I followed Autumn with unwavering focus as she moved around the ring, trading blows with her opponent. The fight didn’t last long. A minute, maybe two. But for that entire time, I studied every move she made with narrowed eyes.
She was fast, which was a hard thing to achieve, given how tall she was. Light as a feather on her feet. And extremely skilled. The way she tackled the other woman and broke her leg in one quick move? That was a jiu-jitsu move, through and through. I’d seen enough of it over the years to spot it.
I’d seen her kill two people so far without a shred of hesitation. She had a sharp, agile mind. Quick reflexes. Was proficient in at least two different fighting styles. How is it that I’ve never heard of her before? A fighter of her calibre would be well-known within my world. And I was one hundred percent confident she was somehow involved in the life, whether she be from another crime syndicate, a gang, MC or possibly even an assassin (I was definitely leaning more towards that).
Alarm bells went off in my head. She was dangerous. Far too dangerous. Despite what I was sure she thought, my ego wasn’t that big. I could recognise a potential threat, and Autumn DeValos was exactly that: a threat. One I would need to get rid of as soon as the opportunity presented itself.
Once she’d killed her opponent, she was escorted to the bench behind the commentators and forced to sit down by a rough shove of the shoulder. She sneered up at the guard and shook off his touch. Her gaze collided with mine. We glared at each other. More fights continued on, but Autumn and I just continued to scowl at one another from across the crowded room.
It was nothing short of a challenge, a dare from both her and me. That we had a score to settle.
It wasn’t until it was my turn to fight that our silent battle of wills ended.
Like all the others, I was led over to the side of the ring. A guard unlocked the cuffs around my ankles first, then my wrists. He tried to shove me forward, but I planted my feet and held my ground. I’d seen the guard pull that exact same crap with each prisoner who stepped up for their turn. I wasn’t going to be another person he could push down.
I looked over my shoulder, an evil, deadly glare in my eyes. I didn’t say anything, just stared at him with malicious intent.
He shrivelled under my gaze, his eyes darting to the floor.
I released a derisive snort before taking the few steps up to the ring and ducking under the ropes.
I moved to one side and took stance, waiting. My arms hung loosely at my side, my shoulders squared.
“Well, well, well, ladies and gentlemen, this next fight promises to be a good one. We have a notorious mafia Pakhan in our midst.” I glanced to my right, seeing the commentators with headsets on their heads eyeballing me.
One of the cameras panned around the outside of the ring, ensuring to get me from every angle as the commentators continued to speak.
Others might have been confused by what was going on. I wasn’t. I recognised the room the moment we entered. Every year, when Talon would send the invitation for his Til Death Games, the email contained other details. Little bits of information about the event, such as videos of the fighters and what they could do. A great way to build anticipation and excitement around the games.
That’s what this was. What the cameras were for. The small crowd. The commentators. It was all to entice those receiving an invitation and convince them to pay the buy-in. To show them what they would witness on a much larger and grander scale.
My opponent stepped into the ring, and the entire thing shook. He was a beast of a man with a body built entirely out of muscle. He was bigger than me, that was for sure. Taller. Wider. He was by far the biggest person there, and of course, Talon had chosen him to fight against me.
He was so predictable.
The man took up position opposite me. One side of his mouth hiked up in a cocky, arrogant smile. He thought because he was bigger, he would win. Despite what a lot of men liked to believe, size wasn’t everything. It was how one used that size that truly mattered.
My eyes involuntarily moved to the annoying redhead sitting behind him. Her smirk mirrored the man standing before me. She thought the same thing.
How disappointed they were both going to be. The man especially.
There was no bell to signal for the fight to begin. One moment, we were staring at each other from across the ring, sizing each other up, and the next, he was charging at me with all the grace of a raging bull, his feet thumping hard against the ground.
Thump, thump, thump. He raised his fist into the air, preparing to strike.
I didn’t move a muscle as he ran right for me. Waiting, waiting. Almost there…
I ducked under his swinging arm, spun on the balls of my feet and delivered a brutal roundhouse kick to the side of his head from behind.
He went down like a house of cards, the entire ring shaking from the impact of his body slamming onto the ground.
Casual as you please, I walked over and stared down at him. He’d landed on his back, staring up the ceiling with vacant eyes. I stomped down on his exposed throat with the heel of my foot, killing him instantly.
The neck was a complex structure, filled with blood vessels and organs that were detrimental to one’s survival. Damage it in the right spot, with enough force, and there was no coming back from it.
The entire room fell silent for a moment before the crowd broke out into a loud, roaring cheer. I turned. The look on Autumn’s face almost made me want to smile. It was fucking priceless. Thinned lips. Lowered brows. Snarled nose. Tense jaw. The anger and disappointment at me having won couldn’t have been more obvious.
Usually, I wasn’t one to show off or play games, but in that instance, the compulsion to rub it in Autumn’s face was simply too great, too compelling to resist.
Slowly, I lowered myself into a gentleman’s bow, wrapping one arm around my middle while the opposite leg swept out behind me. Proper etiquette dictated you also bow your head at the same time to show respect, but that wasn’t what this was about. It was more like a bow someone would give to a crowd at the end of a performance, except it was for Autumn and Autumn alone. My way of saying, “I’m still standing, bitch”.
Based on the middle finger she threw up at me, she understood its meaning. I smirked before rising back to my full height.
I made my way to the edge of the ring, preparing to jump down and take my place among the winners, but a guard stopped me with a raise of his hand. I frowned.
What now?
His head was bent slightly to the side, his other hand up to the earpiece in his ear, as if he were listening to someone communicating with him. A moment later, he signalled for two more prisoners to be brought into the ring.
I looked to my left, staring down the lens of the camera. Fucking Talon. Clearly, he was hoping for a more entertaining fight, and he wasn’t going to let me leave without it.
Fine.
I took three steps back and waited, keeping my body loose and ready for action. That fight lasted a little longer than the first. Both men were cautious after witnessing what had happened during the first round, being mindful to keep a safe distance from me, though it did not last long.
Eventually, they came for me at the same time. One went high, the other low. Smart move, but in the end, they met the same fate as Muscle Man: death on the floor of the ring. Talon must not have been satisfied with the outcome because he issued another two prisoners to fight again.
And again.
And again.
By the fifth round, exhaustion was starting to weigh heavily on me. My movements slowed, my reflexes not as sharp as they were when I’d first stepped into the ring. My body hurt all over from the strikes I’d been unable to avoid. Blood dripped down the side of my face from a brutal blow. Despite all of that, I kept going, refusing to show even a modicum of the pain I was feeling. I had enough in the tank for this fight, but if there was another? Who knew?
I was stuck in a grapple with my opponent, an athletic, dark-haired male. His partner lay dead a few feet away, his neck and several limbs twisted at ungodly angles.
We wrestled for supremacy, twisting, turning and ramming our blood-stained knuckles into each other’s sides; ribs, abdomen, kidneys. I just need one opening. Just one. Just—
Pain exploded in my head. Fuck! Looked like he’d gotten an opening first. A wave of disorientation washed over me. I did my best to fight through it, but some of his strikes hit home regardless.
Fed up and full of anger, I unlocked that dark, evil side of me. The one that felt nothing. No pain. No remorse. No mercy.
The Butcher.
With a burst of strength sizzling in my bones, I clocked him under the chin with a brutal uppercut. The man flew back, landing roughly in a heap. He jumped right back up and came charging towards me again, never slowing down.
I met him head-on. We threw punch after punch, going at each other with a primal velocity that showed we would fight until our last breaths. I rammed my fist into his stomach, and he groaned, bending over. My hands grasped his face, and I twisted sharply, breaking his neck.
“And we have a winner!”
Relief filled me with those words, and I dropped the dead body carelessly at my feet. None of my other victories had come with such a declaration, which meant that had to be it. The final fight.
I turned.
“Your winner, ladies and gentlemen, the Bratva Butcher!”
The camera panned in close to my face, so close that all I’d need to do was lean forward, and I would touch it. My body was still pumping with so much adrenaline and anger and I snapped. I grabbed the camera and smashed it on the ground, over and over again.
The cameraman screeched and jumped back, abandoning his equipment as I continued to lift it and smash it down. Guards swarmed me, trying to restrain me, but I was still in fight mode, survival mode, and I lashed out at everyone who came near me.
Fuck this. Fuck them.
Fight, fight, fight.
Pain exploded in the back of my head, and I fell forward. Darkness took over quickly, and I welcomed it, sinking away.
