1. Vitali

ONE

Vitali

one year later

M y knee is stiff as fuck. Before I even open my eyes, I know it’s going to be a bad day and blindly reach for the pills I keep hidden. Rehab took months but they don’t tell you the pain stays, and I pop three of them dry just to be able to open my eyes. Sweat coats my body and the sheets are on me again when I never sleep under them, yet I’ll always wake up like this. Propping my arm under my head, I wait for the pain meds to kick in and stare at the ceiling.

It doesn’t take long until little footsteps carefully walk towards my door and Verena pokes her head through. Her grumpy little face splits into a smile when she sees I’m awake and I’m definitely her favorite uncle as she holds a cup with two hands. She’s the only good thing about my day and spills whatever concoction she’s made today as she walks into the room.

The pain meds are working, and my voice is normal as I pat the mattress beside me for her to get up.

“What have you got, Verochka?”

She holds the cup out for me to take as though it’s gold and waits for me to pick her up to sit her beside me. It doesn’t look like it’s pool water and there’s a tea bag in it, making it safer than the other choices she’s given me. My niece is the cutest fucking kid ever as she looks up proudly. “Papa said Tali sleepy. I make it.”

I’m about to take a sip but pause just to make sure it’s safe.

“No pool water?”

When she shakes her head, I let it continue the journey to my mouth, but the kid has the worst fucking timing. I nearly choke when she says with the same pride, “I got it from toilet.”

Great. I’ve got fucking toilet water at my lips.

Setting the cup down, I pick her up and pain shoots up my thigh as soon as there’s weight on my leg.I can’t even carry my niece properly without being medicated and I put her on her feet to follow after me. Vero is my little duckling, waddling behind me with a twirl every third step. Her humming is cute as fuck as she stops at the bathroom door and looks up at me, a mini girly version of Vlad with her big marble eyes narrowing. “You go potty?”

I nod and she points at her feet. “Me here.”

I give her another nod as I leave her to twirl and hum to herself.

For as long as I can remember I’ve had theories, little things my mind creates to make sense of shit in my head. They’re all slowly coming true in the most twisted ways but never the ones I have about my own life. The life I want and crave, where this whole happy family is also one I have, is out of reach. I’m not jealous of my brothers, I’m happy for the fuckers, I just…I want that shit too, to experience having someone who’s there for me and I don’t have to hide from.

Once I’ve removed any trace of toilet water from my mouth, I pop another three pills to be able to function with the morning. With my pain receptors successfully numbed, I open the bathroom door, and my niece pokes her head around the edge.

One way that she’s not like her dad is the fact that she doesn’t invade space without being invited in.

“Come here, Vero.”

She spins on one foot and dances through the door. The twinge of pain is still there as I lift her to sit on the vanity and I delay being around the rest of my family as I ask the princess, “Did your mama do your hair?”

She nods and smooths her hand over the dark strands while proving she’s her father’s daughter. “Mama wasn’t very good.”

I hold my hand out to help her stand, so she doesn’t end up falling into the sink, and we settle into our morning routine. There’s a small huff when she can’t reach my moisturizer, and she tries to click her fingers for me to pass it to her. I’ve already got in shit for telling her to say please before, so I don’t make the same mistake as I deposit a small amount in her palm.

I’m vain, I don’t give a fuck who knows it, and my niece has gentle hands, so I won’t get wrinkles from her massaging the moisturizer into my skin. My training hasn’t paid off with her drinks, but it has when it comes to my skincare routine because she taps my chest and says, “Down.”

Dipping my head to remove any strain from her arms, I look up into the light as she applies the roller under my eyes. Once she’s done, we swap roles and I take out all of the kid-safe products that Inessa has approved. Most of them are just water-soaked pads that won’t have any benefit, but Vero closes her eyes and tilts her chin up as she sighs.

I kiss the tip of her nose once we’re both successfully relaxed and pampered, then pick her up. Her face falls back to its naturally grumpy state as we walk through the house, following the trail of water she’s spilled. I can even see which bathroom she used, and all of the fuckers are awake.

Extending my voice as I get closer to the kitchen, I force more playfulness into it as I ask, “None of you thought to stop her getting water out of the fucking toilet?”

We all have roles in this family. Mine is to go along with whatever’s said, don’t cause shit or add anything heavy to the burden of life. Inessa’s is to mother us all and she scolds me for my language as though we’re saints or some shit.

“Keep going, Vitali, and it will be soap next.”

But Stasi is sitting next to her, pretending to be a cold-hearted bitch, refusing to look at me as she says, “You’re full of shit so it’s easy to understand how she got confused.”

Sitting Verena with the other kids, I purposefully stand too close to Stasi and dip down so only she can hear my whisper. “And your mouth was full of my dick last night. Can you still taste me?”

We have a system that works — I fuck her, and she fucks me back. The only thing that we disagree on is her personality change when the sun comes up. Stasi is fueled by two things – coke and cum. I’ve never seen her go skiing but everyone knows about her partying habits and the rumors build truth when she’s always fresh faced and bright eyed in the morning no matter how hard I fuck her.

She tries to block the seat beside her by grabbing the chair leg, it just draws my attention to it when I was going to sit there anyway, and I pull it back, ignoring the way the legs screech against the floor from the force of her grip. Once I’m seated, I keep one hand under the table and hold her thigh. I’ve never seen her eat anything other than leaves. She’s like a giraffe: all tall lines and elegant as fuck but she survives on shoots. Her delicate hands slowly caress my thigh, and she moves down, covering my scarred knee. My body tenses and I drop my hold on her thigh, hating that the scars are there for everyone to see.

When the pit opens up in my stomach, I try to fill it and steal Viktor’s plate. It’s always been there since I was a kid, in Russia eating was a way to feel comfort when Len or Anika turned the house into their own porn studio. I couldn’t hear them if I focused on the food that Vlad had squirrelled away in his room. Not when Val would hold his hands over my ears and turned me so my back was to them. Now it’s for the familiarity. You can’t be pissed when you’re eating; food is warmth and nourishing, and there’s no fear of it being taken away.

My nephew is a shithead teenager and kicks me under the table as he tries to stab my hand with his fork. “Get your own plate.”

I smile widely at him and hold my food up. “I already have one, get me seconds when you get yours.”

He smirks, narrowing his eyes at me before turning to the woman who haunts me even in my dreams, and asks, “ Stasya , do you want to watch a movie with me?”

She never lets me call her by the diminutive version of her name, but she smiles at the little shit and stumbles through her agreement. “Yeah, of course.”

It’s slow and unsure, but she agreed, so I do the sane thing and invite myself along.

“What we watching?”

They both turn to me as I cut up my food and load my fork. Viktor was the first of the generation for too many years, and he’s a spoilt little fucking brat who doesn’t remember all the shit I’ve done for him as he pushes his chair back, declaring, “You can watch whatever you want. Alone.”

He goes to his mom and smiles sweetly at her, being a snitch. Dani’s going to tell me off like I’m a child for stealing his food, so I tune it out as I focus on my girl.

“Since when do you let people call you Stasya?”

She sips her coffee, removing all the emotion from her voice to say, “Only the ones I like.”

Stasi’s bad for a man’s ego and she knows it. But I have a good memory, and I lean into her, refusing to allow her to forget.

“You liked me enough in the middle of the night.”

There’s no tell that she’s affected as she continues drinking her damn coffee while my dick hardens at the mere thought of her. This woman has me on a thread, and I love and loathe it in equal parts. She tugs it as she drops her voice to whisper, “I had an itch, consider it successfully scratched, Vartanov.”

I’m surprised she doesn’t pat me on the head to say job well done as she gracefully sets her cup down and stands. There isn’t a hair out of place and her ass is directly in my eye line as she walks away from me to go into Vlad’s office with Dima and Vanya entering after her. My head automatically tilts as I watch her beautiful ass. Fuck, if she didn’t look so good walking away from me I’d hate it a lot more.

Rough fingers jab my temple, causing my head to move back into an upright position as Val blocks my view, then a napkin hits my chin at the same time as his need to open his mouth.

“You’ve got some drool.” He takes the seat beside me and looks in the direction my girl left before smirking to himself and shaking his head. “You don’t stand a chance with her.”

Jokes on him because I’ve been fucking her for a year and one day I’ll wake up with her beside me. I haven’t figured out the logistics, but I’m close to drugging her perfect ass to make sure she’s there when I wake up. It’s the decent thing to do since she puts me to sleep but she never stays. She even straightens the sheets, removing as many traces of herself as possible when I can’t forget her.

Stasi is my obsession, at first it was because she’s beautiful, but the more I’m around her, she’s become an equation I want to solve. I can’t even develop theories to satisfy my curiosity like I do with other people, I just need to know every single part of her life while she keeps my balls empty and chin wet.

Viktor is content in being a snitch and sits beside his dad so I can’t steal the new plate Dani has made up for him as we go through the details of the fight tonight. He stares at me as he places his forearm on the table as an extra barrier and I hold my middle finger up as Val turns to look at his snitch of a son.

“Dad, Tali stole my food.”

Val shakes his head, but he’s interrupted from cursing at me as the trio of terror run through the house. Vasili and Dominik are louder, but Vanya’s son is no less dangerous even though he still has creases on his cheek from his nap. I tilt back, holding my arms out for the least volatile of the trio as I say, “Adrik, come here, I’ll give you a sticker.”

He does that weird toddler thing that makes him look like he’s shit himself as he runs to me. I throw him up in the air, knowing I’m safe from any repercussions with the little get-out-of-jail-free card in my arms. Vlad alone will decimate the population if they upset his grandson, Vanya will make death look like a mercy while Dima follows her. He keeps the other parts of his trio in line as he softly giggles, and Inessa focuses her mothering on the actual children in the room.

“Vasili, Dominik,” she says evenly. “No punching each other, okay?”

Their shoulders sag and they both mumble, “Yeah, ‘kay.”

Both of my brothers are inside of the warehouse as I take the side entrance to avoid them and go to the changing room. If they see me, they’ll be overbearing and notice that my knee is flaring up. Once I’m behind the safety of the doors, I slip the pills out from my waistband and carefully place them in my mouth before taking my t-shirt off. They’ll lose their shit if they find out I’m fighting when my knee is aching, or that it still aches years later. The longer I take the pills the more it hurts and the more I need them. So, my routine is preventive, take three just before it can fully seize up and I’ll never feel the drill going through it again. But I’m not stupid enough to take them in front of the kids after Verena told her dad that I had special candies.

I go back out in my shorts, not giving a fuck externally that my scarred knee is on show. The star is mangled to fuck with the stitches having to run through it but it’s a sign of power amongst these assholes. A dark head of hair gets my attention and my mood increases. Stasi never comes to watch the fights, she’s too classy for it according to her socialite brain. Her features are all dark and she could ruin any supermodel’s career if she gave a fuck about anything.

Dark hair, dark eyes, and under the fake bullshit she shows everyone I know that’s where the darkest part of her resides.

She takes a seat in the first row and crosses one leg over the other; the sharp point of her heel is dangerous and glitters amongst the violence she’s crowded by. She gives me a fleeting glance as I get in the cage and Vanya remains at her side. The psycho will stop anyone getting close to my girl and she looks even crazier with half of her neck covered in fresh ink that’s scabbed at the edges.

My mind shuts down as euphoria takes over and the twitching in my hands isn’t noticeable as soon as the fight starts. Feeling blood on my skin is calming, it’s like washing off the stains of my own and the fucker in front of me ruins it by adding his spit into the mix as I drive my knee into his face. He attempts to goad me into losing control by cursing my family like I’m not aware of our faults. He fucks up and runs his mouth past the point of which I can block out.

“Weak. It’s why that bastard got taken.”

Only I get to give Viktor shit, and his choice of word is the wrong one to use against me.

I don’t feel anything as my vision darkens and the world ceases to exist. Not the bone giving way under my fist. Or the sound of an arm breaking, preventing a tap to say it’s over. It all fucking stops as Len is called forward in my memory. His sneer is right fucking there in my ear and the harder I drive my fist forward the louder he gets as he repeats the same shit.

Weak bastards

That’s what you all are

Stand up

Do you want to eat?

Stand up

Do you deserve rest?

Stand up

Weak

Pathetic

Stand. Up.

Worthless

Useless

Stand.

Up.

Weak

STAND UP!

The scream rattling from my memories forces me back into my adult body and I straighten up, rolling my shoulders and stretching my neck in all four directions. The crowd’s cheers and excitement fuel me as I go back to my side of the cage and look out at my audience. Right now, I’m a fucking gladiator that they fear and respect, untouchable exactly like he wanted me to be to everyone else. I focus on that rather than being a weak bastard inside, too weak to walk without pills, too weak to get out of bed without them, too weak to stop anyone hurting my family, and too fucking weak to become anything more than comedic relief.

The respect doesn’t belong to me, and I don’t want it, I want their fear. For their eyes to go wide at witnessing my destruction so they know they can never fucking beat me, mentally or physically.

More than all of that, I want Stasi to react, and her lips lift in a slow smirk as she switches her legs knowing I’m going to fuck her hard as soon as I’m out of this cage. She quiets Len’s voice, removes the image of Anika as she walked around the house naked with a plate of food while I held my stomach so it would stop hurting. None of that exists or hurts when Stasi looks at me.

This woman was crafted by the devil herself. People assume the devil is male, only the intelligent know that divinity and destruction are inherently feminine. A man’s rage is short lived, a woman’s conquers nations and leaves a mark that no one would be able to remove. I’m the lucky bastard that’s going to hold that mix in my hands.

My eagerness to do just that has me remaining in my body as the next fighter comes out for my lineup. He picks up the knife resting on the pillar before he’s even got both feet on the canvas. The audible gulp as he looks at the mess of what used to be a person in the corner just adds to my joviality. Vlad catches my eye before he signals for the round to start, and I ignore him. He does it to everyone else, and I don’t need my big brothers coming to my defense like I’m unable to do what we were born for, he doesn’t get to rescue me anymore.

The new opponent charges me instantly and I grab his wrist before the blade can touch me. The crack is pure satisfaction as I bend his arm back and push it into his shoulder as he punches into my ribs. The liquid coating my hands inspires the same emotion and it turns into a laugh from the audience as I swipe his leg out and he hits the dead fuck on the floor. Vanya whistles between each laugh and I look up to see my niece’s happiness.

She lifts her fist and mimes sticking a knife in her throat as she pokes her tongue out, lolling her head, simultaneously making her dad and husband bristle. My head fucks with me and all my humor dies at the reminder of what she did despite it being an instruction. So, I rewrite it from my memory by replacing Vanya’s echoed gurgling with the fucker in front of me as I twist the knife while pulling it out of his shoulder. His blows are less powerful and I drop down, pressing my knee to his chest, as I push the tip of the knife below his ear as he thrashes. The line isn’t as clean with him fighting back but then it’s all red. He chokes on his blood, and I turn back to my audience, searching for the one person I want to see who will make it all stop.

But she isn’t there and some ugly fuck is sitting in the seat Stasi was in. She keeps doing this shit: running from me every chance she gets other than when my dick is inside her. If I want to hear her voice I have to try and have a conversation while fucking her.Leaving the cage, I formulate my plan to finally pin her down mentally. I’m not going to wait at home for her to sneak in when she decides I’m worth the time and I’ll go straight to the devil’s lair once I’ve washed the blood off me.

Dima follows me and I wait until I’m in the changing room to ask, “Are you going to wash my ass for me?”

“No,” he grumbles.

“So why are you following your favorite child?” I turn and pause. “Wait, am I your favorite kid? I fucking better be, Val’s annoying and Adrik is a toddler.”