Scarred (Lost Series Book 2) (2 page)

Fighting was necessary for survival, that’s all. It didn't teach you to survive the aftermath. To quiet the voices.

Ethan

S
ome people went to the cops. Others knew cops didn’t do much but get shit wrong.

I figured the woman in front of me had figured that out.

She pissed me off. Plain and simple. It was her eyes. I’d never seen such fucking sad eyes. They were golden, like a cat’s, and big in her heart-shaped face. I shouldn’t have noticed that she was beautiful, but I did. So damn beautiful and she called my name. Not the one that I’d gotten in the ring, that had been solidified in my time in prison. No. She called my given name, the one that I wasn’t worthy of anymore.

And it made me sick.

I wanted to chew her up, spit her out, and be grateful for it.

Emotions were messy. They clouded judgement and made me hope for things that weren’t possible in my life. Things like goodness and hope. I tapped those lights out long ago and I wasn’t interested in being drawn into melodrama.

I looked to Pavel, the one who should have kept her from bothering me and switched to Russian.

“What is she doing here?”

“She asked for you. I don’t know why. She’s got that look to her though. Fought like the demons were on her heels.”

“Women come on—”

“I told her that, Pantera, but she didn’t listen.”

No, she didn’t look like she would. People like that were the worst. They didn’t know they were in danger until the last second, and then they were surprised they hadn’t seen it coming. I could get rid of her, so easily, so quickly. As long as I didn’t look at those eyes.

They twisted something inside of me.

I hated her on sight.

“Bring her upstairs and have Vadim clear the place out.”

I turned and walked back up the stairs to my office. It was against my better judgement but my gut told me to hear her out at least, even if I was going to throw her out on her rear. My mother raised me better than to turn a blind eye to a woman’s tears, but prison taught me tears only meant you were weak. Weakness meant you were prey, and I didn’t have time to take anyone under my wing.

People died there.

And usually by my hand.

Or maybe it was because she was just like so many weak fucking people in the world that I wanted to play with her, hear her story, and toss her out as I laughed. Either way, finding me was the worst decision she ever made.

I took a deep breath before I sat at my desk. I made a point not to turn the overhead light on so the only illumination in my office was the desk lamp. It hid my face but allowed me to see who sat across from me. I steepled my fingers under my chin as I heard Pavel coming up the stairs with that woman.

I did not have fucking time for this. I had enough on my damn plate with Yuri asking for help with shit he was going through. He enacted Vory, and I couldn't turn him down. Vory  was the law in which our organized crime was run by, and I wasn’t going to go against it. It was the one stipulation I was given when I left England. I was a bratva captain but I could keep to my own business as long as when someone needed my assistance in the Brotherhood, I didn’t turn them away. The bratva wasn’t called the Brotherhood in some circles for nothing.

I sighed, composing myself.

Too much shit and I wasn’t in the mood to play games.

When she walked in, she held her head high, tucking her jacket around her slender waist. Her jeans framed broad hips and thighs in a way that if I were the man I was long ago, I would have found appealing. Instead, I saw things  differently now. It was in the way she scanned the room and seemed comfortable with the silence. She sat in the seat Pavel indicated, but never relaxed. She was tense, waiting, watching. She’d seen some bad things, they were written all over her, but all I wanted to know was why she came to me.

Specifically, how she  thought I’d be a good match for her needs.

“Who told you to come here?” I asked her.

“I’ve heard your name around.”

“That didn't answer my question and my patience is already wearing thin. Who told you to come here? I will not ask again.”

I leaned forward against the desk. I didn’t need weapons to be menacing. My hands were weapons enough. If I got a gun in my hands, chances of survival were less than nil. She noticed the change and lifted her head in defiance. Stupid. She should have been afraid. That she wasn’t told me she really didn’t understand where she was or who she was sitting across from.

She looked over at me, a muscle working in her jaw. Then she did something that made me look at her harder... She bowed her head slightly, voice soft as she spoke.

“I heard about the gym through some guys at the bar I work at. They talk about your fighters and your place being the best to come to. A little internet search told me the rest. People drink and get loose lipped. I heard you served time for murder. I looked into the prison you went to. Only the worst go there.”

She finished and went silent, daring me with her eyes to deny it. I wouldn’t. My one greatest regret was stepping into the ring with Mikhail Kataya, and ending his life. An accident, the only death on my hands I could say had been. A break to his femur that nicked his femoral artery. So simple, so innocent in the realm of cage fighting. But I was trained, my hands registered, and the fight wasn't sanctioned.

I never should have got into that ring.

But what sort of woman sought out a murderer?

A desperate one. I knew desperation when I saw it, and she had all the markers. Which meant the reason she needed my skills was because she wasn’t able to fix her problem on her own, and the cause was personal. I tried to stay as far away as possible from personal matters. Personal meant ties, forensics that could be tied back, and questions that no one wanted to answer.

She didn’t needed a hired gun; she needed a babysitter and someone to tell her everything was okay. Under all that hardness was a core of softness. I saw it. The need in her to be protected. I wasn’t going to do that for her.

“So you know my media history. What is it you want from me?”

“I want you to teach me to kill.”

A sucker punch wouldn’t have surprised me more. Teach her. This woman who couldn’t have been more than a hundred and twenty pounds wet wanted me to make her a killer? She wanted me to teach her how to do things she would regret. Maybe not today. Maybe not right after it was done, but eventually, she wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. She’d wake up and realize she never should have taken this path. No matter how bad things got.

She would have been better off asking me to off whoever she needed gone.

I may have said yes.

“No,” I told her.

She crumbled and I didn’t care. I saw how hard it was for her to swallow, the way she balled her hands into tight fists until her knuckles were white. She bit her lip, and I wondered if she would draw blood. None of that changed my answer.

I was a killer because I had to be. Because life shit on me and tossed me into prison with men who did things so much worse than I had. Because I knew prison guards more crooked than the filth they were policing. I
had
to kill. She didn’t. Whatever her reason, nothing was worse than what I went through.

At least it wasn’t enough of a reason for me to show her how to go down my path.

“Don’t come back to my gym, ever.”

I nodded to Pavel and he stepped towards her. She stood abruptly, baring her teeth at Pavel.

“You don’t know shit about what I’m going through. You don’t know a fucking thing. I thought you would understand. That you could help me. But you’re just a pussy hiding behind some made up fucking story to get people into your gym.”

“You’re right, and it doesn’t change my answer. Get the hell out of my place.”

“I’m sorry,” she said suddenly. There was that submission, that need to please all over her body language. It triggered something in me, even as I fought to tamp it down. She rubbed her face with a rough hand. “I’ve been hiding for years and I’m tired. My ex, he—”

“I don’t give a damn about your sob story about some boyfriend that got a little rough with you. Does he deserve to get his ass kicked? Absolutely. Call the damn cops and have them take care of him. This gym isn’t a charity case and we don’t do illegal shit just cause some pretty little thing walked in the door with wounded eyes. Life is fucking hard, but someone always has it harder. Get the wanker put in jail and leave it at that. Don’t make me tell you again to get out of here.”

I was on my feet, vibrating with anger and regret. She stirred up emotions that weren’t good for me. I needed calm, cold, calculated decisions to keep the voices at bay. Because of her, I’d see so many faces tonight. Death masks of the men I killed. My hands stained nearly black with their blood, but I wasn’t going to add her to my list. No fucking way. She stiffened, tears brimming in her eyes, but she stepped back from the desk.

“Congrats, fucker. You can add another life to your list. My name is River Hoyt, remember that if you see it on the news.”

Her final remark before she left my office wasn’t said with any sarcasm or anger. She said it matter-of-fact, as if it were a foregone conclusion and, for a moment, I wanted to call her back. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I made so many changes, but some things stayed the same. Opening the gym may have saved my life, given me something good to fall back on, but I could only get so clean. Saving some damsel in distress put me in hero territory and I only had a cape made of shreds.

I wasn’t fit for that job.

“She will find someone else,” Pavel said, closing my door after watching her leave.

“Better than if it was me, Pavel.”

“Are you so certain, Pantera? You are a killer because you had to be, not because you wanted to be. Maybe she needed to learn fighting was enough.”

“I don’t have time to figure it out with her and it’s over. I don’t want her back in this gym, it’s that simple. And Pavel? I know what I am. Sugarcoating it isn’t going to change anything.”

“Of course, Pantera.”

I sighed and closed my eyes as Pavel left my office. When my phone rang, I wanted to punch something. Fucking anything. Today was going from shitty to worse.

“
Da
?” Yuri usually preferred doing all business in Russian. Though he didn’t say much of anything on the phone if you didn’t know how to listen.

“Mamma still isn’t feeling good so I’m going to have her see another doctor. Maybe a specialist? I thought it was her heart, but she says she feels bad all over.”

“I’ll see who I can refer you to. I’ll get back to you in a couple of days.”

“Thank you. Thank you so very much.”

Fuck. According to Yuri the last referral I sent him got the job done, finding the men responsible for cutting into his trade, but now he wanted something done. He was calling for a full closure of their business instead of just getting rid of the owners, or “heart” of the operation.

So be it.

I couldn’t survive in my world as anyone less than Pantera. Sometimes I forgot about that. But I was only good at a few things: beating someone to a pulp, ending their life, or finding others who were just as deadly as I was. I had a few names I could put on Yuri’s list and if they didn’t get the job done, I would.

I was a monster, a fucking killer.

No matter how much that small sliver inside of me wanted to get out, it was better to let the darkness overtake me.

I could show you better than I could tell you.