I was glad I’d gone with this site for tonight’s fight instead of one of the other warehouses we’d previously held them in.
Butcher and Son was bigger, and although it stunk like age and rot, the memory of dead animals, and blood staining the walls and ground, it was a perfect place for a fight to the death.
And that’s exactly what this match would be. D’yavol, “The Devil,” my newest fighter, was a savage motherfucker. I needed someone top-tier to replace Razoreniye, Kostya “Ruin” Morozov.
Once Ruin decided he wanted out—of course, because of a woman and losing his heart to her—I knew I needed to find someone as equally brutal as he’d been.
I wasn’t sure I’d find a man to live up to that.
Ruin had been taken as a young teen by the Bratva. He’d been trained at a very early age to be a fighter. To be a weapon.
It’s what he was, what was ingrained in his DNA. He hadn’t known any different. Or at least I hadn’t thought he knew anything besides brutality. And when he found Anastasia again, ten years after being taken away, he said fuck everything else.
I had to give the asshole props for going after what he wanted, but he put me in a precariously tight situation.
With fights already lined up and the very prospect of revenue being lost because the bastard had given everyone all but the middle finger, D'yavol “The Devil” had walked into my life.
I needed a fighter.
He’d needed an outlet.
And fuck, had he given me exactly what I wanted? If D'yavol wanted to be a fucking monster, I’d throw him in the cage with poor bastard after poor bastard to sate his bloodlust.
And I'd never seen a man so ruthless.
I looked at the newly erected cage in the center of the room. There was wire all around it and a locked door, the only exit to keep the fighters inside. More than once, we’d had one try to escape from the brutality of D'yavol.
But the bastards knew what they were getting into when they signed up to join. The payout for winning was too much of an incentive. You either won or you died.
The mat was a rusty color, splotches of blood dried into the flooring. Spotlights were beaming from the center, giving all spectators a prime view at every angle.
My guys looked up at me, and I inclined my head, letting them know without saying the words that everything looked good.
I lifted my hand and moved it around in a circle, telling them to get this shit started.
A sudden hush fell over the room, and this nervous energy had the hairs on my arm standing on end.
I felt the adrenaline, excitement.
And then people were scurrying back, making a path for the star of the event. I straightened when I saw D'yavol making his way toward the cage.
He was a big motherfucker covered in tattoos from wrist to neck, his entire chest, his back, and even his legs. His hair was short and dark, haphazardly disheveled around his head, as if he didn’t give a shit about his appearance.
And he wore his telltale mask, something he donned before every fight. The terrifying visage of a skull that covered his face wasn’t even the most frightening aspect of him.
He just had this aura around him that told the very basic nature of a human that this was a predator. I felt it the first time I met him and embraced it when I saw him fight.
There wasn’t anyone who’d ever made me feel that kind of tension in the air, as if it crackled around us.
There were bookies at every corner of the room, trading off money, taking down stats and wagers.
I already knew who was going to win, not because it was rigged, although there were plenty of those that I controlled, but because nobody ever lost against him.
When he hopped into the cage, there was a roar of noise, arms being thrown in the air, spectators thirsty for spilled blood.
His opponent stepped into the cage, and a round of boos peppered the crowd. Plenty of people bet against D'yavol. They were all hoping that one of these times he’d lose, making them richer than fuck because of it.
I watched as the two men went at it. And although D'yavol was a fucking beast, bulky, muscular, and tall as hell, he was fast.
He played with the other fighter for a moment, dodging and ducking, letting the other man think he’d clip him, and right at the last second D’yavol moved, throwing a fist to his kidney, an uppercut to his jaw.
He only let his opponents get one hit per fight, as if that pain bloomed inside of him and awoke the beast that he was.
Round after round, he annihilated the fighter until finally the other man lay broken on the ground. Sweat and blood covered D'yavol. His chest pumped up and down as he breathed hard, and the fucking crowd was in utter pandemonium.