Page 47 of Bratva Butcher

She’d said there was something I was refusing to acknowledge. Something I wouldn’t admit to myself. But I had no idea what she could have been talking about.

It terrified me. Not only the not knowing, but also the fact that once I did acknowledge whatever it was, she would disappear.

I didn’t want that. I wasn’t ready to let her go. I wasn’t sure if I ever would be.

A comforting kind of strain ached in my muscles as I heaved myself up and down, up and down, completing my third set of pull-ups in my cell. Our afternoon training session had ended about an hour earlier, and we were all waiting for dinner to arrive.

Autumn was sitting on her cot, leaning back casually against the wall, her face drenched in boredom. She had a roll of toilet paper at her side, ripping pieces off and scrunching them up into balls to throw right at me… And it was pissing me the fuck off.

But I wasn’t going to react. Nope. That was what she wanted. She was bored out of her mind, and her only source of entertainment was seeing how far she could push me until I fucking snapped.

She wasn’t going to win. I wasn’t going to let her. I could control myself. I didn’t need to wring her pretty little neck with my bare hands, no matter how much I wanted to. No matter how much the thought of it excited me.

Up. Down. Up. Down.

Another ball of that infernal paper hit me on the side of the face, and I had to bite back a snarl.

In through the nose, out through the mouth.

My muscles burnt, but I welcomed the pain, the distraction. It was getting harder and harder to be in her presence. For some reason, unwelcome thoughts kept pushing their way into my mind, regardless of the fact that I didn’t want them there. Sexual thoughts. Suggestive thoughts. Thoughts of her in compromising positions. Thoughts of her body. How it would feel pressed against my own without the barrier of clothing.

Once those thoughts surfaced, so too did the guilt. The cut of betrayal. How could I have thoughts like that about another woman? I loved Yekaterina. It didn’t matter that she was gone. That she had died over ten years ago. She was the only woman for me, and thinking of someone else in such a way made mefeel unfaithful. I couldn’t handle it. It wasn’t right. Those games needed to hurry up and start so that either one or both of us would die, and the thoughts would cease.

I kept my eyes pinned to the spot on the wall in front of me, my gaze never wandering.

Up. Down. Up. Down.

Nothing was going to distract me. I was going to finish my set without thinking about her. Nothing was going to break my focus. Not the other prisoners, talking and laughing amongst themselves, trying their best to distract themselves from their current predicament. Not Autumn, throwing those stupid balls of paper, trying to get a rise out of me. Not the sound of the steel door to our prison opening, signalling the arrival of our dinner.

Not anything. Not—

Shock paralysed me, my whole body freezing in mid-air as my gaze collided with a set of familiar, icy blue eyes.

My son.

Nikolai was there, not even ten feet from me, pushing the cart containing our food instead of one of Talon’s soldiers.

What the fuck—

My body began to move again as if on autopilot, continuing on with the exercise like my whole world hadn’t just tilted upside down.

I had no idea what he was doing there.

It took every ounce of willpower I possessed not to look at him. There were cameras over every inch of the place. I knew we were being watched 24/7. If I showed even a modicum of interest in him, Talon would see it and wonder why.

So, I kept going with the pull-ups like it wasn’t secretly killing me inside not to acknowledge my son. I used nothing but my peripheral vision to track him as he moved about the room.

How had he found me? How did he get there? Were my other children there, too, risking their lives to foolishly try and save me?

If I did make it out of there alive, they were all getting time in the ring for that stunt.

Half of the prisoners did what they always did whenever anybody entered the room: begged and pleaded to be let go. It was such a wasted effort. It made me internally scoff every time.

One by one, Nikolai handed the food and bottles of water to the prisoners through the small gaps in the bottom of the cells. He didn’t dawdle, but he also didn’t go too fast. When he finally approached me, I released the bar and dropped to the ground.

So many different emotions pounded through me. Happiness. Excitement. Anger.

He shouldn’t have been there. He shouldn’t have put himself at risk. If Talon ever found out who he was, how much he meant to me, it would be all over. I would do anything he asked to save him. I’d be his little bitch for all eternity if it meant keeping my son alive.

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