fuck out about it. I tried not to look out of place, like I had no idea what exactly was meant to happen as I made my way over to the elevator.
A few of the men I’d met the night before were standing at the elevator, waiting for it to arrive. Luke was an average man with close-cropped hair and a slim build. From what little I knew of him, he was shy, nervous and skittish. Ryan was next to him. He was a little more sure of himself. Confident, strong. His honey-blonde hair was short and styled neatly. He kept one hand on the baton at his waist, like he wanted to be prepared in case anything happened. The last man was John. He was someone to be weary of. It was in the eyes. Dark brown—almost black—and filled with malice.
Luke looked up at me when I stopped at the elevator. “You’re Damien, right? I’m Luke. We met last night.”
“Yes. Hello.” I offered my hand and he shook it, a little timid. He was in the wrong place. There was no way he’d be able to handle the brutality of what was to come.
I nodded my head in greeting to the other men. Ryan returned the gesture but John just stared at me with those dead, soulless eyes. I looked away. Not because I was afraid of the man, but because I didn’t need to cause any trouble. I needed to stay as inconspicuous as possible. But he was on my list.
The elevator arrived with a ding. We all climbed in and it took us to the tenth floor. We made our way across the floor to the conference room we were taken to last night for orientation. My gaze wandered around the space covertly. It had been night time when we first walked through there, so all of the other rooms had been pitched into darkness, making it impossible to see anything.
Now they were teaming with light and completely overflowing with people. Up ahead on my left, through the floor-to-ceiling glass window, I spotted a whiteboard that took up an entire wall. Photographs of people were pinned on it like mug shots. Twenty-four in total. I slowed my steps so I had more time to look at it.
They were arranged in some sort of order, similar to a bracket challenge people used during March Madness. Two photographs were placed side by side with a line, running to another two photographs that were sitting directly underneath them. Then there was an empty slot in the space beside them. It was the fight order for the games. Who would be versing who. The empty slot was for the winner, which meant the losing team would be eliminated, most likely meaning they’d been killed.
I dropped to one knee, undoing my shoelaces quickly and then started doing them back up again slowly as I continued to study the board as discreetly as possible.
One side was marked “Morning” and the other “Evening”. They were holding two fights on the same day. I ran my eyes over the photographs swiftly, searching…searching…there.
I was staring at a picture of my father. It took everything within me not to physically react. He looked just as menacing in that picture as he did in real life. The hateful glare, the firm line of his lips, his clenched jaw. Oh, he looked positively evil. Angry and evil. Next to his picture was one of a woman.
It was clear in the way it was arranged that the fights were two versus two. And that woman was his partner.
“Damien? Are you coming?” Luke called out from the open door of one of the conference rooms.
Shit.
I wanted to study the board more but if I took any longer, it would start to get suspicious. I over exaggerated the final loop of tying my shoelaces and jumped to my feet, running to catch up to them.
“Sorry.”
Luke just smiled. Ryan shrugged. But John…he narrowed his eyes with scepticism.
Double shit.
“Come on in, gentleman. Quickly. We have a lot to get through and not a lot of time to do it in,” Andrea said, sitting at the head of the table. She had a laptop open in front of her, her fingers typing furiously as we all took a seat. She was dressed in business attire, a dark, freshly pressed pantsuit with her blonde hair done up tightly in one of those buns you just knew was incredibly uncomfortable.
“As you know, you’ve been brought here to help with crowd control. This is the biggest Til Death Games we’ve ever hosted before and we’ve had an influx of guests added to the invite list, due to who we have fighting this year.” She didn’t look up from her laptop once, her brows snapped together in a frown, filled with concentration. “The first round begins tomorrow morning, so we’ve got all the guests arriving today. Be courteous. Be polite. Do whatever they ask you to do as long as it doesn’t go against the set of rules I gave you last night. I need one of you monitoring the Arena at all times as I don’t have any other men to spare right now. Every year, some idiot tries to sneak in and get a look at the fighters before the games begin. They think it might give them an edge, betting wise. No one is permitted access to the fighters.”
I raised my hand, offering myself for the position. Not too fast that it seemed like I was super eager, but fast enough to beat out the other three men. It wasn’t lost on me that she was referring to them as “fighters”, not “prisoners”. Compartmentalising at its finest. She probably didn’t even think about them as human beings, just merchandise to make herself some money.
Andrea nodded. “Thank you, Damien. You can report there now.”
I nodded in thanks and left the room, a fresh round of excitement sizzling in my veins.
I was one step closer to my goal. I just needed to figure out how the fuck I was going to get into that Arena without blowing my cover.
