Reap (Scarred Souls, #2)(3)

My father and the Pakhan got to their feet and clapped, demonstrating their superiority to the bloodthirsty crowd below. The bloodthirsty crowd who were already exchanging money and placing bets on the next fight. All of the desperate and sadistic f*ckers thanking the Russian kings for this damn dungeon of death.

My father looked down at me and aggressively flicked his chin. He was ordering me to stand, to clap, to stand like a f*cking regal God at the window, to show the f*ckers jamming up the Dungeon that I was the Bratva knayz, the Russian Mafia prince. The sole heir and the one destined to take charge. We constantly had to show our strength.

But I couldn’t move. This suit I was forced to wear was f*cking suffocating me. This silk tie, although loose, still feeling like a damn leash tying me to this Bratva role I couldn’t bear to embrace.

I tried to move, but I couldn’t force myself to lift from this chair. Memories of 362 bleeding out below me were stabbing harder at my brain, stealing my f*cking breath.

My eyes squeezed shut, sweat pouring down my cheeks. I was losing it, I was f*cking losing my shit.

Six months of this f*cking torture. Six f*cking months of slowly going insane, too many painful memories and flashbacks scourging the f*ck out of my brain.

I abruptly lurched to my feet, and the Pakhan darted his gaze to me. “Luka?”

The room began to spin, the walls f*cking closing in on me.

My father stepped forward. “Son? What’s wrong?”

But I couldn’t answer them. I had to get out, needed to get the f*ck out of this tiny f*cking box.

Staggering to the steel door barricading us in, I used all my strength to smash it open, snapping the top hinge clean off the frame.

“Luka! Come back!” I heard my father shout as I disappeared into the dark hallway. I ignored him as I turned to race down the steep staircase that led to the packed crowd.

“Mr. Tolstoi?” one of the byki called as I ran past him. Heads turned as I pushed through the mass of scumbags trying to get to the side of the cage to f*cking see the carnage inside. But all the f*ckers moved out of my way, sensing that I’d rip them in two if they got in my f*cking path.

I headed for the hallway, the familiar hallway that I’d walked down when I was Raze, the death-match fighter I’d been conditioned to be since a child. The hallways where I’d lived as a Dungeon fighter, stayed each night, only one focus in my mind: revenge on Alik Durov, my childhood friend that, along with his father, had condemned me to a life of killing.

Ignoring the trainers and fighters filling the narrow space, I staggered to the locker room I used to occupy. Smashing my shoulder into the door, it burst open and I slammed it shut, blocking out the world.

It was quiet in this room, no noise f*cking with my head. This locker room made me feel safe.

Walking into the center of the room, I kicked off the leather shoes from my feet, feeling the cold from the asphalt ground. Tipping my head back, I stood in the sliver of moonlight slipping through a crack in the wall and ripped off my tie. Hands shaking, I roared when I couldn’t undo the buttons of my shirt. Gripping the expensive material, I pulled hard, the shirt slicing in two, shreds drifting to the floor.

Bare on top, my chest heaved at the severity of my breathing. I tried to calm down … to think of my life now, away from all the gulag shit, but it wasn’t any f*cking use.

Walking to the wall, I slammed my palms against the cold hard stone and closed my eyes, just trying to f*cking breathe. But this room made me feel like the old me. I felt like him, Raze. I felt like the death-match fighter 818. I felt like the Georgian gulag’s bringer of death. Luka f*cking Tolstoi was a stranger to me. The knyaz of the New York Russian Bratva was a total f*cking stranger.

The same feelings of how to kill, how to position my bladed knuckle-dusters just right to cause the most pain, circled my mind … and I f*cking embraced it. It was familiar … it felt like … me.

Suddenly, a hand gripped my shoulder. Sensing the familiarity of a gulag guard attack, years of being a “f*ck thing,” a punching bag for those abusive pricks taking me back to that lost kid I used to be, I turned and gripped the f*cker’s neck under my hand, smashing him back against the wall. A red mist fogging my eyes, I gritted my teeth and lifted the * off the floor.

No one would hurt me again … ever. I was stronger now, tougher. I was a built and conditioned f*cking stone-cold killer.

Fingernails raked at my skin; wheezing breath filled my ears. But my hands squeezed tighter, the familiar feel of draining a life pumping me the f*ck up.

The flailing cunt in my hands began to go weak and I tightened my grip, almost snapping his neck. This f*cker would die. He wouldn’t get to rape me no more. Wouldn’t get to push me in that cage and kill another innocent kid. I was an innocent kid, too. This f*cker would die. This f*cker would die slowly, painfully, under my hands. They wouldn’t touch me anymore. They wouldn’t push me in that f*cking ring anymore—

“Luka!”

Too focused on the kill, on the rush that came with feeling a pulse slow to a stuttered stop in a neck, I didn’t hear the door open behind me. My mind was a damn slide show of images, f*cked-up images of my kills; kids begging for their lives, guards pointing their guns in my face if I didn’t finish those kids off. Pain, torture, rape, blood, so much f*cking blood—

“Luka, stop!” A distant yet familiar voice broke through into my stormy mind. I shook my head.