Chapter 22 – Ivan
Penelope: When can I see them?
Penelope: I know you read that. I can see it.
Penelope: Ivan! Quit ignoring me. I want to see my cousin!
The canvas bag jerked under the weight of the blow. Pain exploded across my fist, echoing the sound of the hit. The muscles in my arms were screaming at this point, but I kept them up, pulling my fists back to unleash another brutal attack.
She refused me.
Rayko grunted in an effort to hold the bag steady.
There might be more modern ways to train, but I preferred to slam my knuckles against a heavy bag that might as well have been concrete.
Over and over, I struck. If it was good enough for the boxers of old, it was good enough for me.
Dick Sadler used to be lifted off the floor when Foreman struck the bag in this same manner.
Rayko, at least, could bear the brunt of my punches.
“We’ve been here for three hours,” my second in command observed.
From the steady cadence of his voice, no one would know he was winded. But a telltale bead of sweat trickled down his forehead.
I didn’t respond. After dropping Poppy off at home, pulling Rayko from guard duty, and charging Kiril and Boris with watching the house, I came straight here.
I was mad.
Not angry, but insane. A mad dog. Of course, she wouldn’t want a man like me for a husband.
A strand of hair escaped and fell along the right side of my face. I dashed a gloved hand over it, but it mocked me by falling right back down.
Letting out a string of curses, I launched myself into the bag.
Rayko stumbled, leaning into my weight with his legs skidding backward to try and find purchase.
“The fuck, man?” he snapped.
I turned away in a rush of defeat. My teeth sank into the tape. It tore from my skin. If it pulled hairs or irritated skin on a smaller level, I couldn’t feel it. Physical pain was nothing to the pulsing in my head.
She refused me.
A relative of Mancini, she probably grew up in a palace. Sure, her house in North Dakota was small and cozy, but after doing some digging into her life there, I found that she owned it outright, which in this day and age was a feat for someone as young as her.
Ebasi! Youth, Poppy had that alright. We were eleven years apart.
Yet another reason she was likely disgusted at my idea.
Because that was what I saw tonight. And like an idiot, I kept talking even when she shook like a leaf with barely contained laughter.
When she gasped to hide the hilarity. When her eyes bulged with mirth, and blood rushed to make her face bright red.
She tried to hide her reaction, but it was there.
My proposal, which I put a lot of thought into, was laughable to her.
Going into the locker room, I cranked the water to cold and stepped under the pelting, icy rain.
It did little to help me regain control.
The need to fight surged through every fiber of my being.
A true fight, one where I was locked in mortal combat with another, and the outcome was uncertain.
Facing someone for sport in the basement of Nosh wasn’t going to cut it, just like brutalizing the punching bag wouldn’t.
I slammed off the water, swiped a towel over my head, and hurried to change.
Rayko caught me just as I plucked my keys. His eyes landed on the switchblade open in my palm.
There was a pause where he stared at the knife. I vibrated with a lethal energy, ready to shove him out of the doorway. But then his shoulders slumped.
“I know a spot where we can pick off some scumbags,” he sighed. “Come on, I’ll drive.”
I tossed him the keys.
Once we were in the car, sliding through the nocturnal traffic that consisted mostly of truckers, Rayko rubbed his chin. “I take it the girl didn’t accept.”
The knife spun through my fingers, a dangerous dance I’d mastered. “That’s right.”
“Pity,” he mused. “I liked her.”
An overwhelming rush of anger shot through me. I lunged for him, bringing the point of my knife to his neck. The suddenness made him swerve, the speedometer dipping below eighty.
“Fuck, boss! Do you want to get us killed?” Rayko shouted, ducking around me to keep his eyes on the road.
“You like her?” I dug the tip of the blade into his throat. “You fucking like her!”
“Yeah, I think she’s good for you. She’s friendly,” he panted, straining to drive, while under the very real threat of death. “It will be a pity when we bury her.”
A muscle ticked in my jaw.
Oh, I get it now.
He wasn’t after her for himself, but still—
“There will be no silencing her,” I snarled, sliding the sharp edge along his jaw to prove my point. “She is to remain unharmed.”
“Message received,” Rayko gulped.
I sat back in my seat.
The car ducked off the highway as the driver rubbed his neck.
“I’m bleeding, you fucker,” he hissed.
“Consider yourself lucky.” I turned to stare at the rundown streets we drove.
The reflection that faintly glowed on my side of the window showed the truth.
A rabid dog, snapping at its own friends with fangs set to kill.
Of course, she didn’t want a mangy mutt like me.
But…that didn’t matter. She was mine. I still remembered the spark from seeing her in Mancini’s garden, and that was before I knew she was irrevocably linked to me.
Fate, the universe, or even some god brought us together, but we were here. And I was keeping her.
If I had to drag her to church, I would make her mine.
She won’t forgive me for forcing her.
Details like that didn’t matter to crazed canines, though. It was done.
Rayko slowed to a stop along a rough street. “The Irish let the gangs run this section of turf. Flannigan doesn’t care so long as they pay him. I heard through the grapevine that these punks are shooting each other down during the daylight. Last week, they hit some kid playing on its bike.”
“Which one?” I peered through the windshield at the groups of unorganized men hanging out by their cars.
“Does it matter?” Rayko asked. “The kid’s dead.”
I spun my knife through my fingers. “No, no, it doesn’t matter.”
As I pushed from the seat, ready to hunt my prey from the shadows, Rayko emerged, armed with a handgun and machete, ready to watch my six.
I owed my friend an apology for the stunt on the road.
But he wouldn’t take it even if I gave it.
He knew. He understood. And that was why he was by my side a moment later, ready to eviscerate men we had no quarrel with for the sole purpose of sating the bloodlust coursing through me.