Page 42 of Bratva Butcher

He moved again, coming closer and closer, bit by bit, until he was right there next to me. I didn’t look at him, but I could feel that intense gaze burning a hole in the side of my face.

“It was night. Cold. I was in so much pain that I could barely breathe, but I kept crawling. And crawling. And crawling. Everything hurt. Sticks and rocks cut into my skin with every movement, and still, I kept going. I don’t know why I fought so hard to survive. I had nothing. I had no one. And yet, I kept going, dragging myself across the dirt one agonising pull at a time. That was how Uncle E found me.”

“Uncle E?” Dimitri questioned softly, lowering himself into a crouch at my side.

“That’s what I call him,” I said, turning to look at him. “His name is Elias.”

Something flashed in Dimitri’s eyes. I ignored it and kept going.

“He found me out there, naked, bleeding and barely clinging to life. He took me in, nursed me back to health, gave me a roof over my head, clothes on my back. I asked him a couple years later why he did it, and you know what he said?”

“What did he say?” Was his voice softer? It sounded softer. Almost…kind.

“That I had a fighter’s soul.”

“You didn’t give up, even when it would have been so easy to do so. You’re a fighter, little one. You didn’t deserve to die in a ditch.”

“He taught me the skills I needed to ensure nothing like that ever happened to me again. For years, I trained. Every single day. Learning, perfecting those skills. And when I was ready, I got my revenge.” A smile curled my lips at the memory.

“You killed the men who raped you?”

“Not just them.”

He nodded in understanding. “Your parents.”

I searched his face for judgement and saw none. Given what his own flesh and blood had done to him, I should have known he’d understand.

There was something unbelievably freeing about talking to him in the dark. I could see him and not see him at the same time. Being surrounded by nothing but darkness just made me want to blurt out all my secrets.

Or was that just Dimitri?

He wassurprisinglyeasy to talk to when he wasn’t being an uppity douchebag.

“There’s nothing quite like the sting of betrayal from someone who is supposed to be your family,” he whispered softly.

And that was when I knew. Knew that despite our obvious dislike for one another, there were certain parts of us that could relate to one another’s experiences. That we were a lot more alike than I had originally thought.

Shit. When did he get so close?

I took a deep breath in, trying to calm my erratically beating heart. My gaze was locked with his, nothing but the sounds of our breathing filling the air. Something passed between us. Something different. Unknown. Foreign.

His eyes flicked to my lips. Held. One second. Two seconds. What was he thinking? Was he wondering what my lips felt like? What I tasted like?

Why did Iwanthim to be thinking those things?

Just as quickly as the moment between us appeared, it vanished, the shutters slamming down over his eyes, his face growing tense. Uncomfortable. He cleared his throat, rose to his full height and took three big steps back, almost running into the bars behind him.

“We should get some sleep,” he said gruffly, running his fingers through his hair. “We’ve got a busy day tomorrow, and I don’t want to hear you bitch about how tired you are.”

Andddd the asshole was back. Wonderful. Hadn’t even lasted an hour.

Chapter Sixteen

Dimitri Volkov

“I’m tired,” Autumn whined.She sat on the ground of the training arena at my feet, drawing idly in the sand with her finger.

I sighed, irritated. “You’re supposed to be watching the other fighters.”

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