Page 65 of Bratva Butcher

“TIKHIY!” QUIET! I roared. They all snapped their mouths shut instantly.

Silence followed. For a moment. Then Autumn coughed awkwardly. “Well—”

“Not one word out of you,” I warned, pointing a stern finger in her direction.

She threw her hands up in surrender. “Aye, aye, Mr Grouchy.” Then she whispered under her breath only loud enough for me to hear, “Or maybe I should call you Daddy Dimitri.”

I shot her an angry glare, but she just smirked. I looked back at my children. It was time to stop the squabbling and get fucking serious.

“Alright, now we need to come up with a plan—”

My whole body shot to alertness when the main door to our prison opened, revealing my brother.

Of course.

Of course that fucking asshole would be there. He wouldn’t want to miss a front-row seat to my demise.

Was he responsible for my children being there, too? I was inclined to think so, yes. Aleksandr, Nikolai, Lukyan andIllayana were smart, resourceful. Kidnapping just one of them was no easy feat, but kidnapping all of them at the same time?

Impossible to do without inside information. Information about us. About how we operated. Information Dominik would possess.

He strolled on in with a million-dollar smile on his face and an expensive Armani suit on his body. A suit he most likely purchased with the money he’d gotten from selling me.

“My family.” My idiot brother smiled, his gaze moving over each of us, one after the other. “It’s so nice to see you all again. It’s been so long since we’ve all been together like this.”

“You mean, since you blew up my wedding?” Illayana snarked.

Dominik brushed off that statement with a wave of his hand. “Oh, that little thing? That was just a little fun.”

Illayana smiled, all dark and evil and fucking crazy. “So was disemboweling your daughter.”

It was a good dig, but Dominik didn’t truly care about his daughter’s death. Not in the way a father should. He only cared about the fact that he lost someone willing to do his dirty work. To do anything for him. A lackey to use to help implement his plans.

“If she wasn’t such a fucking disappointment, I might actually care,” Dominik chuckled, confirming my thoughts. He walked down the row of cells, one at a time, his face absolutely alight with happiness. He stopped in front of Aleksandr first. “You remember our last conversation, don’t you?” He cocked his head. “I bet you’re wishing right now that you took my offer.”

Aleksandr said nothing. He leant forward menacingly, his eyes shrouded in darkness, face hard as stone, and a purely evil, violent aura vibrating from him. Dominik slanted back on auto-pilot, almost as if he feared Aleksandr would strangle him through the bars.

My son had that terrifying effect on people.

Dominik moved on quickly, stopping in front of Nikolai’s cell next. “Hi, nephew. Sorry about the dart.”

“No, you’re not,” Nikolai scoffed.

As they continued to talk, I stared at my brother, so many vivid images of decapitating his stupid head flying through my mind.He is responsible for this. For all of this. Guilt hit me hard. The second he’d tried to murder me in my sleep in Russia, I should have slit his throat. I should have killed him when I had the chance, but I’d been lenient in the hopes that one day, our relationship could be repaired. That things might change if we ever got out from underneath our father’s thumb. That maybe, one day, we could have a bond like the one my children shared.

What an idiot I’d been.

“I really am sorry.” Dominik sounded so sincere, I almost believed him. But I knew he was full of shit. He was incapable of feeling anything. “You’ve always been my favourite, you know. I would have liked to keep you out of this, but when I saw you here at the first round of the games, I knew I couldn’t.”

“You saw me?” Nikolai questioned, a frown on his face.

Dominik laughed humorlessly. “I’ve been waiting to witness Dimitri’s downfall since I was ten years old.”Of course he has. “Did you really think I wouldn’t be here to watch him die?” He shook his head. “I was up in one of the box seats watching the fights when I saw you as one of the security guards. Smart, sneaking in as one of the workers. Talon couldn’t believe it when I told him.”

That explained how Nikolai got caught, then. Illayana, Lukyan and Aleksandr had already explained what happened to them. Illayana was taken while out for a jog with Tatiana—something that had caused Nikolai to lose his mind, of course. And Lukyan had been…indisposed with a woman when he’d been shot with a dart.

“You waited until I watched Father fight before capturing me,” Nikolai stated.

A sly smile crossed Dominik’s face. “Talon and I thought it might be fun for you to watch your father in the games.”

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