Page 33 of Fight

I hadn’t forgotten at all.

“Good. You’ve come to repay me?” Markov said.

“No.”

He frowned for a moment, then lit up again, nodding. “Then you came to return my property, see that I get what I’m owed?” he said.

“And what property is that?” I asked through clenched teeth.

“My feisty little koshenya. She’s a handful. Started here at the club and went crazy when it was time for her to start making real money. I should have killed her or maybe gotten her so addicted to my product, she would have begged to fuck whoever I brought to her.”

I couldn’t react, couldn’t let Markov’s trap ensnare me. The thought of P in such a predicament knocked the air from my lungs—and made me uncontrollably angry. But I couldn’t show that. So instead, I stood still and watched him, cool as ice on the outside, on fire inside.

Markov sighed, shook his head. “What a waste. Is she nicer to you than she was to me?” Markov asked, looking at me again.

“She is no longer your concern,” I said.

Then I said nothing else. Couldn’t. The thought of P in Markov’s clutches, the thought of what could have happened to her was enough to make it almost impossible for me to stay still.

But if I struck out at Markov here, I would be signing my own death warrant, and P’s as well. Markov knew it too, and he had no trouble lording that over me.

“I hope you have better luck with her than I did,” Markov said. In the next moment, his demeanor changed completely, the nauseating playfulness gone and in its place coldness that reminded me Markov was more than he often appeared. He was a fool, a clown, but he had power, power that had been amassed through ruthlessness and business acumen.

“What about my money, Ioan?” he said, his voice icy.

“I will return every cent,” I said.

“And how do you propose to do that?” he asked.

He was enjoying this, but I didn’t allow myself to care.

“I’m going to fight,” I said flatly.

His entire body lit up with his excitement. “You are?”

I nodded.

“The great Vasile Petran is going to let one of his men into my ring?” Markov said, voice almost brimming with disbelief.

“I don’t represent him, I’ll be there on my own, but I have his permission,” I said.

“And why should I let you?” Markov asked, tilting his head as if to study me.

“You want to make money. So do I.”

“So this is mutually beneficial, not just a way for you to take even more from me than you already have?” Markov said.

“Yes.”

I didn’t try to refute the idea that I’d taken something from him, because I had. And I would have over and over again, as many times as it took to save P.

“I don’t know if you’re up to it,” he said.

“I am,” I replied.

He had looked away but now locked his eyes on me, looking me over from head to toe.

While I had dressed in the manner appropriate for visiting Vasile, and to P’s liking based on the way she had looked at me and so excitedly said so, I was less sure how Markov would take what I wore. I was confident enough in myself and where I stood to not need to display my tattoos or my physique, but to some, many of them like Markov, it was a show of weakness.

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