Page 36 of Brutal Bratva King

“I have to get to a meeting. We will continue this conversation when I get home tonight,” I snarl at her. It’s the best way I can think to get away from her right now.

“Rodion—,“ she calls after me, but I’m already walking away.

I head straight out of the front door and to my car. At the gate, I stop and have a brief conversation with the security officer standing there.

“My wife is not to leave the house today. Do not open this gate for her.”

He nods. “Yes, sir.”

“I mean it, not even if she is accompanied by a guard.”

He nods again.

Satisfied, I drive out into the road and head towards the office.

I don’t have a meeting. I just had to get out of there.

We’ve been arguing constantly since she got shot. She wants to go out—I don’t want her to. It’s creating such a horrible tension between us that it feels worse than when we first got married.

I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

In the office, I bury myself in work. I do everything I have been avoiding. All the paperwork. All the annoying little bits and pieces that I usually feel are a waste of time. I reply to all of my emails and by the end of the day I’m exhausted. I still don’t want to go back home, but I know that at some point I have to. It’s really late and I might even be lucky enough to discover that she has already gone to bed.

I stand up from my desk. I’ve been sitting too long. My body is aching and tense. I’m stressed and overtired.

Gathering my things up and heading out to my car, a light rain begins to drift from the sky. It feels more like a heavy mist than anything else but the coolness of the air against my skin feels good.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. Sitting in the driver’s seat, I read the message from my brother.

Rigor: Meet us for a beer.

He attaches a location to the message.

I’m so fucking tired. But it’s better than going home, so I reply and tell him I’ll be there in twenty minutes.

The location marker takes me into another industrial part of the city and I immediately know that this isn’t just a beer at a random bar. I park the car alongside my brother's car in a very crowded parking lot, and make my way into the building.

Inside it smells of salty sweat and beer.

Men are cheering and shouting, waving their fists in the air towards a metal cage in the center of the packed space.

I look around, trying to spot my brothers. Rigor sees me first and shouts my name over the other noises. I head towards them, closer to the cage.

It’s an underground fighting ring.

We have been coming to these underground fight rings for years. It’s our way of letting off steam, watching, and sometimes placing bets because Renat often takes part in these fights. But it was never something that interested me—not getting into the ring and actually fighting.

“Why didn’t you tell me it was fight night, I would have come earlier?” I say to Rad.

Rigor shoves a beer into my hand. “Yeah, well, you got here just in time. Renat is up next.”

“Great,” I mutter, turning towards the fighting cage. I’m so tense from the day I’ve had. This will be a good way to get rid of the pent-up frustration. Renat is brilliant in the ring so it’ssure to be an intense fight. Today I have reason to want to vent a little. And maybe watching Renat beat the shit out of some stranger will help me do that.

The guys in the ring now are both covered in blood.

Their fight is about to end. I can tell because one of them is barely standing.

A wide swing and an upper cut to a jaw sends the unstable fighter falling flat on his back. He doesn’t move. The ref blows his whistle loudly and the fight is over.

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