Page 23 of Bratva Butcher

“You can’t do this to us,” the brunette said, looking around for someone to help. “Let us go. Please.”

Talon’s face appeared in an instant on a television mounted along the wall. He gave a smug, condescending smile. “You know the rules. Fight or die. I want nothing but the best for my Til Death Games. If you’re not willing to perform and fight to the death here, then I can’t trust you’ll perform up there, and Iwill notbe humiliated.”

The more he spoke, the more confused I became. “Til Death Games”? What the fuck is that?

“You beat the person you’re matched against here, and you’ll be given a chance to fight for your freedom. Refuse, and you’ll be skinned alive. The choice is yours. Decide now.”

The screen went black.

There was a brief moment of silence, then the two women lunged at each other.

“On your feet. You’re next.”

I looked up at the guard, contemplating whether or not I could get away with punching him in the balls. In the end, I decided against it for one simple reason. Whether I liked it or not, I was about to fight for my life. I couldn’t waste what energy I had on something so trivial.

But the fucker was on my shitlist. In fact,everyonethere was. And that was a place you didn’t want to be.

I was escorted to the side of the ring, where another guard unlocked my cuffs and then shoved me so hard that I fell to my knees in the centre of the ring.

Fucking prick.

A few seconds later, a tall, dark-haired woman was thrown in with me.

The announcers were talking, introducing us and riling up the crowd of guards (I felt like they, too, were practising, preparing for the Til Death Games), but I barely paid any attention to them.

My mind switched completely to survival mode. Fight mode.

I released my hair from my hair tie and then quickly did it back up in a tight bun to make it harder to grab. She was tall. Powerful legs. Strong body. She worked out and took care of herself.

But can she fight?

I took one step to the left, and she took one to the right, mirroring me. And again, and again. She was studying me with just as much focus as I was her. Only one of us was going to leave that ring alive.

I could tell she wasn’t the type to hesitate. She would kill me if it meant her survival.

Around and around we went, watching each other closely, waiting to see who would make the first move, who would attack first.

It was me.

Fuck being on the defensive. I needed to take control of the situation. Control the narrative, control the outcome.

That was what I hoped, anyway.

I charged forward, lashing out with alternating punches and kicks, trying to fluster her and throw her off balance. Take her off guard.

She was quick, with good instincts. The way she moved, her footwork and level of skill in evading strikes and striking back told me she had some sort of training in hand-to-hand combat.

It wouldn’t be enough, though. I’d been trained by Elias Huber, a world-renowned assassin trainer. Spent over twenty years perfecting my skills. Trained every single day. Killed on an almost weekly basis. I didn’t have a conscience, a voice telling me what was right from wrong. I had no qualms ending a life, especially if mine was on the line.

She was good, but not better than me. That wasn’t ego. It was just a fact.

I ducked under a powerful swing of her fist, skidded on my knees around her as I wrapped one arm around her leg, and thentackled her to the ground in one fell swoop. With a sharp twist, I snapped the bone in her leg in half.

She screamed, the sound loud and deafening, full of pain, suffering and fear. Her scream morphed into a cry of anguish as she clutched her broken leg, a river of tears streaming down her face.

As a general rule, I tried to avoid killing innocent people. Not because I felt bad about it or anything. I didn’t possess those kinds of feelings. Was incapable of it, really.

It was because it was… Well… Boring.

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