Page 64 of Bratva Knight

My brain clicked the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle as he spoke. Why he was there, when I’m sure it was the last place he wanted to be. Why he was bringing up some fight to the death game that we’d never heard of before. The fact that he mentioned people were forced to fight against their will.

It all began to make so much sense.

“I’ve never attended the games, but I get notifications for when a new one is about to begin,” he continued. “I received this encrypted email yesterday. It holds the roster for this year. It’s a small preview of what’s to come. This is a clip of one of the fighters being put in the games.” He handed the tablet over to Aleksandr. It was paused on a video.

I knew what it would show but I leant closer nonetheless, needing to see for myself if what I was thinking was right. It was one of those times that I was desperately hoping to be wrong.

Whoever edited the video made sure to keep faces out of it, just showing clips cut together of brutal strikes, arms swinging, fists connecting with soft flesh, legs flying through the air. Perhaps it was to build up the suspense, waiting until the last possible moment to reveal the fighters, thus ensuring the viewers’ complete and total attention.

It definitely worked. My eyes were plastered to the screen, cataloguing everything I saw, waiting for that one little detail that would confirm my suspicions.

The commentator narrated what was going on as it happened.“Oh, what a brutal uppercut!”the male voice said, a crowd of people cheering in the background.“I don’t think he’s going to get back up from that one folks! Oh, wait, he’s going to try again! What a fight!”A deafeningcrackblared through the speaker, one so loud that it could be heard over the roaring crowd as a set of hands grabbed a man's head and twisted sharply, breaking his neck in one clean move.“And we have a winner!”

The camera panned out, showing a man standing in the middle of the ring, back gleaming with sweat and muscles bulging. He dropped the dead man in his arms and turned to face the camera.

I exhaled in defeat.

“Your winner, ladies and gentleman, The Bratva Butcher!”

The crowd went absolutely wild. Screaming, chanting, clapping. The camera stayed on my father for a few seconds longer and I committed every detail to memory. The blood dripping down the side of his head. The anger burning in his eyes. The heavy rise and fall of his chest as he breathed hard.

The screen went black.

“Fuck,” Aleksandr cursed. He swiped across the screen, moving to another video, but this one was of someone else. “Are there any others?” he asked, continuing to swipe and swipe.

“No.” Mikhail took back the tablet. “That’s the only one of Dimitri. The rest are of the other competitors.”

“How many?”

“Twenty-four in total.”

“Why did they send this toyou?” I asked, stepping closer.

“Talon and I have a bit of a…rivalry, I guess you could say. We went to boarding school together. Me, him and your father. We all used to be friends, actually.”

“What happened?” Aleksandr questioned.

“The same shit that always happens at elitist schools like that. He thought he owned the school and everyone in it, including Dimitri and I. The first few years, he wasn’t so bad, but when we were seniors he tried to order us around like we were nothing but worker dogs.”

I scoffed, shaking my head. There was no way my father would ever let some random kid walk all over him like that, even when he was technically a kid himself. He had too much pride, even at that age.

“Our reaction exactly,” Mikhail said, pointing at me. “We fell out hard our senior year. Talon’s the type who loves control. He thrives on the ability to get others to do whatever he wants them to do through fear and intimidation. That shit didn’t work on us though. Your father is the son of one of the most brutal men in Russia. And me? Well, I just hate being told what to do. So, when we didn’t blindly fall in line like all the others, things got violent. He set fire to our dorm room…with us inside it.”

“Jesus Christ,” Aleksandr blew out.

“We had to jump out of our four-story window to escape. Fucker had barricaded the door so we couldn’t get out. Dimitri broke his leg and I broke three ribs and dislocated my shoulder. Talon was given a week’s detention as punishment.”

“A week’s detention?” I repeated, my voice rising in exclamation. “For nearly killing two students?”

“Talon comes fromoldmoney. The type of money that can make problems disappear at the drop of a hat. His dad owns several big oil companies, and just threw money at the school until the whole thing was forgotten.” Mikhail ran a hand through his blonde hair, pushing it out of his face. “After graduation, he fucked off to Europe. I didn’t hear his name again until a few years ago. He’d amassed his own empire by then, built entirely on his daddy’s money. He bought himself his own private island. From what I hear, he never leaves.”

Aleksandr leant forward, elbows braced on his desk. “”Where is it? This island?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. I’ve been trying to find it since the first moment I found out about it.”

“Didn’t you say the games are held on this island?” I asked with a frown. “So someone somewheremustknow where it is.”

“You’d think, wouldn’t you?” he sighed, leaning back. “His security protocols are off the charts. You need an invitation to board the plane that takes you to an undisclosed location. From there, you’re taken to a dock and put on a boat that takes you to another boat, and then another boat. All while being blindfolded to ensure you have absolutely no idea where you’re going.”

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