Page 8 of Bratva Butcher

It was all about making me suffer. Nothing more. Nothing less.

I rolled my neck along my shoulders and leant back against the wall behind me. Sometime during the beatings, I’d been released from the cuffs hanging from the ceiling and moved. Unlike the other prisoners—four by my count in little glimpses throughout my never-ending torture, I was cuffed by the wrists, anklesandneck. Dominik wasn’t taking any chances with me, apparently, which was a compliment in and of itself, really, but still incredibly irritating. There was zero chance of escaping out of that hellhole, even if I had the energy.

Which I didn’t.

I barely had the energy to glare at the annoying redhead chained to the wall beside me.

I didn’t know who she was. Didn’t know her name or what she was doing there. I didn’t know a damn thing about her except that she infuriated me to no end.

She talked…a lot. To herself. To the other prisoners. To the wall. And when she wasn’t talking, she was fucking singing.

I’d never been a prisoner before, but I was fairly sure there was some sort of unspoken etiquette to it. Some unspoken rules for anyone in the same position as you, like don’t piss off the other people trapped in the room.

Does the redhead care?

No. She doesn’t.

Because she is doing it right-fucking-now!

“Have you ever heard the expression, ’don’t pull that face because if the wind changes, it’ll be stuck like that forever’?” She was looking directly at me, so I suspected her question was intended for me, but I did nothing but glare at her. “I think that’s what’s happened to you. You’ve had that same look on your face for hours now. This perpetually sour and grumpy as shit look.”

“That’s because you won’t shut the fuck up,” I hissed out in frustration.

“He speaks,” she gasped in mock horror. “I’m shocked. I thought the extent of your vocabulary was just grunting and snarling.”

“That’s the only response you warrant.”

“I don’t know whatyou’reso crabby about. It’s not likeIattackedyoufor no good reason.” She lay on her back, tucking her interlocked fingers behind her head and crossing her feet at the ankles.

She was tall. Just over six foot, if I had to guess, with a lean, athletic build that showed she worked out and took care of herself. Cuts littered her tanned skin. Some old, some new, yet her face was clear of any injuries. Her eyes were a sparkling kind of green. She had a heart-shaped face, sharp and angular, and long, thick red hair.

“Something you haven’t shut up about since,” I snapped, growing more and more irritated by the second.

I swear, Dominik placed me next to her deliberately as another form of his sick, twisted torture. I was sure of it.

I hated people. Especially the chatty ones.

“Oh, I’m sorry, am I annoying you?” Her head rolled to the side lazily, and she flashed me a big, beaming smile. “Good.”

Yep. Definitely torture.

I glared even harder. It should have made her recoil. Tremble in fear. I’d spent many years perfecting it to ensure that very reaction. But she just frowned at me.

I growled out an irritated huff. She didn’t like me because I tried to kick her in the head when we first met—something she demanded I apologise for, which I absolutely refused to do.

And I didn’t like her because… Well, I didn’t like anyone, really. That woman, though… She pissed me off more than usual.

We’d gotten off on the wrong foot, and we both had zero intention of righting that wrong. It was a hill we were both prepared to die on together.

Or, at least, I was. Fuck knew what was going on in that devil woman’s head.

When she started singing some pop culture song—rather badly, I might add—my left eye started to twitch uncontrollably. “I swear to God, if you don’t cut that out right now, I’m going to fucking kill you,” I seethed.

“Oh, reallyyy?” she dragged out, giddiness in her tone. She sat up and spun to face me, crossing her long legs eloquently. “And how do you plan to do that? It isn’t lost on me that you’re on a much shorter leash than the rest of us.”

Fuck. Her.

She was right.

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