the Til Death games?”
I frowned, staring at Mikhail over my brother’s shoulder. It was midday and we were in Aleksandr’s office. Tatiana and I had arrived home early this morning for my mother’s birthday.
I was surprised when she offered to come back with me. Actually, “offered” was too tame a word. She’d demanded. Wouldn’t take no for an answer, actually.
“Have you been dipping into Arturo’s merchandise? Because you must be high as a kite if you think I’m not going to be there for you or my best friend on a day like this.” Then she’d thrown up all over my shoes.
Tatiana never could handle her alcohol very well. She’d had two-and-a-half cocktails at the Trivia Night we went to last night, and poof—enter drunk Tatiana.
I think it was a combination of the fact that she rarely drank and her extremely low tolerance for alcohol. It was a good thing I’d arranged to take our private plane for the flight, because I highly doubted a regular airline would have let her board in the condition she was in.
She’d spent the entire flight snoring her head off in the cabin. Not that she’d ever believe that. She was adamant that she didn’t snore. Even when I’d shown her concrete proof with a video of her sleeping, her mouth wide open and snoring so loudly that it sounded like a train going over its tracks, she still denied it.
“That’s not me. You edited it.” Then she turned around and went right back to snoring.
My brother’s voice pulled me back into the present. “No, should I have?”
“It’s a fight-to-the-death, gladiator style tournament that’s held once a year on a remote island off the coast of Europe. World leaders, politicians and the insanely rich gather to watch and place bets on who will win.”
Aleksandr glanced over his shoulder at me with questioning eyes. I shrugged. I’d never heard of anything like that before. I wasn’t surprised to hear Mikhail knew of it, though. That man had his fingers dipped into everything. He wasn’t a man I was scared of, but he was definitely one who required caution. He was one of only a few people that had permission to enter the property without prior approval. So, I wasn’t usually surprised when he just walked straight through the front door.
This time, however, was different. During his last visit, he’d punched Aleksandr clear in the face after hearing about what happened to his son. Having lost a child myself, I understood better than anyone what he was going through. That was the only reason why I let the attack go without retaliation. If it had been anyone else, though, they would have been dead before their arm went back to their side.
It was my job to protect Aleksandr. Not only because he was now my Pakhan, but because he’d spent his entire life looking out for my siblings and I. It was my turn to watch out for him. The chances of Mikhail doing anything else were slim to none. But I still refused to let my guard down, watching him like a hawk.
“The man who oversees the games is called Talon,” Mikhail continued. “A few weeks before the games begin, he sends out a roster of who will be competing, along with their stats. That way, people can make informed decisions about their bets. He sends little previews of what the fighters are capable of. Videos of them fighting, etcetera, etcetera.”
“Like horse racing?” I asked.
“Yes, but with people instead.” He pulled out a tablet, starting it up. “These people in the games aren’t always there voluntarily. Some are, but most of them aren’t. They’ve been trafficked specifically to enter into the games, to make them more entertaining. Boxers. UFC fighters. Marines. People who’d guarantee a good fight.”
My brain clicked the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle as he spoke. Why he was there, when I’m sure it was the last place he wanted to be. Why he was bringing up some fight to the death game that we’d never heard of before. The fact that he mentioned people were forced to fight against their will.
It all began to make so much sense.
“I’ve never attended the games, but I get notifications for when a new one is about to begin,” he continued. “I received this encrypted email yesterday. It holds the roster for this year. It’s a small preview of what’s to come. This is a clip of one of the fighters being put in the games.” He handed the tablet over to Aleksandr. It was paused on a video.
I knew what it would show but I leant closer nonetheless, needing to see for myself if what I was thinking was right. It was one of those times that I was desperately hoping to be wrong.
Whoever edited the video made sure to keep faces out of it, just showing clips cut together of brutal strikes, arms swinging, fists connecting with soft flesh, legs flying through the air. Perhaps it was to build up the suspense, waiting until the last possible moment to reveal the fighters, thus ensuring the viewers’ complete and total attention.
It definitely worked. My eyes were plastered to the screen, cataloguing everything I saw, waiting for that one little detail that would confirm my suspicions.
The commentator narrated what was going on as it happened. “Oh, what a brutal uppercut!” the male voice said, a crowd of people cheering in the background. “I don’t think he’s going to get back up from that one folks! Oh, wait, he’s going to try again! What a fight!” A deafening crack blared through the speaker, one so loud that it could be heard over the roaring crowd as a set of hands grabbed a man’s head and twisted sharply, breaking his neck in one clean move. “And we have a winner!”
The camera panned out, showing a man standing in the middle of the ring, back gleaming with sweat and muscles bulging. He dropped the dead man in his arms and turned to face the camera.
I exhaled in defeat.
“Your winner, ladies and gentleman, The Bratva Butcher!”
The crowd went absolutely wild. Screaming, chanting, clapping. The camera stayed on my father for a few seconds longer and I committed every detail to memory. The blood dripping down the side of his head. The anger burning in his eyes. The heavy rise and fall of his chest as he breathed hard.
The screen went black.
“Fuck,” Aleksandr cursed. He swiped across the screen, moving to another video, but this one was of someone else. “Are there any others?” he asked, continuing to swipe and swipe.
“No.” Mikhail took back the tablet. “That’s the only one of Dimitri. The rest are of the other competitors.”
“How many?”
“Twenty-four in total.”
“Why did they send this to you?” I asked, stepping closer.
“Talon and I have a bit of a…rivalry, I guess you could say. We went to boarding school together. Me, him and your father. We all used to be friends, actually.”
“What happened?” Aleksandr questioned.
“The same shit that always happens at elitist schools like that. He thought he owned the school and everyone in it, including Dimitri and I. The first few years, he wasn’t so bad, but when we were seniors he tried to order us around like we were nothing but worker dogs.”
I scoffed, shaking my head. There was no way my father would ever let some random kid walk all over him like that, even when he was technically a kid himself. He had too much pride, even at that age.
“Our reaction exactly,” Mikhail said, pointing at me. “We fell out hard our senior year. Talon’s the type who loves control. He thrives on the ability to get others to do whatever he wants them to do through fear and intimidation. That shit didn’t work on us though. Your father is the son of one of the most brutal men in Russia. And me? Well, I just hate being told what to do. So, when we didn’t blindly fall in line like all the others, things got violent. He set fire to our dorm room…with us inside it.”
“Jesus Christ,” Aleksandr blew out.
“We had to jump out of our four-story window to escape. Fucker had barricaded the door so we couldn’t get out. Dimitri broke his leg and I broke three ribs and dislocated my shoulder. Talon was given a week’s detention as punishment.”
“A week’s detention?” I repeated, my voice rising in exclamation. “For nearly killing two students?”
“Talon comes from old money. The type of money that can make problems disappear at the drop of a hat. His dad owns several big oil companies, and just threw money at the school until the whole thing was forgotten.” Mikhail ran a hand through his blonde hair, pushing it out of his face. “After graduation, he fucked off to Europe. I didn’t hear his name again until a few years ago. He’d amassed his own empire by then, built entirely on his daddy’s money. He bought himself his own private island. From what I hear, he never leaves.”
Aleksandr leant forward, elbows braced on his desk. “”Where is it? This island?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. I’ve been trying to find it since the first moment I found out about it.”
“Didn’t you say the games are held on this island?” I asked with a frown. “So someone somewhere must know where it is.”
“You’d think, wouldn’t you?” he sighed, leaning back. “His security protocols are off the charts. You need an invitation to board the plane that takes you to an undisclosed location. From there, you’re taken to a dock and put on a boat that takes you to another boat, and then another boat. All while being blindfolded to ensure you have absolutely no idea where you’re going.”
“Talk about thorough,” Aleksandr grunted.
“And the email is the invitation?” I guessed.
“There’s a QR code attached to the email that’s specific to each person. It holds a picture of the recipient, so once it’s scanned, they can verify you’re the invitation holder.”
“You seem to know an awful lot about the process,” Aleksandr said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Explain something to me. You told us that you guys are rivals. That this guy tried to kill you. So, how is it that you know so much about this whole thing? And were able to receive an invitation to his elusive private island?”
“Because Talon’s trying to show off,” I answered instead.
Mikhail’s brows raised slightly in surprise.
“He needs you out there so he can wave his hands around and say, ‘Look at all my shit. Shit you don’t have’.”
“You really are the smart one, aren’t you?” Mikhail chuckled softly. His eyes flicked to Aleksandr. “No offence.”
“None taken,” my brother shrugged. “He is.”
“Nikolai is right. Talon doesn’t send the invitations to us because he wants us there. He does it because he has a pathological need to be better than everyone. To be the smartest, richest, most handsome man in the room and have everyone fawn over him and treat him as if he’s royalty. The reason why I know so much about his security protocols is because I’ve tried more than once to circumvent them, to find a way onto his stupid private island so I can torch it to the fucking ground.”
“You keep saying ‘us’,” Aleksandr stated. “Does that mean—”
“Yes,” Mikhail nodded. “Your father received the invitations too.”
Aleksandr and I looked at one another. His eyes told me everything I needed to know. Father hadn’t mentioned anything about this to him either.
“Tell me everything about the games,” Aleksandr demanded.
“That I don’t have much knowledge of, I’m afraid. I can only show you the videos of the fighters and their stats. That’s it. Like I said, I’ve never attended the games, so I only know the basics. There’s twenty-four fighters and they fight to the death. That could be one-on-one, in pairs or in groups. Your father and I decided the first year Talon sent the invitations that we would never go. That we’d never give that fucker the satisfaction of our presence. I didn’t necessarily agree with that decision, though. Talon stepped into my territory with the creation of his Til Death Games. Encroached on my business earnings. I wanted to find a way to end it and end it quickly, regardless of whether or not Dimitri agreed. So I’ve been keeping close tabs on it, trying to find the location of his island.”
“Why not just accept the invitation and go, then?”
“Going by myself would be a death sentence. I highly doubt Talon would ever let me leave—alive, anyway. And there would be no way to sneak my men in with me. My best chance is to find the location of the island and plan a strike.”
“Any luck so far?” I asked.
“No. But I do have an idea that could lead to some promising results. What I want to know is, how did Talon get his hands on Dimitri in the first place? Your father isn’t exactly an easy man to get the drop on.” Aleksandr stiffened slightly. His hands clenched into tight fists on the desk, knuckles turning white. I didn’t need to see his face to know what he was feeling. My brother might be hard for others to read, but for me he was as easy to read as a book. The moment he saw that video and understood the significance of it, he would have been riddled with guilt, blaming himself for not taking Dominik’s deal and saving our father.
I laid a hand on his shoulder for support and squeezed lightly. “You know Dominik kidnapped him.”
“Yes,” Mikhail frowned. “Are you telling me he handed him over to Talon?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
“Fuck. I knew he was a dick, but doing that to your own brother?” he shook his head in disbelief. “What a real asshole move.”
“Is there anything else in the email?” I asked, trying to put together some sort of plan in my head. The precautions Mikhail mentioned would make it very difficult to get the location of the island. If by some miracle we were able to find it, there was also the problem of security. A man like Talon would have his own private army. An infiltration of that magnitude would require more than what we possessed on our own.
“Just the flight information.”
“Alright,” Aleksandr blew out, cracking his neck. I removed my hand from his shoulder and stepped back. He just needed a moment to get himself under control and now that he had, I had faith he wouldn’t blow up. “We need to figure out what we’re going to do. Nikolai, call Lukyan and get him home for a family meeting.”
I nodded, leaving the room. After shutting the door behind me, I pulled out my phone and dialled Lukyan’s number.
“Ring-a-ding-ding, you’ve got the king,” he answered.
“Where are you?”
“Getting my dick sucked. Why?”
I wish I was surprised at his words, but it was honestly right on par with Lukyan. “We need you home, now. Family meeting.”
He was silent for a moment. “Can I finish first?”
I rolled my eyes. “We have a lead on Father.”
“Be right there,” he said instantly, hanging up before I could say another word.
I shook my head, chuckling softly. He might be a fucking idiot sometimes, but he always came through when it mattered.
Stuffing my phone back into my pocket, I went to turn around and re-join Aleksandr and Mikhail when my gaze collided with a set of hazel eyes that usually sent my heart racing.
This time was different, because those eyes didn’t belong to a crazy blonde who owned my soul. They belonged to her father. Ivan Andreeva was a big man, with broad shoulders and a bulky, wide chest. He had a slightly crooked nose from years of repetitive damage from fights and a neatly trimmed goatee. He was one of my father’s oldest and most faithful soldiers. Despite originally being hired by my grandfather, Sergei, he’d proven time and time again where his true loyalties lay.
Ivan stopped dead in his tracks at the top of the stairs when he saw me. We stared at each other, silence reigning between us. He’d never said anything to me directly, but I knew he was aware of what happened between Tatiana and I. His whole demeanor towards me changed. He went from quiet but friendly to doing nothing but glaring at me whenever he saw me. I suspect the only reason why he never confronted me on it was because Tatiana told him not to.
“What do you need, Ivan?”
“A word with Aleksandr,” he grunted, body tight.
I nodded. “I’ll let him know.” I turned around, reaching for the door handle when his next words made me freeze.
“I want you to stay away from her.”
Those eight words sent anger coursing through my veins. Of course, I understood where he was coming from. That he was just trying to protect Tatiana—a quality I admired in the man. But there was nothing in this world that could keep me away from her.
“You overstep, Ivan. What happens between Tatiana and I is none of your business.”
He marched towards me. “As her father, it’s my job to protect her, and that means keeping her away from you.” He stood toe-to-toe with me. “I don’t trust you. I don’t trust that you can take care of her, or be there for her when she needs you. You’ve made that clear already. She deserves better than you, and I’m going to make sure she gets it.”
There was an underlying threat to his words, one that did not sit well with me. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“I’ve organised for her to meet someone and if all goes well, she’ll marry—”
I shoved him up against the wall with my arm firmly lodged against his throat. “The only person she’ll marry is me,” I snarled.
