Page 43 of Bratva Butcher

“I am.” She was still doodling.

“No. You’re not. You’re fucking drawing in the sand, not even looking at the others.”

“If you must know, Your Royal Grouchiness, I’m using my peripherals.”

I ground my teeth together. Despite the fact that we’d somewhat connected the night before, sharing a moment together that neither one of us had wanted to acknowledge, we still argued like crazy because there was nothing else to fucking do. It was like some kind of fucked up source of entertainment.The back and forth. The push and pull. It was oddly addicting—something that had come as quite a shock to me, to be honest.

Her past resonated with me, and I could understand how she would have felt in that moment, knowing the two people who were meant to love and protect her ended up throwing her to the wolves instead.

My father, my mother, my brother; they’d all betrayed me in some way. Let me down. Fucked me over. And if given the opportunity, I would kill them, too.

Well, maybe not my mother.

Deciding the best thing to do would be to ignore the infuriating woman before me, I ran my eyes around the room again, taking note of everything. I didn’t want to spend too much time thinking about our conversation from the night before. So we had a few things in common. So we’d connected. So we’d shared some kind of moment together. It didn’t mean fuck all. She still pissed me off just by breathing.

It was pretty much the same as the day before. Majority of the pairs practising, training while the others were curled up in the corners of the room, their arms wrapped around their knees, rocking back and forth, sobbing.

In retrospect, I understood. The entire thing would be a lot for normal, everyday people to deal with. Criminals like myself? Well, we had a slight advantage. We didn’t have that pesky little voice inside our heads, telling us it was wrong to murder.

That was how I knew who the biggest threats in this game were.

I’d been listening to conversations not only there but in the cells as well, so I knew almost all the prisoners by name.

Roger Ward, Harrison Sheln, Oliva Nulan, Marcus Hook, and Pearl Verish were the ones to watch out for. One look at them was all I needed to see they held little to no mercy. That they had no problem doing whatever they needed to survive. An alltoo familiar darkness lay deep in the depths of their eyes. One I recognised within myself.

“Three o’clock,” Autumn whispered without raising her head, her finger drawing small circles in the sand.

I casually glanced in the direction she so subtly indicated. One of the male prisoners was making his way towards us. Scratch that. TowardsAutumn.

My spine snapped straight, eyes narrowing. I recognised that look. That hungry flare in his eyes. There was one thing and one thing only onhismind.

Anger burnt in my veins, hot and unrelenting. He didn’t pay me any fucking attention. It was like I was invisible. Like I wasn’t even there. Likenone of uswere there. The way he was looking at Autumn, undressing her with his eyes… I wanted to rip his fucking throat out.

“Hey.” She glanced up at the man’s greeting. “I’m Mac.”

Autumnsmiled.She fuckingsmiled.Why had she smiled at him? He’d barely fucking said anything.

“Hi Mac, I’m Autumn.”

“A beautiful name for a beautiful woman.”

I rolled my eyes. That was a line if I’d ever heard one.

Autumn laid a hand on her chest, drawing Mac’s gaze right to her breasts. “Oh, thank you,” she gushed.

“I’m going to cut right to the chase. We’re all probably going to die within the next few days. Wanna bang one out?”Classy. Real fucking classy.“You know, one last fuck before it all ends?” he smirked, giving her his best “come hither” look.

Autumn arched an eyebrow. “Very forward of you, Mac.”

She didn’t say no. Why didn’t she say no?

He shrugged. “What can I say? Imminent death tends to remove any shred of embarrassment from a person’s mind.” He ran his tongue over his bottom lip suggestively, and I wanted tocut it out of his mouth. “So? What do you say? You’re hot. I’m hot. Wanna fuck?”

One side of Autumn’s lips hiked up into an amused smirk. She opened her mouth.

An emotion I hadn’t felt in over a decade barrelled through me with such force that it made me take an involuntary step forward. “No, she doesn’t,” I growled.

Surprise flitted through me next. Followed by anger. Why? Why had I said that? Why did I react that way? Why did I give a fuck what Autumn did? Or, more specifically,whoAutumn did?

---