Fuck . She had me there.
In normal circumstances, I wouldn’t give a rat’s fucking ass, but I prided myself on being an excellent judge of character. On being a person with the skills to deduce when I’m being lied to. And yet, Autumn had been lying from the very moment I’d met her, and I had no idea.
Her American accent was damn near flawless. It wasn’t until that last sentence that I detected a slight shift in her tone. She wasn’t from the US, and yet, she was pretending to be.
Why?
I’d flat out lied to her when I said I wasn’t interested in knowing anything about her. The truth of it was that I had so many questions that I wouldn’t even know where to begin, and I didn’t like that. I didn’t like that I was somewhat interested in the devil woman I’d sworn to kill.
“I never took you for a coward, Butcher.”
Autumn’s words snapped me out of my over-analytical brain, my eyes cutting to her. “Excuse me?”
She laughed, her head rolling along her shoulders as she propped her elbows up on the bed behind her and crossed her legs at the ankles at the same time. If I moved, if I stretched out my own legs just a little bit, I would touch her.
“The way you say things is a trip sometimes. There’s this incredulous tilt to it like you can’t believe someone has the audacity to call you out on your bullshit. It’s hilarious.” We might have been surrounded by darkness, but I could see her staring me down. Could feel those piercing green eyes locked on me. “I said you’re a coward, Dimitri. You can’t admit there are some things you want to know. Instead, you’d rather lie and pretend you’re not interested. Coward.”
She was challenging me. Daring me to contradict her words by proving I was the exact opposite of what she was accusing me of. It wasn’t going to work. I wasn’t one to be manipulated.
“You seem to be under the impression that I give a fuck what you think.” I got to my feet, towering over her. Such a position put her at an extreme disadvantage, but she didn’t care. She just tilted her head back and looked up at me, no hint of fear or anxiety on her face at all. “I don’t. Call me whatever you want. It doesn’t affect me. Wolves don’t lose sleep over the opinions of sheep.”
“That sounds vaguely familiar. Did you steal that from somewhere?”
Tywin Lannister from Game of Thrones had said something similar. I hadn’t watched the show, but Illayana and Lukyan had, and that was one quote that had always stuck with me.
Because it was true.
The annoying thing was, though, was that Autumn wasn’t a sheep. She was very much a wolf. Intelligent. Cunning. Vicious. And absolutely fucking fearless.
The more time I spent around her… The more I got to know her… The more I hated her. And it was because I didn’t hate it at all. She had qualities I respected and admired. She was tough as shit. Had no problem saying whatever was on her mind, even if it offended someone bigger and stronger than she was. Strength was something I respected. I despised weakness, and it was becoming clearer with each passing day that there wasn’t a weak bone in Autumn’s body.
“Look, enough of the bullshit, Dimitri,” she huffed, getting to her feet, bringing herself almost toe-to-toe with me.
A zing shot through my body, an electric hum buzzing beneath my skin. I took a step back instantly and almost sighed with relief when it disappeared.
“Whether you like it or not, we’re partners here. That means we have to work together. Open the fuck up and tell me what I need to know.”
Silence drifted between us as we stared at each other. She’s right. Of course, I knew that. The more she knew about Talon—what kind of person he was—the better prepared she would be. And the more prepared she was, the better my chances were.
Talking about my past wasn’t an easy thing for me to do—especially with someone who drove me absolutely fucking insane—but I knew it was the right course of action.
“I met Talon in boarding school,” I sighed, moving backwards to sit down on my cot.
Autumn’s eyes widened slightly. “You guys go that far back?”
“Forty years,” I said idly. “Sunset Boarding School was the school for not only the rich and famous but also the offspring of the criminal underworld. It was clean cut. Had the best academic excellence on record, with graduates moving on to become the top people in their field of choice. And most of all, it was known worldwide for its discretion when it came to those who attended. Meaning that when students stepped out of line—like trying to kill a fellow student by trapping them in a fire in their dorm room—it got swept under the rug for a hefty price of a donation entering somewhere in the hundreds of thousands.”
Autumn blinked. She took a seat on her cot, leaning back against the wall and getting comfortable. “So, who tried to kill whom?”
I kept forgetting about her perceptiveness. She was able to hone in on the one detail that mattered in a sea of useless words. “He took the first shot.” The memory of said event moved to the forefront of my mind. The flames. The heat. The panic that inevitably crawled under my skin when I realised our only way out had been blocked. Having to resort to jumping out of a third-storey window to escape. “From that point on, it was a bit of a blow-for-blow situation. He went after me, so I went after him. In a one-on-one fight, I could have taken him. Easily. It didn’t matter that I was sixteen—technically still a child by society’s standards. Not by my father’s, or the life we lived though. From the moment I could grasp, my father put a knife in my hand. Fighting was second nature to me. Talon might not have had the physical skills to best me, but he was smart. After he tried to kill me and Mikhail, he realised his life was in danger and started walking around with armed guards. That didn’t stop me from trying to get even, but it made things more difficult.”
“Mikhail?” she questioned.
“A very, very old friend. From before boarding school. We ended up attending Sunset together, and that’s where we met Talon. For a while, we were all really close.”
“Wait, wait, wait. Let me guess.” She leant forward, something twinkling in her eyes. “The three of you were the big hotshots on campus. People moved out of your way when you walked down the halls. All the guys wanted to be you, and all the girls wanted to fuck you. Am I right?”
I refrained from smirking, even when the compulsion to do so almost consumed me. “Somewhat.”
“So, what happened then? If you guys were so close, what happened to make all that change?”
I settled back, the cool steel of the cell bars pressing into my skin. “If I were to boil it down to one, pivotal moment in time, I’d say it was Parents Weekend.”
“Parents…Weekend?” Her face scrunched up. “A hoity-toity school like that had a Parents Weekend?”
“Every year,” I said, shrugging a shoulder. “My father never attended one, not that I minded.” In fact, I preferred it. Even at that age, I hated the man.
“And your mother?”
My brows slammed down into an angry frown. “My mother is not up for discussion. She has nothing to do with Talon, and I will not be talking about her. Don’t ask again.”
Autumn put her hands up, palms facing me in a show of surrender, indicating she wasn’t planning on pushing any further.
Good.
My mother was a…sore subject. One I never liked to discuss.
Like most marriages in the Bratva, my parents’ was one of convenience. It wasn’t about love, trust or building a connection with another person. It had been arranged for the sole purpose of building an alliance, gaining power and producing an heir for my father’s empire. Sergei kept his slew of mistresses, and my mother allowed it. She allowed everything, never once standing up for herself.
It wasn’t her fault. Sergei held all the power. All the money. All the influence. He crushed her beneath his strong-willed personality. She never stood a chance.
He never laid a hand on her in violence, but then again, he didn’t need to. He was an expert in emotional abuse. Making someone feel less than, like they were nothing. Nothing without him and what he could provide.
When I was twelve, she hung herself by turning the sheet on her bed into a noose and hanging it from the chandelier in her bedroom.
I never blamed her. She hung on for as long as she could, tied to a man who only cared about using her as an incubator, and in the end, Sergei won.
Sergei always won.
“It was the end of junior year,” I continued like nothing happened. I was good at compartmentalising, so moving the pain I felt towards my mother out of my mind was easy. “Parents swarmed the halls, stayed with their children in their dormitories. Attended classes alongside them. The ones who bothered to show up, that is. Talon’s father was one of them. He didn’t stay the whole weekend. Just showed up for a few hours to make it seem like he was a good parent who cared about his child and then left. During that small window when he was actually present, however, there was an incident. One of the fathers of another student got in my face. The reason was so bleak and unimportant that I can’t even remember it now, but it took zero effort for me to put him on his ass. He was nothing more than a weak man in a five-thousand-dollar suit. Talon’s father was there. He saw it, and the look he gave me was a look Talon had been trying to get from him his whole life. Like he was completely and utterly impressed. I don’t think he’d ever seen a sixteen-year-old put a man three times his age and size down like it was effortless. Because in truth, that’s what it was.”
She shook her head, chuckling under her breath. “ I don’t think I’ve ever met someone so cocky.”
“Sure you have. Just look in the mirror.”
“Touche, Butcher.” At least she can admit it. “What happened next?”
“Talon’s father, Stuart, gave me his card and told me he could use someone with my skills, and that if I ever wanted a job, to call him. He then turned to his son, looked down his nose at him with disgust in his eyes and said to him, in front of all the other students, ’If you were more like him, you wouldn’t be such a fucking disappointment,’ and walked out without looking back.”
Autumn winced. “Ouch. Brutal.”
“Hardly,” I scoffed. “That was nothing compared to the shit my father used to spout at me.”
“Yeah, but saying that in a room full of your peers? That must have embarrassed the shit out of Talon.”
I nodded. “It did. Teenagers in general can be real assholes. But elite school teenagers? They’re even worse. They laughed. Pointed. Teased. Talon ended up running out of the room crying, which didn’t help his case. Like I said, teenagers are assholes. He was ridiculed for the rest of the year because of it. If Talon had any spine, he would have let all that shit just roll off his back. But he’d spent his whole adolescence trying to impress his father, make him proud. So, when he came in, showing that to me instead of him, embarrassing him in front of all his friends—”
“He turned on you,” Autumn finished.
“More or less. He tried to get me under his thumb first. Break my will. Control me. When that didn’t work, he decided to just try and get rid of me instead.”
“Seems a bit extreme, don’t you think? All that because his father called him a disappointment in front of his classmates?”
There was more to it than that. For Talon, anyway. For him, it was a slap in the face. He’d done everything he could growing up to impress his father, but nothing was ever good enough for the man. In some way, I could relate to that. It was why we’d become such close friends to begin with; we’d bonded over the fact that we both had asshole parental figures.
I stretched out my body, raising my arms up over my head. “For a man like Talon, no. All he ever wanted was his father’s love and affection. To make him proud. For Stuart to give that so freely to someone else—someone he didn’t even know, a friend of his, no less— broke something in him. Made him jealous. Resentful. Full of hatred and rage.”
The funny thing about opening up—sharing pieces of yourself, your past—was that once you started, it was hard to stop. That particular part of my life was something I hadn’t spoken about since before Yekaterina died. Even my children, the people I was closest to in the world, knew nothing about Talon or the past we shared. It was one of the reasons I held such little hope for a rescue. They had no idea who Talon was. No idea I was in his grasp. And I highly doubted Dominik would tell them.
However, Mikhail would know the instant he received his invitation to the games.
If he received an invitation, that was.
Out of the two of us, Talon hated me more. He didn’t like Mikhail because he’d chosen to side with me instead of him. He didn’t hold the same hatred towards him as he did me. He might not want to risk Mikhail attempting some sort of rescue mission the moment he found out I was in his grasp.
Then again, Talon’s massive ego might rear its ugly head—a scenario far more likely—and make it impossible for him not to brag to Mikhail about the newest fighter in his games.
“I think I understand now.” Autumn nodded. “Talon’s going to do everything he can to make you suffer because, in his mind, you took the validation from his father that he felt was entitled to him. In his mind, it’s easier to blame you than his dickhead of a father, and he’s had forty years for those feelings to grow and fester, for his rage to build and build. Killing you won’t ever be enough. He wants to embarrass you like you did him. Make a spectacle of your death, a grand show to show the world he got the last laugh.”
I said nothing. There was no need. Everything she’d said was correct.
“I just have one more question.” Autumn scooted to the edge of the cot, placing her feet on the ground. She braced her forearms on her thighs, interlocking her fingers. “Well, more of an observation, really.”
I waved a hand through the air idly, signalling for her to continue.
“While what you revealed was interesting and certainly explained a lot of things, like why Talon has such a massive hard-on for you, I just don’t understand why you put up such a big fight to share it.”
A tight ball of anxiety wound its way through my chest. “You’re right. That is more of an observation than a question.”
She gave me an “are you serious?” kind of look, head tilted slightly to the side, brows slightly lowered, eyes narrowed. “We’re getting along so well, Butcher. Don’t ruin it now with your shitty personality.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Let me guess. You find it hard to talk to anyone about anything, whether it be something small and inconsequential like this or something huge and secretive, like your favourite colour.”
Humor trickled through me, slow at first, like a blocked dam, only allowing tiny rivulets of water to slip through. “You think something as simple as a favourite colour is some huge secret?”
“For you? Almost definitely. I suspect you’d guard something that deeply personal with your life.”
She was being cheeky. Almost playful, if that smirk on her lips was any indication. And for some strange reason, I felt like playing along. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d spoken so much with another person.
I didn’t want it to end.
“Yellow.”
“Yellow,” she repeated, confused. Her eyes widened. “Yellow,” she stated, voice stronger. Then she frowned. “Wait, yellow? Yellow is your favorite colour? Seriously?” She didn’t let me answer, quickly saying, “No way. No. Way! The Bratva Butcher’s favorite colour is yellow? I don’t believe it.”
Her response would have been fucking hilarious if it wasn’t for one simple truth. “It’s my wife’s favorite colour.” Sadness enveloped me, gripping my soul, threatening to pull me under. “Was,” I corrected, voice rough.
It was impossible to hide my emotions. When it came to my late wife, the grief, the agony, the absolutely gut wrenching emptiness I felt at her absence was something I couldn’t hide. So, I knew that, regardless of the slightly stunned expression on Autumn’s face, she could see it.
She wasn’t stupid. She knew I was the Bratva Butcher, and therefore, knew what I’d done to earn that title.
And the why.
Most people, when faced with someone else’s grief, always said the same things.
“I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“I wish there was something I could do.”
“If there’s anything you need, let me know.”
But Autumn said nothing like that, surprising me for the umpteenth time when she softly murmured, “What does love feel like?”
