As more seconds passed by, I heard Kisa sigh in frustration and her hands cupped my cheeks. “Look at me, Luka.”
Reluctantly, I forced my gaze up and fixed my attention on her face, she was so fucking beautiful. Taking her hand, she reached down to my wedding ring, and lifted it to my face. “You see this? We’re married. We vowed under God and in front of our families to be there for each other, for better or for worse.” She then took my hand and, holding my index finger, ran it over my left eye. “We were made for each other. That means sharing your pain, telling me when and why you’re unhappy.”
The sadness on Kisa’s face was too much. Squeezing our joined hands, I brought them to my lips and kissed the back of her hand. “I’m happy with you. I…” I took a deep breath and added, “I never knew I could be happy before you.”
Kisa’s tears splashed onto her bare chest. “Solnyshko, don’t cry,” I rasped out.
“But you’re not happy. I hold you when you sleep. I see you when you pace, dark thoughts plaguing your mind.” Kisa kissed my cheek and gazed into my eyes. “You’re getting worse, lyubov moya. Something’s on your mind.” A quiet sob slipped from her throat and I instinctively pulled her into my chest.
“Don’t cry,” I begged in a cracked voice. “I can’t see you cry.”
“Then tell me what you see in your mind. Tell me what is haunting you from being happy in our new life?”
“362,” I pushed out. “I promised vengeance on those who wronged him. On those who put him in the gulag.” My fists clenched behind Kisa’s back. My hands were beginning to shake. The frustration, the anger was coming back as I pictured 362’s bloodied dead face.
Kisa stiffened in my arms. “Our papas are searching for the men responsible.”
“It’s been too long,” I said, harsher than I intended to.
“I know,” Kisa said quietly.
“I have to do this. I have to make it right.” I tensed, knowing what I was about to say. “I have to kill them. I have to, to move on.”
Kisa froze in my arms. I knew she hated the idea of me killing again, but she would never understand what 362 had done for me.
“I don’t even know his name. He died as a number. A fucking slave. His grave has no name.” I inhaled through my nostrils thinking of the unmarked headstone. “The man that kept me alive as a gulag child, the man that taught me how to survive and freed me as a man. He was my brother and he has no name in death.” My fists shook with the fire igniting in my stomach. “He has no honor. He lost it when he died under my ’duster’s spiked blades. I am the one he asked to restore that for him. Me. No one else.”
Kisa pulled back without saying a word, but I could see the understanding in her eyes. Her gaze traced down to my chest and over to my right arm. Her fingers lifted and ran over my skin. “Your arm needs cleaning.”
I glanced down and saw my skin was ripped from Viktor’s fingernails, drying blood covering most of my scarred skin. My eyebrows pulled down and I asked, “Was he hurt bad?”
Kisa’s roaming finger stopped. “He’ll be okay.”
My head lowered and Kisa wrapped her arms tightly around my neck, her body flush against mine. Unclenching my fists and exhaling a long sigh, I wrapped my arms around her bare back, kissing along her slim neck.
“We’ll find out who 362’s captors are, Luka. I promise. We’ll figure out a way for you to live, out here on the outside. How to make you into the best knayz you can be.”
Chapter Two
Talia
I usually avoided this place like the plague. It smelled of death. That was the only way I could explain it. The scents of blood, sweat and dead animals permeated every inch of this underground hell making it almost impossible to breath in the thick stagnant air.
Straightening my shoulders, I walked through the training gym of the Dungeon, forcing myself to nod politely at the new fighters’ trainers and sponsors filling up every inch of spare space. Well, I say “fighters.” They were mostly rapists, murderers, and generally just sick motherfuckers used by various mobs and career criminals to make a quick buck. No one would miss them if they died in the ring. In fact, it would be a blessing to society, in my opinion.
I didn’t mind my job. I was good at it. I was the sponsor recruiter for the Dungeon. My duty was securing the sponsors, arranging collections on gambling debts and finding only the best fighters for our enterprise. And I never failed to deliver excellent fighters, season after season. That didn’t mean the sight of these men didn’t make my skin crawl. I generally worked from home, thank God. Being in this place of death day by day would drive me insane. I had no idea how Kisa did it. I sighed in relief that I was finally getting a break. I was getting to leave Brooklyn for the next couple of months. I was using my long overdue vacation days to just check out of this life for a short reprieve.
After everything that had happened over the last year I needed a breather. I needed to not be Talia Tolstaia, the great Ivan Tolstoi’s daughter, just for a while. I needed to be somewhere new. I just hoped my father wasn’t going to flip his shit when I told him I was going.
Heading into Kisa’s office, I walked through, shutting the door behind me. Kisa was sitting behind her desk typing away on her computer. “Hey, Kisa,” I called, and moved to sit in the chair in front of her.
Kisa lifted her head from her work and I frowned. “You okay? You look kind of green,” I said, seeing Kisa run her hand over her clammy head.
She batted her hand in front of her face. “I’m good, Tal. Just feel like I may be coming down with something.”
“You sure? Seems you’ve been like this a while,” I questioned.
Kisa threw me her usual bright smile. “Yeah, honest.”
Lifting off my chair, I took the register of new fighters and their sponsors for the Dungeon’s fighting ring and laid them on her desk. “Here’s all the information you’ll need while I’m gone. If you need anything else, I’ll only be a phone call or an e-mail away.”
Kisa took the folder and placed it in a draw before leaning back in her chair. “Thanks, Tal.” Her eyes dropped to the table, then she looked at me again. “I wish you weren’t going. I know you’ll only be a couple of hours away, and Christ knows you deserve the rest, but I hate the thought of not seeing you every day. It’ll be weird.”
Moving around the room to drop my ass to the edge of her desk, I winked playfully. “It’s my winning personality, Kisa. You’re addicted to me.”
Kisa laughed and patted my knee. “I am. There hasn’t been a vacation in our lives that we haven’t gone on together.”
My smile faded and I squeezed her hand on my knee. “I know, dorogaya moya. But after this past year—Luka coming home, my parents coming to terms with the fact their son was turned into a straight-up killer, and now the recent news that the Jakhua Georgian’s are back in Brooklyn to probably start a war with us, I just need a fucking time-out from it all, you know?”
Kisa exhaled a long breath and nodded her head. “I know what you mean. It’s been intense.” Kisa glanced away and I caught her blue eyes shimmering.