Page 17 of Bratva Butcher

Rationality won out in the end. It didn’t make much sense for Talon to try and poison us when he’d just dropped fivemillion dollarson us.

Well, Dimitri.

I still had no fucking clue why he wanted me, too. I’d never met the man before. Never even heard of him.

Something to figure out later.

I turned my head to look at Dimitri, reached forward to grab a huge leg of lamb and chomped down on it without taking my eyes off him, ripping into the meat like I was the very thing he described: a barbarian.

It had been God knows how long since I had eaten a proper meal. Damn straight I was eating like a fucking barbarian.

“You don’t want to eat, that’s fine,” I mumbled, chewingextraloud to annoy him. “ButIdo. So, shut your trap before I do it for you.”

“Go ahead and try it. You won’t live to see another sunrise.”

“Tomorrow,” I responded in between bites.

His frown was filled with irritation and annoyance. “What?”

“The saying is, ’You won’t live to see tomorrow’. Another sunrise just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Don’t you agree?”

He stared at me dead on, his left eye doing that weird, twitchy thing it always seemed to do when he was pissed off. Then, he slapped the lamb leg right out of my fucking hands.

“You old bastard,” I hissed. “I’m sick of your shit!” I didn’t have a weapon or the proper maneuverability to throw a punch worth a damn. My wrists were cuffed together, and that chain was bolted to the floor at my feet, allowing me only the slightest bit of movement left to right, but it was enough.

I grasped a chicken drumstick and smacked Dimitri across the face with it. It made this very satisfyingsplatsound, thanks to all the gravy. His eyes bulged wide in shock, mouth dropping open as if he couldn’t believe I had the audacity to slap him in the face with a piece of chicken.

The fact that there was now a big blob of gravy on his cheek made the whole thing even more hilarious, and I couldn’t help but snicker at the picture it all painted.

That was the catalyst for the events that took place next.

All hell broke loose.

Even though we were both restricted to the point where we could barely move, we still tried to kill each other.

His fist came flying towards my face. I leant back and it abruptly halted in the air an inch away from my nose, thanks to the cuffs. He growled and slammed it down on my thigh instead.

Pain shot through me, but so did anger, and that helped mask some of the sting.

I struck out with a swift elbow strike, hitting him in the cheekbone. He retaliated by ramming into me with his shoulder.

Fuckity, fuck, fuck. That hurt.

I shoved him back as hard as I could, but he outweighed me by at least 150 pounds, so of course, it barely nudged him. I tried to punch him, he deflected with his hand. He tried to punch me, I dodged. Back and forth, back and forth we went, grunting and snarling at one another as we tried to maim the shit out of each other.

I just need one good shot. One hit to show him I’m not going to sit back and take his fucking crap.

Strike, block, strike, block.

Fucking asshole—

“Enough!” One of Talon’s goons screamed at the top of his lungs, making Dimitri and I freeze in our attempts to kill each other. I had his wrist gripped with my fingers, and he had his palm blocking my elbow from hitting him in the face again.

The man marched the few steps and glared down at us. “I’msickof hearing you two argue all of the time. You’re driving me fucking insane! Shut up! Just shut up! Your constant bickering and bitching… I can’t take it anymore! ’I’m gonna kill you’ this and ’you’re an asshole’ that. Blah, blah, blah. Just shut your goddamn mouths before I do it for you! Permanently!”

I held in the scoff that threatened to break free.Barely. Talon dropped five million on us—well, Dimitri, but whatever. I didn’t think we were as easily expendable as his minion was trying to make us believe. Nor that he even had the authority to do what he was threatening.

With one last glare, I shoved Dimitri away from me and turned to look out the window. Clouds floated by, so close that I felt like I could almost reach out and touch them. I immediately began tocalm down, the motion of the wings of the plane cutting through the clouds relaxing me.

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