Chapter 2
KIR
With a burst of fury, my arm shoots out and my fist connects with sweat-slicked flesh. My opponent grunts, and his eyes roll back a little behind the mask covering the top half of his face.
I have one covering mine, too.
But he recovers instantly , and this time, it’s me who groans when he swings at my now-unprotected midsection.
Fuck .
The wind slams out of my lungs as the motherfucker pounds me in the upper abs, just below my rib cage.
Common sense would dictate that now might be a good time to call this. After all, masks or not, I’m fairly sure—based on his ability, the liquor on his breath, and the massive horned bull tattoo on his chest—who my opponent in the underground ring is tonight.
All the more reason to call it quits.
Roman Nikitin has a few inches and about twenty pounds of solid muscle on me. Not to mention, he’s about fifteen years younger. I’m starting to get fatigued from all the punches, meanwhile this guy is just getting warmed up.
Besides, I don’t really give a shit about any of this.
Not about the bets still being placed by the screaming crowd around us. I’ve got money riding on this fight, too, because why not. But at this point in my life, I could care less about that part.
I’ve got more money than I could spend in ten lifetimes. I could lose a fortune on this fight and not even notice.
Same goes for the “glory”. I’m no stranger to the whisperings of one’s ego when it comes to combat.
I’ve been fighting since I was literally a child.
The streets of Moscow taught me that pride and honor are things you’re not allowed to lose, even if you don’t win.
Then, later, six years in Zavolzhsky Penal Camp Eighteen in Siberia taught me that winning is everything , because to lose is to die.
Both are a bit different from the refereed, gloved, “fight only until a tap-out” ring I’m currently in. But still—when you’re ready to give in, you dig deeper to find fear or hatred…any emotion you can forge into anger, which in turn fuels the fury.
Today it doesn’t take much digging.
All I have to do is think of Dimitri.
Do we have a deal, Mr. Nikolayev?
Even if my knuckles weren’t currently throbbing, my hand would still feel the sting of the handshake from earlier today, cementing that deal .
Ostensibly, my new agreement with Dimitri Moskovic is a mutually beneficial one. After something like four decades of conflict between our families, Dimitri and I have finally come to a ceasefire agreement, with, quite honestly, completely reasonable terms.
No more rivalry. No more violence. No more continuing the stupid fight that our fathers started long before either of us was running our respective empires. Hell, before they could even be called “empires”.
There’s just one problem.
My lips curl as I suck in a ragged breath of air. Sweat trickles down my bare chest. I hear the jeers and roars of the men around us. Feel the muscles and tendons of my arm and shoulder contract as I turn the anger in me into fury and fuel.
Roman—well, probably Roman—grunts when I explode into him, my right cross slamming into his jaw and almost knocking the fucker off his feet.
The problem with this perfectly reasonable agreement between Dimitri and me?
It’s me . And I am not, most of the time, a reasonable man .
I don’t want an equitable resolution. I want conquest. Victory. I want to win .
A lion doesn’t have any interest in making an arrangement with a wild boar for future food deliveries on a schedule. It wants to tear that fucking pig in half and bathe in its blood so that the whole jungle remembers who is king.
I don’t care that this deal basically boils down to Dimitri staying out of the U.S., me staying out of Russia, and me using my connections to help his daughter, Inessa, get into the ultra-elite Ballet Imperiya Korona .
It’s not like anyone’s cutting any big checks, or giving up important territory. I barely visit my country of birth anymore, and the business I conduct there is inconsequential. The same goes for whatever small pies Dimitri has his fingers in here in New York.
So why the actual fuck do I feel cheated? Like the lion being forced to make a handshake deal with his dinner?
Roman…or whoever…shakes off my hit, rolling his neck with his teeth bared and his fists up. But just then, we’re saved by the proverbial bell.
DING-DING-DING!
That’s five rounds, which is the limit imposed on tonight’s fights. There are other fights that these promotors throw which do not have limits of any kind, but that’s not really my scene. I prefer living , personally.
My opponent and I, both of us sucking in air, touch gloves with curt nods before retreating to our respective corners. Around us the crowd is in an uproar, screaming and roaring to collect bets or pay out on their spreads.
I use my teeth to rip the tape off, then slide the gloves off my swollen hands.
“Not bad, old man.”
I smirk as I turn to it’s-definitely-Roman, now also sans gloves, standing before me in my corner of the ring.
“I would have thought your father would have instilled in you more respect for one’s elders, Mr. Nikitin.”
He bristles visibly when I call him by name.
“There are rules here, Kir,” he snarls. “Hence the masks.”
“Well,” I smile at him, “you’d know more about masks and underground cloak and dagger skullduggery than me.”
That earns me another sharp glare.
Roman, together with four other young underworld kings and princes of New York, make up something called The Black Court.
It’s all very dramatic, in my opinion: animal masks, an underground lair, the adjudicated “guilty” party being given a choice of literally fighting one of the five for a chance at freedom, or else running from one of them through some underground labyrinth they have.
Again, it’s all very over the top, and really not that interesting to me.
However, most of them seem to think I’ve got an ax to grind with the Court. That I’ve got some sort of “get off my lawn” old-guy mentality and a deep distrust for their brand of vigilante underworld justice.
They’re wrong. I honestly couldn’t give a fuck what Roman and his little friends do. So long as they stay away from me and my business, they can fight or chase whoever the fuck they want.
That said… I really enjoy fucking with them. And Roman, with his quick temper, is a ridiculously easy mark.
“We’re ready for you any time you want to stop creeping around the shadows and come at us face-on, old man,” Roman growls, nodding as someone passes him a beer I’m positive he doesn’t need.
“A supremely gracious invitation, Mr. Nikitin,” I sigh in a bored tone, rubbing a towel over my chest. “I’ll have to tell my assistant to RSVP for me sometime.”
Roman downs half his beer and levels a cold look my way. “We have a problem we need to sort out now, old man?”
“We will if you keep calling me old man ,” I say through a tight smile.
I’m forty-four, not eighty-seven, for fuck’s sake. And I just fought the little cunt to a draw, so…
Roman drains the rest of his beer and then taps me in the chest belligerently with the bottom of the bottle.
“You keep looking for a fight, Kir, and you’re going to?—”
“Yes, well, this has been very engaging, Mr. Nikitin,” I sigh in a bored tone. “But as thrilling a conversation as this is, I’ve gotten what I came for, and it’s time for me to leave.”
“That was a draw ,” he growls at my back as I turn away. “Not a win. In case you were confused.”
I smile blandly as I turn back. “Oh, I didn’t come here to win.”
I came here to shake loose some of the fury rattling around inside of me after my “agreement” with Dimitri. To that end, mission fucking accomplished.
I really should try actual therapy someday.
I push my way through the sweating crowd to where I left my shirt and jacket neatly folded over the back of a chair.
Tonight was a packed house. Not an empty seat in the whole place—except for this one. No one tried to sit here, for the same reason my shirt and jacket are exactly where I left them, completely undisturbed.
Masks or not, everyone here knows who the fuck I am.
I finish toweling off my chest and shoulders, slip my mask off, run my fingers through my dark hair, and pull on my shirt. The jacket is next, my shoulders flexing as I slip it on.
A few handshakes and a couple of “always good to see you, Mr. Nikolayev”s later, I’m walking out the side door into the New York night.
The sweltering, locker-room stink of the warehouse dissipates as the relatively cool city air washes over me. I roll my neck and crack my knuckles, and I’m heading back to my car when something catches my attention and doesn’t let go.
It’s ironic that tonight’s fight happened to be held here, at a warehouse directly across the street from The Mirage strip club.
Dimitri owns the Mirage. At least, he will until the terms of our agreement go into effect six months from now and he’s forced to sell it.
But it’s not Dimitri’s flickering neon sign advertising “GIRLS GIRLS GI-LS”—as if there’s any confusion about what goes on in that shithole—that captures my attention.
It’s the young woman.
From here, she’s just another blonde in a skirt and t-shirt, half turned away from me, holding what looks like a ratty old gym bag to her chest. But I’m not looking at her because she’s caught my male attention.
I’m looking at her because she’s currently surrounded by four fucking hyenas.
Finance douchebags, by the looks—all Dockers and polo shirts and watches they can only afford if that long-shot short position of theirs pays off by the next quarterly meeting at Black Rock, or Ironclad Holdings, or whatever other fucking hedge fund they work at.
The definitely don’t look like they belong outside a neon dump like The Mirage, circling the girl like carrion birds.
Whatever this is, it doesn’t look…friendly.
It also doesn’t look like my business. So I turn away with my keys out, ready to feel the rev of my Aston Martin DBS Superleggera, listen to some Nirvana on full volume through the speakers, and go the fuck home .
It’s her scream that stops me.
Not the shriek of a damsel in distress. It’s more like a battle cry as she prepares herself for war. But when I turn back to the scene behind the strip club, I don’t see a battle.
I see hyenas chasing prey.
The girl is running through the back parking lot, dropping her bag at some point as she dashes across the street. The jackals stay right behind her, closing in fast.
My jaw tenses. My muscles coil. My hands curl back into fists, like they were earlier.
One of them tackles her to the concrete of an old, beaten-up parking lot, and the rest of them pile on.
I don’t even realize I’m running until I’m almost on top of them. I’m unaware of crossing two streets and another parking lot until I’m milliseconds away from crashing right into them.
Which is exactly what I proceed to do.
The motherfuckers have her clothes half ripped off, but scatter like fucking bowling pins when I slam into them with a guttural roar. After that, it’s not even a fight, even though there are four of them.
One, they’re apparently a bunch of pussies. And two, there’s a fury in my blood I’m not even sure I felt back there in the ring with Roman.
The first one crumples when I break his nose and smash his front teeth in for good measure. I hit him again, because why the fuck not, and this time, the light dims in his eyes before I throw him back and turn to his friends.
Down goes another. Then the third, as he’s turning to run like the little bitch he is.
The fourth shitbag actually does start to run away. But he doesn’t make it ten steps before the hunk of broken tarmac I throw at him hits him squarely in the back of the head, shutting that down.
I have half a mind to line the four of them up and execute them right fucking here. But before I can think through the logistics of committing quadruple homicide, a soft, broken, heartbreaking whimper comes from behind me.
I turn, and my eyes finally land on the girl.
Christ, they did a number on her. I move toward her, my teeth grinding tighter with every step. Blood covers half her face, her long blonde hair matted into it covering the other half.
I avoid looking at her bare breasts, her ripped shirt and half torn-off bra. She makes a small move to push her skirt back down over her underwear. As I get closer to her, her eyes snap to mine, bright, crystal blue. Even through the pain, the tears, and the blood.
But when they lock with mine as I start to kneel down next to her, something dims in them and she collapses utterly, like her body’s just…given up.
The rational thing to do back in the ring was to stop fighting the big motherfucker fifteen years my junior. Same as the rational thing to do now would be to call an ambulance, or the police—or both—to make sure she gets the help she needs.
But tonight must be a night for irrational behavior, because before I know what I’m doing, before I can tell myself not to get involved, I’m sliding my arms under her limp body and scooping her off the dirty, hard ground.
Fucking hell, she weighs nothing at all as I cradle her against my chest.
Yeah, fuck waiting for the cops or an ambulance to get all the way out here.
She’s coming with me.