Down the Line (Volkov Bratva Book 6) Page 7

  He saw what others didn’t want him to see.

  That boy could have been anyone, but for just a moment, Luka didn’t see who really stood there, he saw himself. Young and afraid, willing to do whatever Bastian asked of him if it meant he didn’t have to be homeless and would have a warm meal to fill his belly.

  He remembered, far too quickly, what it had been like to be a victim at the hands of a man more powerful than he.

  But even as the old part of him wanted to find out what he wanted to know in the most bloody way possible, he couldn’t. With the promotion came new responsibility, and that new responsibility demanded that he not draw as much attention to himself as he had before.

  He had to keep his hands clean—or at least as clean as they could possibly be in his profession. As a newly appointed captain, he could very well bring in his own enforcer to handle this kind of thing for him.

  But then again, where would the fun be in that?

  Luka turned, ready to get the answers he was looking for by any means necessary, but before he could do just that, the man released the boy, pointing a stern finger in his face before he gradually moved toward the ring.

  Fortune fucking favored him.

  He wouldn’t even have to find some clever way to provoke a fight with the man, not when he was voluntarily entering into his circle of his own volition. He couldn’t be blamed now if things didn’t go according to plan, and Luka had no intention of going easy on the man.

  “Everyone remembers the rules, eh?” Celt called from his perch on top of an old crate—a god on his throne overlooking his subjects.

  “Get fucking on with it,” the man with flat black hair and a mean scowl said as he flexed his fists.

  Maybe if he hadn’t been a bit of a cunt, Celt might have warned him who he would be fighting. Give him a chance to back out if he wanted—wouldn’t be the first time that happened—but besides a far too casual arch of his brow, Celt didn’t say anything at all.

  Whether he noticed Celt’s expression, the man didn’t seem to pay very much attention to him. He was too focused on Luka, which only made him … curious.

  He didn’t know him—he made it a point to remember faces, and with a mug like his, he wouldn’t forget him—but the way he seemed so hyper-focused on Luka, he would have thought they had known each other.

  Glancing over at the boy again, he tried to place him, but this time, he wasn’t looking at his face, but rather his neck and arms. Checking for tattoos that he might have otherwise disregarded. He’d been quite young himself when he got his first tattoo—a mark that had been practically a brand to show who he belonged to.

  Years and an exceptional cover-up had made sure that no one else would ever see that mark on him, but he still knew it was there. Sometimes, even when he didn’t want to, he could still feel the harsh press of the needle in his skin when he’d gotten the work done.

  Not to mention, it was one of the reasons he kept his hair long.

  Just the thought of it put him on edge, made his rage blacken and fester.

  Tonight was not a good night to be reminded of his past.

  But it wasn’t until the bigger man was standing across from him, meaty fists resting at his sides, that he finally started to piece together just who the man was and why he seemed too eager. As he drew off his shirt and tossed it aside onto the dirty concrete floor, four letters were tattooed across his stomach in big, dark letters.

  BESA.

  Trust, Luka’s mind immediately supplied.

  The code of honor for the organization.

  An organization he hadn’t been a part of in quite some time. One he had hoped died off with the last of Fatos’s men back in his homeland.

  Once, that word had been a symbol of pride for him, but now it only spurned a deep-rooted hatred that made his blood boil.

  He didn’t have to ask now and wonder—his answer was staring back at him, even before the man spat out, “Tradhtar,” as spittle flew from his lips.

  Traitor, the man growled as if that word would wound him in some way.

  “I’ll warn you,” Luka said as he tilted his head on his shoulder, enjoying the crack of his neck. “You’ll only get one.”

  The man didn’t understand his warning from the way his brows drew together in confusion, but the expression cleared when Celt gave the go-ahead for the fight to begin.

  Luka stood in place, his arms at his sides.

  He knew what all the others in the room suspected he would do—that he wouldn’t hesitate to launch himself across the room and beat the man bloody—but he was a different man now.

  Benevolent in a lot of ways.

  Like the fact that he didn’t try to defend himself as the man let out a primal yell as he swung one large fist directly for his face. He didn’t raise his fist to block it, nor did he strike out with a hit of his own.

  He watched with detachment as the man swung just before the man’s fist connected with his face. Pain exploded outward from the place of contact. The harshness of it made it feel, for a moment, as if his skull was splitting open.

  But even as pain seemed to flood through his every nerve ending, his laughter came on the heels of it. This was his first kept secret, yet the idiot who’d thought to step in this ring with him didn’t seem to realize it.

  Luka didn’t just like pain, he fucking thrived in it.

  It brought out the best in him.

  So when he straightened, a grim smile curling his lips even as blood stained them, the man was right to hesitate.

  Luka struck without warning, swinging so hard and so fast he even surprised himself. Too long he had gone without sating this urge, letting his dark emotions swim through his veins without purging them.

  In many ways, his conscience faded out, shifting to autopilot.

  He could see what he was doing, though it felt more like he was watching himself rather than participating. But he still felt the ache in his knuckles and the impact his fists made against the man’s body.

  He saw him as he hit the ground, winded, doing his best to protect himself from the onslaught of blows.

  He felt when the man was too weak to even manage that much.

  But he didn’t stop.

  Not even when the man stopped fighting back, and he was motionless on the ground.

  No, he wasn’t fucking done at all.

  Who the fuck was he that he came into Luka’s place of solace and tried to harm him? What the fuck gave him the impression that he would leave this place alive once he had?

  If he wanted a fight, he would very fucking well give him one.

  And as a reminder, he would make sure he didn’t fucking forget it either.

  He needed a cut—just a little slice of his knife—so he could remember the lesson he was teaching. Because for Luka, there was no fucking honor in this man, and if he had to cut those fucking letters out of him one by one, he would.

  He just needed—

  Someone grabbed him from behind, using their momentum to shove him backward and well enough away that he could see who was touching him without his permission before he swung at them too.

  But a familiar face stared back at him—one he saw far too often.

  “Calm your shit,” Niklaus said, daring him with an arch of his brow to swing at him.

  For one crazed moment, he considered it. But just like that, his bloodlust settled, and he could see clearly again. “I am calm.”

  “Right. Because you weren’t trying to gouge that fucker’s tattoo out with your hands.”

  Luka glanced past him, watching as two others dragged the unconscious man from the floor. His face was just one massive purple bruise, and the rest of him didn’t fare much better. Not even his stomach where blood dripped.

  “Huh. Don’t remember that at all.”

  “For fuck’s sake.”

  Niklaus looked at him as if he were teetering on the edge of a mental break—as if he didn’t know that was just his everyday life—but Luka didn’
t pay him any mind. Instead, his gaze went back to the audience of onlookers, most of whom refused to make eye contact with him, and searched for the boy, but found he was nowhere amongst them.

  Weird.

  “Looks like we might have company,” Luka remarked dryly, wondering who the boy was and the man he had come with.

  But he knew their presence here couldn’t mean anything good.

  About the Author

  London Miller is the author of the Volkov Bratva series, as well as Red., the first book in the Den of Mercenaries series. After graduating college, she turned pen to paper, creating riveting fictional worlds where the bad guys are sometimes the good guys.

  Currently residing in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and two puppies, she spends her nights drinking far too much Mountain Dew while writing.

  For more information:

  www.londonmillerauthor.com

  london.millerauthor@gmail.com