Page 17 of Reign of a Billionaire

I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to stay.

The choice wasn’t given.

Standing up, my legs unsteady, the snickers and pity drifted off the other boys, wrapping around my throat like a noose. If only it’d suffocate me. Relief shone in their eyes at not being the ones chosen, but that was how it went in this hell. Some days just weren’t your day.

Eyes on Ivan and Sofia, I let myself imagine the day the life left theirs. I learned quickly who it was that ruled over this hell.Who was responsible for the life I was forced to endure. A life I didn’t want, but was too much of a coward to try to end. So each day, I did what was demanded of me, taking the lives of other boys to continue “earning” my place in this hell.

Every muscle in my body tightened at the picture of me running into the knee-high snow. I wouldn’t make it a hundred yards before being dragged back. I should know; I’d tried it more than once.

I closed my eyes, attempting to drown out the grunts and moans. The sounds were perverse and wrong in my ears.

“Come here, boy.” A demon with a woman’s voice. I moved on autopilot, the perfume invading my nose.

I shut my mind down, seeking refuge in a warm paradise where teeth, stained with the blood of those who’d dared touch me or had tried to kill me, hung on the wall as décor.

Chapter 10

Kingston, 12 Years Old

Fear was part of my every breath and each heartbeat. It shouldn’t be, I needed to be braver, but I couldn’t shake it off.

Two years, four months, two weeks, and twelve days. Eight hundred and seventy-eight days in a windowless, empty basement cell in the middle of the Siberian landscape. The only time I caught a glimpse of the outside world was when I was taken upstairs to fight.

The training didn’t bother me as much as the killing. I tracked the number of lives I’d taken by the teeth I pulled from the corpses. They were just boys, not so unlike me.

One day, someone would probably rip my teeth out when they were done with me.

I leaned against the pillar as I watched a fight between two older kids, my racing heart hidden behind my well-worn mask. Days and months of torture did that to you.

Bright lights surrounded the arena, illuminating the strangers scattered all around it. They shouted, cheered, waved their money in the air with greed in their eyes. The walls behindme were painted red, just like the blood staining the sand in the arena. But that wasn’t what captured my interest.

It was the only window in the room that stretched on the far wall, letting me see the clear blue sky. It didn’t look cold, despite the snow covering the ground. If only the window would open, I’d jump out of it and try my luck at escaping again. I’d take my chances, even in these rags my captors called clothes.

I missed my brothers. My sister.

Their faces slowly faded in my mind, but I clung to them with all I had. Each night before I fell asleep, I cataloged everything I remembered about them. They were looking for me. I knew it in my heart. My father would abandon me, but not my siblings.

The only comfort in all of this was that my baby sister had been spared. It was one of the only things keeping me going, though I still remembered that day clearly. Her eyes full of terror; her chubby cheeks stained with tears.

A loud roar pulled me from my thoughts to where a boy twitched and bled all over the sand beneath the ring. He fought to breathe; he fought to live another day. But everyone knew he wouldn’t. With each passing second, the light in his eyes dimmed until it was extinguished completely.

“Fuck, he didn’t make it.” A mutter by a boy behind me had me turning around. “The Killer is unbeatable.”

His dark blue eyes were resigned. Tired. He looked the way I felt. Beaten and hungry. I’d seen him around, but I didn’t know his name. After I was forced to kill the first friend I made, I never bothered to learn their names again.

“Louisa, stop this instant.”

Sofia Volkov’s voice interrupted the boys in their morbid discussion. She strolled in, glaring after the girl who’d escaped her control. Dressed in a fancy blue dress and holding the hand of another girl—a twin, by the looks of it—the pair looked crestfallen at being scolded so openly.

So the rumors were true. Sofia Volkov had a weakness, and they were living under this roof.

My attention flickered to the one running into the arena on her chubby legs, wearing a ridiculously bright red dress full of lace and frills that looked out of place here.

“Call a doctor,” she yelled, her hands frantically flying through the air and terror evident in her voice. The girl couldn’t be older than seven.

I felt the breath rush out of my chest. She appeared fragile, almost too small for her age. She shouldn’t be here. It was too dangerous.

Tears streamed down her face, her blonde curls bouncing with each step she took. But it was her eyes that captivated me. Big and golden with hazel specks. She fell down to her knees next to the dead boy, grabbing his cold hand into hers and shaking it desperately.