He leaned in close and whispered in my ear, “My beautiful wife.” When he pulled back, there were a lot of questions in that one endearment.
And I blurted out everything from the previous night. “I wasn’t snooping,” I started off. “But I found paperwork.” My heart jumped into my throat when I saw that Gio was looking between me and Amara.
Although I couldn’t see much of an expression because of his mask, I wondered what he was thinking right now, wondered if he felt just as shocked as we did, even if he knew we were going to be here.
I felt Dmitry’s fingers on my cheek as he guided my head back so I could look at him. “I realized D'yavol was Gio. Figured it out from his signature.” I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat. “We write the letter A the same,” I whispered, knowing Dmitry couldn’t hear me over the rush of noise.
He smoothed his thumb back and forth over my cheek, his brows lowered. I could see the turmoil on his face. Although the room was definitely loud, I felt like we were in our own little world.
“Before marrying you, it wasn’t my place to tell you what your brother did in his free time.” His voice was even, carrying to me in a small space so everything was crystal clear.
“And after marrying me?” I hedged.
He glanced at Gio, who stood in the ring's corner bouncing on the balls of his feet, rolling his shoulders, and doing circles with his arms to warm up.
When Dmitry glanced back at me, he exhaled roughly. “I would’ve told you everything. I planned on doing it. This wasn’t how I wanted you to find out, even though I knew you would eventually.”
“But why? Why would he need to do any of this?” Of course I knew the answers even though I’d asked the questions.
My husband leaned back and took on a relaxed disposition, moving his hand to rest on the back of my neck and sliding his fingers over my skin.
“Some people need an outlet, sweet girl. Some people need to feel like they are nobody and everybody all in the same breath.” He kept stroking the back of my neck. “Fighting in the underground is violent and ugly, and your brother doesn’t want you to see his demons come out.”
As I looked into my husband’s face, I could see he felt the same way about himself. These men had evil and darkness in them, and for Gio, this was how he dealt with it all.
My husband and my brother wanted to protect me, not only from the threats of the outside world, but from themselves as well.
After that, I kept my mouth shut and watched the fight, marveling at how vicious and strategic Gio was with his moves. It was like watching ballet, each step, kick, and punch looking almost choreographed. It was hard not to note the beauty in it.
The fight seemed to go on forever, but it was also done in the blink of an eye.
And then, with one brutal punch, Gio slammed his knuckles into the other fighter’s head. He went down like a bag of bricks. For a moment I thought Gio had killed the other man, but I could see the slight twitching of his fingers, and the irregular rise and fall of his chest.
A few men came into the ring and pulled the redhead out, having to drag his nearly lifeless body off. Blood smeared along the already stained white mat.
The crowd went insanely wild, and I couldn't look away from Gio. He stood in the center of the ring, his chest covered with a mixture of sweat and blood. He looked in our direction, his head slightly lowered, his gaze flickering between Amara, me, and finally landing on Tatiana, where it lingered. Interesting.
I noticed that nobody came up to congratulate Gio. I didn’t know if that was how these types of illegal fights went, or if they just knew to stay away from him because he was dangerous.
With one hard, lingering look between the three of us, my brother jumped out of the cage and disappeared into the crowd.
I stood, and Dmitry and the others did as well. Dmitry placed a hand on the small of my back, and as a unit, we made our way through the path of chaotic bodies that had been made for us.
Tonight I was going to figure out what the hell was going on.
Chapter 43
Claudia
We found ourselves in a crudely erected locker room. It seemed a bit out of place for the debilitated warehouse.
But it was clear it had been made for the fighters to have some place to keep their stuff, get cleaned off, and have their wounds patched up, seeing as there was a med area off to the side.