3. Rage
Chapter 3
Rage
There are few problems I can’t solve with my fists. Taking things, breaking things… it’s all the same, with the same result, as long as I get my hands dirty.
Things always go my way.
That’s why Celia is an enigma. I’ve touched her. Tasted her. Fucked her. And yet… she still resists being mine.
I roll my shirt cuffs higher over my forearms, controlling my breathing as I ignore the pleading stare from the man strapped to the rickety metal chair in front of me. Jimmy’s one of our worst men, stuck on the front lines doing grunt work that even a ten year old should be able to handle, yet somehow, he always manages to fuck up the job.
The only reason he isn’t dead yet is because of some S-tier sheer fucking luck, but my patience is running thin. “I don’t tolerate failure,” I remind him, tilting my head to the side until my neck cracks with several short pops . “You know this, Jimmy.”
If there weren’t a gag in his mouth, I’d have to hear the same old whimpering sob story he tells me every time he ends up in the chair. His car broke down. He got mugged. His gun jammed. He ran out of ammo. His shoelace was untied. Different lies, same story.
There’s only one part I care about: he didn’t get the job done.
I level him with a stare that does exactly as it’s intended: makes the man quake in his tiny fucking boots. “How many times are we gonna play this game, hm? How long has it been, now? Five, six years? No, that can’t be right.” Placing my hand on the back of his chair, I lean in close and get a good look at his eyes.
Clear as a summer sky. Sweaty in his armpits and across his shoulders, but that started when I entered the room, not before. Twitchy with his fingers, but he’s always like that. He’s still little more than half a shit stain wrapped in a body, but at least he’s not huffing our product.
Jimmy recoils away from me, not that he can go far. The ropes binding his arms and legs to the metal chair creak as he shifts his weight. I’m used to this part, too, the part where he flinches like a little bitch when I close in.
Heat rushes from my chest to my throat, making it hard to swallow. There’s always a part of me that hates men like Jimmy. Spineless, brainless, pieces of shit that do more harm than good. Still, this part is routine, too. I always get a little worked up when men don’t face the consequences of their actions head on.
My next words are trapped behind the steel clench of my jaw. It takes genuine effort to unhinge and breathe. I must not do a good job of looking sane and sober, because Jimmy flinches again, harder this time. My temper flares hot. “If you’ve been fucking up that long…” I point my fingers at his temple and mimic placing a gun to his head. “Your brains would have splattered this wall a long fucking time ago, Jimmy.” I dig my fingertips into his temple, twisting them as I push hard, harder , until he makes a choked, strangled sound in the back of his throat.
When I pull back, his skin’s an angry red and his eyes bug out of his head, but it’s not enough.
It never is.
The first punch lands square against his jaw. His head snaps back, a pained grunt pouring into the gag between his teeth. The second one reverberates up my arm, tingling my nerves in a shockwave that makes my jaw clench harder. On the third, his tooth splits the skin around my knuckles, and I hate him for it.
When I touch my girl later and see this stupid fucking cut from Jimmy’s stupid fucking teeth, he’ll be closer to her than he ever has the right to be.
And that makes me livid.
Despite my name, it’s rare for me to lose control. To really let go and pummel my opponents with all of the fury I keep locked up tight. Ever since I was old enough to make a fist, I’ve been warned about the dangers of striking out in anger. My mother, in particular, tried to soothe the beast when it was still a cub thrashing against its cage. She used to brush her palms over my knuckles and murmur a soft shh against my temple, attempting to calm the creature within.
When she died, no one stepped up to take her place.
My inner beast quickly grew claws and teeth, earning me a reputation within the bratva as a brawler. A demon. Tearing through his targets with a ferocity that astounded even the oldest, hardest men within the bratva’s ranks.
Most people pull their punches.
I learned early on how stupid that was.
The feel of Jimmy’s face beneath my fist becomes a rhythm as consistent as the pulse in my veins. I don’t stop, because I’m angry. It burns through my body like a poison, familiar in the way that it claims me much as I claim it. Harnessing that anger is what got me to where I am today: it’s power as much as it is poison. Most people don’t understand that. Anger is fuel. It’s a weapon. A friend.
Jimmy moans, the sound as pathetic as he is. I sneer as I take in the swollen bruises all over his face, hideous and malformed and downright revolting. Just like he is. I loosen my fist and stretch my fingers, knowing that they’re hot and bruised, too, as angry as I feel inside. “Fail me again, Jimmy,” I warn, “and it won’t be my fists kissing your face next time.”
From the shadows in the back of the room, my brother Ruin emerges, slinking forward into the light. Jimmy can’t see for shit with swollen eyelids and broken sockets, but he flinches anyway—they always do when Ruin appears from thin air. That’s part of his charm, I suppose, the way he can pull the fear from people’s hearts. It radiates from their bodies in this sickening cold that swallows the world whole in something bitter and gray.
If anger is my motivator, fear is my brother’s. He eats that shit up with a cracked-out smile and a pleased hum in his throat.
Crazy bastard.
“Keep him alive,” I remind Ruin, “but make sure he tells us everything. Go slow.” There’s zero chance that Jimmy isn’t pulling some shit, and I need to know what it is before it blows up in our fucking faces.
Even shit stains like him can create ripples in the system if they thrash around long enough.
Ruin tears the gag from Jimmy’s mouth. He likes to hear them scream.
“W-wait,” Jimmy slurs, “I’ll talk.” When my brother grabs a pair of metal cutters, his voice pitches higher. “ I’ll talk. ”
Sighing, I step aside and roll my shoulders back. Tension pulls in my back, and I grab the half-empty bottle of vodka from the table littered with various tools and instruments. Popping the cork, I chug a few swallows and let the burn settle over the thrum of rage still pulsing deep. It’ll take a minute to rein it back in. Being around fucking Jimmy doesn’t help. The whimpering alone is enough to make me wanna bash his skull in. “I know you will, Jimmy.” I smack his cheek and grip tight, dragging his eyes back to mine. “You don’t have a choice anymore.”
I leave my brother to his work. We’ve been doing this long enough that he knows not to kill Jimmy too quickly—first, we need all the intel in his puny fucking brain, and then Ruin can carve him up all he wants.
There are five cells we’ve built into the basement beneath the club, each one a concrete box meant to hold prisoners for as long as we need. Collecting things—intel, money, bribes—is part of the business. Collecting people is part of it, too, and the reason for the raucous upstairs. I can hear the laughter as I bound up the stairs to the main level. Each step forces another cinch of my mask into place, burying the rage beneath a layer of charm and charisma a club owner needs to keep his cattle in check.
Dangle carrots, not guns, to appeal to the stock.
With Celia knowing my identity, more or less , I don’t need to wear a physical mask tonight. The warm air upstairs is already tinged with the sting of booze and haze of cologne that comes with the party, and I dart into my family’s private suite in the back to freshen up before Celia arrives.
I can’t cover the bruises or cuts on my knuckles, but I dab them with antiseptic to keep them clean and wrap them in loose bindings. If Celia is observant, she’ll notice—maybe even ask questions.
I won’t lie to her about it if she does, but I’m hoping it won’t come to that. The last thing I want is fucking Jimmy on my mind when I’m with her.
As I swipe loose strands of hair from my eyes and slick them back into position, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Color has risen to my cheeks, stray flecks of Jimmy’s blood dotting my arms and neck. Mutely, I wash them off at the sink, pat myself dry, and take a deep, sobering breath.
If Celia isn’t already waiting for me at the front, she’ll arrive any minute. I instructed Rebel to keep her occupied until I was finished downstairs, so if he has any fucking sense, he’ll have listened and kept her away from the crowds. I’m not opposed to people seeing her—but if they touch one fucking hair on her head, they’re fucking dead. I clench my jaw as an image of her smiling at a faceless man surfaces to the front of my mind.
She wouldn’t dare.
Except…
I didn’t visit her this morning, so I have no clue what kind of mood she’s in. Will she be happy to see me? My chest swoops at the thought of her rushing to me, leaping up on her tiptoes to greet me with a kiss. As it should be. But knowing Celia, what I want isn’t what she’ll give me. She could be a moody bitch tonight. She could make everything smooth as fucking sandpaper solely because she’s stubborn as hell and doesn’t want to give in.
Even if she doesn’t admit it, she’s already mine.
We’ve been playing this back-and-forth game for weeks now, and although the resistance to my affections is expected, even appreciated at times, when we’re in front of the club or the bratva, the last thing I want is a challenge.
I want a woman clinging to my arm— begging for my mouth on hers—with every goddamn breath she takes.
Instead, I have the most stubborn, resistant woman on the face of the earth.
If I can’t keep my woman on my arm and her attitude in check, who will trust me to keep the club—and its surrounding streets—clamped tight in my fist? As archaic as the notion is about women being suppliant and subservient, there’s a reason for it. People expect bratva women to serve their men and spread their legs— willingly.
Claiming Celia as my future bride makes sense to everyone except her. She’s bratva-born and raised, despite her resistance to her family ties, and returning Celia to the fold will be the ultimate show of strength and stability that the bratva sorely needs after all the shit that went down with our pakhan and his queen.
We need to show that the Baranova Bratva is unified, strong, and not a force to be fucking messed with.
Which is why my future wife has to be Celia.
She’s the most resilient woman I fucking know.
So when I push through the back doors and spot her across the room with her arm looped through another man’s, at first, I’m grateful that Rebel is doing his job. But then she laughs, tipping her head back to reveal the column of her throat, and squeezes the man’s bicep.
She isn’t usually that receptive to any of my brothers.
Rebel is grinning down at her in that wolfish way men do when they find something pretty they think they can devour, but the cut of his jaw is all wrong. I step closer to find that his shoulders are too bulky and broad, then his legs too tall, and his suit too loose. His grip on her waist is too polite, even, with how gentle he’s holding her. He’s being careful. Claiming her in a show of light touches and lingering conversation, but not claiming her like Rebel would. My younger brother would snake his arms around her waist and bury his face in her neck for the thrill of having her all to himself.
The man on Celia’s arm is not my brother.
And he’s touching what’s mine.
Both of my fists curl as I storm across the room, determined to cut them off. They’ve begun following the steady trail of people heading to the playrooms at the back of the club—likely intending to join the fray.
The mere idea of another man from me or my brothers undressing Celia, paying her compliments, eying her perfect skin, touching the swell of her cheek or worse, actually fucking kissing her , sends me into a fury stronger than fucking Jimmy’s pathetic whimpering ever could.
If we’re playing a game to see whose lap she’ll sit on tonight, willingly or otherwise, there’s only one possible victor, and he’s standing right fucking here. Convincing the room—and the idiot hooked to her side—is the easy part. Convincing Celia that she’s mine, however, is the challenge.
But I know one thing for certain: failure isn’t a fucking option. Celia Monrovia will understand not only that she’s mine , but she’ll know what that means by the end of the night.
No matter how much it fucking hurts to swallow.