25. Tatiana

25

TATIANA

FIGHT NIGHT

W e were on our way to the underground fight, and I hadn't been able to get rid of these nerves since this entire excursion was planned at our post-celebratory lunch.

I rested on the leather of the back seat in the sleek town car I was currently riding in. Nikolai was in the driver's seat and Amara in the passenger. She kept the conversation light, but mostly the soft music playing from the radio filled the silence.

"You doing okay?" Nikolai was the one to ask me, and I looked at his eyes in the rearview mirror.

"I'm fine." I could feel his worry about tonight, about what happened to me possibly triggering me to the point where I'd have a meltdown. In fact, before we'd left, both Dmitry and Nikolai tried to talk me out of going.

Nikolai's voice was calm, but I could feel the underlying tension as he spoke. "You should have never gone to the fight, Tati."

"You should have never fucking brought it up, brat ."

I could see the guilt etched into Nikolai's expression. My brothers had always been my protectors, but they couldn't shield me from the world's darkness—from the hell we lived in—no matter how much they wanted to.

"It was stupid of me to bring it up," Nikolai muttered to himself. His voice was low, remorse laced through each word.

I looked at him, seeing a rare glimpse of vulnerability in his icy-blue eyes.

"I wasn't thinking." He ran a hand through his hair, his frustration evident. "What you went through at the last fight you attended…." He cursed in Russian under his breath.

My heart tightened not from the memories that threatened to surface but from the love I saw in their eyes.

"You know we'll keep you safe, even if we failed you the last time. "

They meant every word, but they didn't understand. I wasn't that fragile little girl anymore who they wanted to protect. I couldn't be.

I pulled myself back into the present. I needed this. God, I needed this like a healing balm on an open wound.

"If at any time you want to go, you just say the word. Got it?"

I nodded. "Got it."

Before long, we were traveling through a shady-looking area, the houses appearing as if they hadn't been lived in or tended to in decades.

The neighborhood opened up to a more industrial area with the river our city was built around running parallel to the road we were on. And before I knew it, Nikolai was turning off onto a side road and then pulling into a massive, graveled lot I recognized.

With the dirty-looking river beside Butcher and Son containing the cement piles of a bridge that had long ago burned down and had never been rebuilt, the entire area resembled a cemetery at this point, tombstones and all.

We stayed in the car for several minutes, none of us speaking. Finally, Dmitry's car pulled up beside us. We all climbed out, and I stared up at the building, me in the center of the group with Claudia to my right and Dmitry caging her in and Amara to my left with Nikolai taking up the end.

I was also very aware of the men who were stationed around the dilapidated building. Extra men my brothers ordered to come here to make sure there was additional security, since the three most important females in their lives would be present for the fights tonight.

"Anyone see or hear from Gio?" Amara was the one to ask, and Nikolai answered right away.

"He'll join us later."

I'd seen him already this morning—something no one in my party knew. He'd woken me the way he always did, with his mouth between my legs.

I tipped my head back and saw faded writing above the large bay doors I hadn't noticed last time, but I couldn't read it clearly, as it was too aged and sun-washed.

We were led toward a steel door at the back of the warehouse. It opened before we even got to it, and a huge man stepped to the side. He averted his eyes when Dmitry approached, murmured something in Russian, which my brother grunted in response to. He stepped farther aside, and all of us went inside.

Instantly, the scent of old and wet filled my nostrils, and I crinkled my nose before placing my hand over it. Even though I'd come to an underground fight before, I knew I'd never get used to this scent.

There was the very clear and distinct stench of aged blood from too many bodies finding their last resting place before they were buried or disposed of.

Amara shivered next to me, and Nikolai murmured something only she could hear.

A few moments later, we stopped in front of another door, which opened, the loud squeak of metal grating against metal filling my ears.

We were greeted with a staircase that descended, which was similar to the one I experienced when I arrived at my first and only fight. A chill went up my spine.

And although being here was a huge trigger for my trauma, knowing my brothers and Gio were here and that I felt stronger than I ever had before made the entire situation tolerable.

The feeling of guards watching us was tangible. We couldn't see them, but we knew they'd be there if shit went down .

The deeper we went, the louder the noise became. When we reached the bottom and turned the corner, we followed a long underground corridor, and I sensed we were moving away from the basement where the last fight I saw was. And after a few tense minutes of our steps echoing off the empty hall's walls, it was so silent. One more door was opened for us, and the sudden loud noise of shouting and cheering let me know it had been that eerily quiet because the room was soundproof.

Stepping through, I saw the massive underground fighting circuit. This was a different location, which also had a different setup from the last place I was at, so that seemed to help settle my nerves. But seeing all the people crowded into the bowels of this place had my blood pressure rising and my heart rate increasing.

Metal beams lined the entire ceiling overhead, and rusty-caged lights hung from them. Looking back down, I stared at the ring erected in the center of the immense space.

After we went down one last flight of stairs, which took us from the now obvious VIP entrance to the main floor—that had a couple of other entrances everyone else used—there were several men who came up to my brothers to speak with them. And although they had to speak louder than normal to be heard over the boisterous crowd surrounding us, I still couldn't make out a word of their conversation.

We started moving through the horde again, and people parted for us like they knew danger was knocking. The men glanced to the ground, knowing this family was led by two predators, but the women… the women openly showed their desire for my brothers. They clearly didn't give a shit that the two men sandwiching me had their wives pressed tightly to their sides and showed their possessive affection only to them.

I spotted chairs placed right in front of the ring. Nikolai took one chair at the end, and Amara sat right beside him. He had his arm slung over her shoulders and pulled her closer to say something in her ear. Something that had her cheeks turning red.

I sat down in the chair beside Amara. The more I searched the area, taking in this new arena, the more I found myself anticipating seeing Gio. Was he coming as a spectator? Or would he be fighting?

Dmitry took the chair at the other end of our row with Claudia sitting between him and me. I glanced at my new sister-in-law and gave her a warm smile, although I wondered if it looked as nervous as I felt right now .

I smoothed my hands over my thighs and glanced around once again. I saw men dressed in dark fatigues close to where we were seated and could almost smell the Russian guard-dog vibe pouring off them.

The noise was so loud it was deafening.

God, this place is utter chaos .

After a few minutes, everyone in the room suddenly went absolutely wild, the volume inside this underground space becoming completely overwhelming. Apparently, they'd seen someone come through one of the many doors along the perimeter because, a moment later, a massive man jumped into the ring. He had dark-red hair that was buzzed close to his head, and there was a crazy looking dragon tattoo that covered one of his shoulders, the hind legs and wings draping down his arm.

Anticipation and adrenaline raced through my veins when everyone went totally quiet, as if they knew something fucked up was about to happen.

And then—pandemonium.

The people who were in the very few areas with seating stood up and shouted, raising their hands in the air as they screamed angry, violent things along with everyone else besides us.

I leaned in close to Amara, my sister-in-law pregnant with my niece or second nephew, and I rubbed her arm in support. The noise was obviously too much for her, and I was about to tell Nikolai to leave with his wife when my brother sensed her unease and pushed the long fall of her hair off her shoulder. He leaned in and said something to her. She shook her head, and he gave her a narrow-eyed look and made a huff of irritation that he clearly wasn't getting his way.

He reached into his pocket and handed her a pair of earplugs, which she took and put in with a grateful smile. He offered me a pair, and I was tempted to take them, but I decided to wave him off, hoping it would give him the impression I wasn't as weak as he and our brother thought I was. I assumed Dmitry gave Claudia the option as well, but I was too focused on the ring and what was to come.

To my left, I saw people moving out of the way and sat up straighter, trying to catch a glimpse of who was weaving through the crowd. Although, I already knew. God, I knew it was him . I felt the charge of electricity in the air.

And then I saw him.

He was a head taller than everyone else.

When he climbed into the cage, I couldn't help but stare at Gio in all his vicious, intense, and highly addictive glory.

A skull mask covered the lower half of his face once again, and he wore black shorts, tape wrapped around his knuckles, and nothing else.

Everyone was shouting, "D'yavol!" But all that noise faded as soon as my eyes landed on Gio.

I glanced at Amara, and her expression was too confusing for me to tell if she was aware this was her brother. But when I peeked over at Claudia, her look told me all I needed to know.

She'd already known who she would be watching fight tonight. But how?

As if my thoughts were shouted for all to hear, Amara looked at her sister, her eyes wide as they bounced between Claudia and D'yavol.

Yup. Now, she knew, too.

But like a negative and positive magnet, my eyes were drawn back to Gio. Yet, it was Claudia and Dmitry talking beside me, loudly enough I could hear their words, that had my ears focused on them. And since I was a nosy bitch, I eavesdropped.

"Why don't you look surprised, little wife?"

"I wasn't snooping!" Claudia blurted out, and I could tell she hadn't meant to say it.

Even though I was staring at my tattooed dream man inside the ring, I was totally focused on the two people beside me. I felt my eyebrows rise a little in surprise at Claudia's high-pitched yet haughty tone. To say I was eager to hear the rest was an understatement.

"But I found paperwork."

Paperwork?

"And I realized D'yavol was Gio. Figured it out from his signature."

What in the hell are they talking about? How could Claudia find out D'yavol's identity from paperwork?

I looked at Nikolai and then Dmitry, and then it clicked.

Even if this was illegal underground fighting, my brothers would have made sure they had their asses covered. So there had to be some kind of contract between my brothers and Gio for him to fight for Nikolai and Dmitry, and why the Head of the West Coast Italian Mafia had chosen a Russian name as his alias.

"We sign the letter A of our last name with the same flourish at the top. Always have, ever since I saw his signature when I was young and thought it was pretty, so I started doing it, too. It was the same stylized A in D'yavol's signature," Claudia murmured but not soft enough that I didn't hear her. In fact, really being nosy, I leaned toward her so I could catch the words clearly. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Dmitry was the one to speak now, his voice even. "Before marrying you, it wasn't my place to tell you what your brother did in his free time."

"And after marrying me?" Claudia asked, her tone accusing.

I glanced out the corner of my eye to see Dmitry looking at Gio. My brother exhaled roughly, and I was shocked to see he looked almost… guilty—an emotion I didn't know he could feel—before speaking. "I would've told you everything. I planned on doing it, but then Nikolai pulled his shit at dinner after our wedding. This wasn't how I wanted you to find out, even though I knew you would eventually."

The noise rose slightly, so I couldn't make out whatever Dmitry was now saying, but I picked up on the last bit, and my heart raced because I knew… I knew it was the truth.

"Some people need an outlet, sweet girl. Some people need to feel like they are nobody and the same as everybody else all in the same breath."

I closed my eyes after he spoke, remembering the intimate conversation I had with Gio, when he'd said as much to me. He bared his soul in that moment, revealing things I knew he'd always kept buried.

It made me love him even more in this moment, hearing the same thing from my big brother.

The fight started, and I opened my eyes to take in all the carnage.

The way Gio fought was vicious. He was strategic with his moves, yet the fight seemed to go on forever. But before I knew it, the fight ended, and my man stood over the unmoving body of his opponent.

For a moment, I thought he killed the other man, but I could see the slight twitching of the beaten fighter's fingers and the irregular rise and fall of his chest.

A few men came into the cage and pulled the loser out, dragging his nearly lifeless body off and out of sight. Blood smeared along the already stained, white mat in a showcase of the brutality we all just witnessed.

The crowd went insane, and I couldn't look away from the father of the baby he didn't yet know that grew inside me. He stood in the center of the ring, his chest covered with a mixture of sweat and blood. His head was slightly lowered, and he gazed at me.

And then Gio was out of the cage and disappeared into the crowd .

After a suspended moment, the five of us stood, and we were led through the sea of bodies into a darkened hallway.

My heart was racing because the sight of Gio all sweaty and bloody had me wet.

I was good and fucked up for that man.

And I loved it.