Page 26 of The Ecstasy of Sin

It took less than twenty seconds for Mr. Barton to bust through the door, shoving the dresser aside as he forced his way in with what we saw back then as superhuman strength.

The rage on his face wasterrifying. “You stupid, useless little shits!”

I put myself closest to the door, hoping Mr. Barton would target me instead of my little brothers, but he liked to beat up Torin the best.

Torin was the smallest of us, and he always shook when someone was angry at him. Gerald Barton loved to see the youngest of us shake and cry when he came into our bedroom at night.

Mr. Barton reached down and wrapped his grimy fist in Torin’s shirt, yanking him up off the mattress and hauling him to his feet. “I should kill you! You’re fucking worthless. All you do is eat my food and cause trouble!”

Torin cried out, shaking violently as Mr. Barton struck him hard across the face with the back of his hand. I shot up from the mattress, grabbing our foster dad’s arm and tugging at it with all my strength. “Leave him alone!”

But it wasn’t enough. I was only ten years old, and Mr. Barton was a grown up. He shoved me backwards, and I fell against the dresser now sitting at an angle in the middle of the room.

My head collided with the thick wood, my vision immediately darkening as I slipped into unconsciousness.

The sounds of my brothers screaming were the last thing I heard as everything went black.

My expression softens as my brothers file into my home, greeted again by Hunter, like he didn’t just seethem moments ago.

With that memory drifting back into the corners of my mind, I find myself grateful for the opportunity to give them all a safe place to be when the ghosts of our pasts comeback to haunt us.

I follow them in, quietly closing the door behind me, only for Ryker to stop me at the threshold as the others find a spot on my couch.

“The Volkovs stopped by the club again today,” he says, his voice low and tense. “They aren’t taking no for an answer.”

I scowl.

Dimitri Volkov, and his brother Maksim, run Toronto’s branch of Bratva. They’re both Russian immigrants, struggling to fill the void of power we left when we had to wipe out an Italian faction a few years back.

The Irish syndicate avoids us because they know we’ll eradicate them if they fuck around, but Dimitri is determined to use Ryker and Torin to their advantage in the war that’s brewing.

Ryker and Torin want to be left the fuck alone, but Dimitri knows power when he sees it. Torin is the most lethal assassin the world has ever seen, and Ryker’s club is the perfect place for the Bratva to run their drugs.

Dimitri also wants control over the underground fighting ring Ryker has been running for the last six years. It brings in ridiculous amounts of money, and is notorious across the globe. People travel from every corner of the world to participate and watch fights in Ryker’s cage.

The four of us are a brotherhood that value our independence. We generally don’t give a fuck what anyone else is doing, as long as they don’t interfere with our business.

Dimitri Volkov is becoming a fucking problem.

“We’re going to have to deal with that shit,” I point out, hanging up Hunter’s gear on the wall next to the door before heading for the couch.

“Volkov men showed up at my fucking house a week ago,” Torin grunts as I walk over and sit in between him and Ghost. “Offered me a ton of money to wipe out Killian Kinahan.”

Killian is the head of the Irish syndicate, and he’s never even attempted to bother us about anything. He’s smarter than his Russian nemesis.

“I assume you slammed the door in his face?” I question, lifting the brow Torin busted open a few nights ago.

“I may have pulled a gun on him,” he says with a shrug.

“All I want is peace and quiet, and here comes Dimitri fucking Volkov starting shit,” Ghost mutters under his breath.

We all nod.

We’ve built lives for ourselves out of nothing, finally finding the peace we couldn’t have as kids, and now we’re being forced into a war we never wanted to get involved in.

I’m going to kill Dimitri Volkov for fucking with my family, and turn his massacre into a warning.

CHAPTER 8