Page 36 of The Ecstasy of Sin (Brutal Brotherhood #1)
Understanding flashes in his eyes, and he flinches like he’s been hit. He sees the truth radiating off of me in unmistakable waves: he hasn’t walked into a fight, he's come to his own execution.
I’m six foot three of muscle and violence, and Maksim Volkov isn’t walking out of this cage alive. Fear brews in his uncertain gaze, and I drink in the sight of it like a fucking addict.
I stalk toward him, his eyes widening at the deadly intent in my every step, then I break out into a run.
Three big strides and I’m close enough to strike, leaping up into the air and throwing my elbow forward, bringing my forearm down across his face with a crack that echoes through the cage.
His body flies back into the barbed fencing, the metal groaning under the force of his impact. He bounces off of the steel mesh as blood erupts from his busted nose.
The scattered flecks of barbed wire bite into his back, tearing his flesh open and drawing droplets of blood to the surface like a goddamn artistic masterpiece.
This cage is punishing. There is nothing lawful or humane about it. It’s built for monsters to rip each other apart in. There’s a reason why Ryker pays off any inspectors or badges that come sniffing around. There’s no way society would allow this hellhole to exist if they knew about it .
The crowd roars over the first drops of blood spilled, a deafening surge of sound that thunders through the club.
A devilish grin spreads across my face as Maksim finds his footing.
If he’s got a brain in that thick skull of his, he’ll give me everything he’s got. It’s kill or be killed in here. The cage door won’t open until one of us is unconscious and bleeding. Or dead.
The blood pouring from his broken nose has hatred igniting in him, and he charges toward me, throwing a messy punch at my face that I easily dodge.
He throws his fists at me, one after another, but he can’t land a hit.
I laugh, a mocking sound that feeds his rage. He only gets a few minutes of humiliation before I get bored, and allow his next hit to land.
I brace against the impact of his fist connecting with my abdomen, but it’s the next hit that crashes across my ribs and staggers me. The pain reverberates through me, sharpening my focus.
I grapple with him face to face, and although he’s got more weight and mass, my skills are far more refined.
He’s clumsy and predictable, an amateur that thinks throwing his weight around will be enough. I’m a psychopath with nearly two decades of killing under my belt, and the kind of strategic savagery that separates men from monsters. We are not the same .
I throw my weight to the left and back, twisting hard to bring him with me, using gravity to lift him off his feet and send him flying over my shoulder down onto the mat.
I’m on him immediately, but he’s ready for me when I land, two thick legs lifting to catapult me over him with impressive force.
Pain explodes across my chest and stomach as his feet drive into me, but I don’t waste the momentum. I twist in the air and land on my feet, my boots skidding roughly across the mat until I’m several feet away.
I don’t fucking hesitate. I launch forward again, close the distance while he’s still staggering to his feet, and slam my fist into the side of his head.
He makes a sharp, pained sound, throwing his elbow up to crack me across the jaw. My head snaps back, pain exploding across my skull, but I shake it off and drive a series of heavy blows into his ribs to stop him from regaining his footing.
He stumbles toward the edge of the cage, lurching in long, uneven strides, trying to shield himself with his shoulders and forearms.
My knuckles ache as I keep delivering strike after strike, putting him exactly where I want him.
I throw my body into him, slamming him against the chain-link wall. His sweat-slicked skin causes one of my hands to slip, and my forearm crashes into the barbed fence, but I ignore the bright burst of pain .
Maksim throws his head back as the barbs pierce his skin again, his mouth agape as a sickening sound of agony spills out of him.
Pleasure rips through me like fucking lightning, crackling up my spine and setting every nerve alight. His suffering is fucking divine.
I wrap my hands around his throat and lift him off his feet, feeling resistance as the barbs try to hold him in place. With a roar, I throw my weight into him, his back tearing to shreds as he slides up the unforgiving cage wall.
Once his eyes begin rolling to the back of his head, I take a step back to let his body crumple to the blood-splattered ground.
Ribbons of blood spurt from his mutilated back, clinging to the barbs as he falls, and dripping down to splatter not just on himself, but on the crowd still screaming behind him.
When he slumps down, I lift my leg and smash my boot into his face. My heel crashes into his jaw with enough force to knock out some teeth, the shock jolting up through my leg and into my hip joint.
I step back to admire the wreckage. Fuck , this carnage is beautiful.
His nose is broken, his teeth are scattered like trophies at my feet, all while blood pours like a waterfall down his face.
The red pool spreading beneath him—fed by the shredded mess of his back—is growing by the second as he gasps for breath, fighting to stay conscious through the agony.
Arousal shoots through me like a fucking arrow. My cock begins to harden at the sight, thick with bloodlust and ecstasy .
I focus on the pain radiating through my body, grounding myself in the ache, using it to keep the euphoria at bay.
An image flashes through my mind: Wren pinned beneath me in all of this blood, her soft cunt taking my cock for the first time. The fantasy has me bricked the fuck up.
I take a moment to catch my breath, and to survey the bloodthirsty crowd.
The gory scene before them is so nauseating that one man drops his head and pukes onto the floor.
I can’t help but laugh, knowing that the best is yet to come: I’m going to rip open Maksim’s body and decorate the cage with his entrails.
Dimitri will never recover from what he watches me do to his brother tonight. He will regret every fucking decision he made to try to pressure and bully my brothers into obedience.
I wait ever so fucking patiently for my opponent as he tries to collect himself, and steady his erratic breathing.
There’s no fun in ending him too soon, not when I have so much more rage to feed him. So much more pleasure to draw from his suffering.
Maksim is struggling. His back is a butchered mess of meat and blood, and pain is etched into every line of his face.
My eyes sweep past the cage, letting the chaos wash over me, until something catches my eye.
Wren.
She’s standing at the back of the crowd, safely beyond the crush of bodies. My brothers flank her left side, watching the fight with intense concentration.
She’s looking right at me. Those big, brown eyes, wide and haunting and fixed on mine. Her wavy hair spills over her shoulders like a curtain of silk, making her look like something holy dropped in the middle of hell.
The urge to get her out of here and back to the safety of my home slams into my chest like a bullet.
And then I see Dimitri fucking Volkov, stepping up behind the woman that belongs to me.
He’s holding my gaze, a smug smile twisting his mouth, as he snakes an arm around her waist and jerks her back against his unworthy body.
Rage fractures my pitch black soul, a red haze descending over my vision as I watch confusion, and then fear, fill her eyes.
Dimitri starts pulling her away, dragging her backward through the crowd as she tries to resist. The edges of my vision begin to darken as my bloodlust mutates into something far worse.
Dimitri Volkov is a fucking dead man, and I’m going to make him suffer so profoundly that he begs me for death.
And for the fucking crime of touching what’s mine?
For putting fear into Wren’s eyes? I won’t let him have that mercy.
I’m going to torture him until his fucking mind breaks and his heart gives out.
The darkness that consumes me every time I take a life claws its way to the surface, obliterating the razor-sharp focus I had on this fight. I don’t see Maksim coming until his shoulder crashes into the center of my back.
The air is ripped from my lungs as he knocks me to the ground, my back scraping across the rough, textured mat as he throws chaotic punches at my face .
One catches the side of my head before I raise both of my arms to block, the hatred inside of me rising with the need to exterminate his entire bloodline.
I let the fury swell inside of me until it possesses every cell of my body like a demon from the burning pits of hell, dropping my guard and letting him land one hit to my mouth before I move.
Maksim’s gaze narrows, surprise flickering across his face as I stop fighting back. That split second of hesitation is mine, and I use it with tactical devastation.
Trapping his legs with mine, I yank him down and drive my shoulder into him, rolling us until he’s pinned beneath me.
Straddling his hips, I let the maddening fog descend, and batter his fucking face without mercy.
Maksim is going to fucking die—him and his piece of shit brother. I will destroy the entire fucking Bratva if I have to, and I’ll do it with a smile.
He tries to defend himself, but I shift my weight up his body to drive my knee into the underside of his jaw. It rattles him so hard he slips into a daze, but I don’t stop striking him. His face is a mess of blood and bruises, broken open in so many places that he no longer looks human.
The floor of the cage vibrates dully under my knees, through every impact with Maksim’s face. Muted, like they're underwater, the crowd roars so loudly the very ground shakes beneath us. Like sharks they long to feed on this man’s death.