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He was glad the locker room was empty. Sometimes he had to change alongside his opponent, which wouldn’t have been a problem except that the other men almost always wanted to talk while they got ready.
Roman didn’t come here to talk.
He pulled off his jacket and hung it one of the lockers, then peeled off his T-shirt. He left the jeans on, but took off his shoes. Then he sat on the chipped wooden bench he’d found on the curb and had screwed to the floor.
Inhale, exhale.
Let it all go.
His father. The bratva. All of it.
That’s why he came to Basil’s every Saturday night.
The volume on the music was lowered outside the locker room.
Roman stood, waiting for the crowd to quiet.
A few seconds later he heard the familiar voice of Kellen, the event’s MC, echo through the subpar microphone they used for this purpose.
“Welcome back to another Saturday night at Basil’s! How are you all feeling tonight?”
The crowd cheered, and Roman hopped on his feet, feeling their energy even through the walls of the locker room.
“Glad to hear, because we have abrawlfor youtonight!” The crowd cheered again.
Roman was growing impatient, but this was part of it. This part of Basil’s was VIP only, the cover charge over a thousand dollars a head with a six-month waiting list. They paid for a show, and the MC hyping them up was part of the experience.
“Tonight, we have the Black Serpent on one side of the ring. Give it up for my man here!”
Roman snorted. Kellen was using the term ring loosely.
Very loosely.
The Serpent — Roman could easily have found out his real name, but why bother? — was clearly already in the club, soaking up the energy of the crowd.
“Battling the Serpent, we have your favorite,” the MC roared into the mic, “the Gladiatorrrrr!”
He drew out the word like this was a prime-time fight in Vegas, instead of a dirty underground brawl where almost anything went.
The crowd roared, and Roman pushed through the locker room door into the assembled crowd. It took a second for everyone to realize he was on his way into the clearing that had been made at the center of the club. When they did, he felt their attention swivel his way, the energy jolting through his body like a bolt of lightning.
The rest of his life dropped away as he took his place next to Kellen.
It’s what he loved about coming here. Getting ready to fight, there were no thoughts of his father. No plotting about how to wrest control of the bratva from his grasp. No concern for whether or not he should marry Valeriya Orlov to please him.
There was just brute force. Sweat. Blood. Pain.
No one cared about the scars on his body. Here, they were a badge of honor.
“You know the rules,” Kellen was talking into the microphone, but the words were directed at Roman and Serpent. “Just kidding. There are none! We want to see blood!”
“Blood, blood, blood,” the crowd chanted.
The DJ cranked the music and Kellen stepped back out of the way of the makeshift fighting arena.
And just like that, the fight had begun. No gloves, no tape on the hands, not even a mouth guard.
If you weren’t willing to risk your fucking teeth, you didn’t belong at Basil’s on a Saturday night.
