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I strip my cut and spread it over Devil’s body, silently vowing justice. We all signed on knowing an early death was possible. But it doesn’t make it right.
Rage bounds down the stairs, bullets raining down on him like angry hornets pelting the floorboards. “Incoming!”
Glass shatters and wood splinters.
We both roll, take shelter under the ledge of a protruding balcony and crack off shot after shot. Four men fall but it’s not nearly enough to satisfy my thirst for blood.
I nod toward Devil and Rage catches my line of attention. “Watch over him. Don’t let them touch him.”
“Go find her.” Riot joins us covered in blood. “Not mine,” he reassures me. “We got this.”
I check my ammo, put in a fresh clip, and turn to the only section of the house we haven’t checked.
I see him standing over a shivering Nova. My mind clicks back over the memories of my mother on her knees in front of my father. She pleaded for him to leave me alone. To focus his wrath on her. Pain stings across my back as if fresh cracks of his cane belt across my flesh.
My hands flinch, my step falters.
This is not the same, I remind myself.
Oizys has a gun to her head while another man holds her by the hair. He’ll die for that.
I regain my focus, step into the room.
“Bratan. I thought by now you would be dead,” I say in a hollow tone as I walk into the front parlor.
My brother turns, his million-dollar smile a slash over his mouth.
Blood covers the front of Nova’s tank top. She’s breathing heavier than normal. Bruises the size of my fist cover the right side of her face and she’s clutching at her ribs. My brother just solidified his death warrant.
Who I assume is her sister is on the floor beside her.
I don’t risk leaving my focus on either of them for long. I can’t afford to give my brother more ammunition against me than he already has.
“Moy brat!” He throws his arms wide; his gun seems almost a part of his hands. He’s stripped of his suit jacket leaving his other gun easy to pull from its shoulder holster.
“Do you remember what I told you the last time I saw you?” I ask. “Tell me, do you remember?”
“Like I remember the contorted face of your mother as our father ended her. That you would kill me the same way. Well, I’m here for you to try.”
The last time I drove my fist into his face was the day he laughed as my mother slowly had the life stolen from her. Today will be the last on this earth.
There’s no posturing or preliminaries. I drop my gun and cross the expanse in only a few strides. The feel of his face taking my fist is the first relief I’ve felt in over two decades. My soul feeds on the surge of satisfaction. He stumbles into the back of a chair. I grip handfuls of his shirt and pull him down while driving my knee into his diaphragm.
My focus narrows and the fighting inside the compound dies away.
Testosterone fuels the fight twenty years in the making. Fists fly. Snarls flare to life and curl through the room. Savage and bloodthirsty, we fight. Both of us know this is to the death.
“It’s been a while since we’ve had such a nice game.” Oizys swipes at a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth. “Bring it, brother! When I have you bleeding on the floor in front of me I will keep you alive long enough to watch me end your precious whore.” Oizys snarls and delivers a steel fist to my ribs. I relish the feeling of pain. Absorb it and use the rolling burn as the driving strength behind my next blow to my brother’s jaw. The force throws him against the wall.
Evil gleams in those black eyes. He tries to raise his weapon but I knock it from his hand and it clatters to the floor. Oizys’ eyes widen from the affront. His nostrils flare as chaotic rage courses through him. His pupils dilate, turning his dark eyes as black as his putrid soul. Rage distracts him and I deliver another fist of iron to his ribs.
“You even look at her and there will be nothing left of you for our father to identify.”
Another blow to the ribs and my brother reels backward. I advance, taking the fight to him.
Agony blooms over his face. He inhales ragged breaths and a tight wheezing sound escapes his lips. Sickness from old memories threatens to grip my stomach but I rein back control over my body. As a boy when we fought I never had the advantage. Here we are on a level plain.
My father always saw to it that my younger brother had what he needed to win against me. There is a level of cruelness about Oizys I didn’t possess back then.
