Chapter 19: Bratva Prince: Chapter 19

I leaned back, avoiding Dayton’s fist with ease and rammed my knee into his stomach. He hunched over, his eyes wide, a pain-filled groan falling from his lips. I drove my elbow into his back, flattening him to the ground, and took three steps back.

“Again,” I barked, not the least bit impressed with his efforts so far.

For the last hour we’d been sparring in the ring. Though I wouldn’t even call it that. Dayton was swinging his arms around like an uncoordinated idiot, just hoping one of his hits would land while I moved around him, blocking and evading his strikes.

I had to give it to the kid though, what he lacked in fighting skills, he made up for with willpower and determination. I half expected him to demand a break within the first thirty seconds. But he kept getting up, more determined each time to try to land a blow.

I was still frustrated over my interaction with Drea last night, and I knew I was taking some of that frustration out on Dayton.

I had no idea what had caused the drastic change in her. It made no sense to me. The night before last she’d been all over me, literally grinding in my fucking lap. Now she wouldn’t even look at me without prompting. That sassy attitude that made my dick hard as a rock was gone and in its place was a cold, hard, ice queen. One that refused to engage in conversation with me unless absolutely necessary.

Dayton’s arms shook as he tried to push himself off the floor, his teeth clenched and eyes locked on me, glaring with the promise of retribution. Of revenge.

The warehouse door swung open and Father walked in, heading straight towards me. I held in a sigh. The look on his face told me I wouldn’t like where this conversation was going to go. He wore one of his dark three-piece suits, his face clean shaven and not a single hair out of place.

“Father,” I acknowledged with a slight tilt of my head.

Dayton tried to take advantage of the situation. Maybe he thought since I wasn’t looking at him, he could finally land a strike—or that my father’s intimidating presence might throw me off.

None of that happened.

Dayton ran at me and threw a right hook, aiming for my face. I ducked and drove the heel of my palm into his solar plexus. He cried out, hands flying to his chest as he flew back, landing in a heap on the floor.

I straightened, my focus still on Father. “Dare I ask what’s caused the look on your face?”

Father’s glare held a note of parental reprimand. “Why is the Zeta woman locked in one of our guest bedrooms?”

Ah. I suppose I should have expected that. This morning when I woke up Father was already gone, so I hadn’t had the chance to tell him about Drea yet.

“Have you seen Nik today?”

Dayton lashed out with a kick and I blocked it, wrapping my arm around his calf. He wobbled unsteadily on his other foot, trying to keep his balance as he attempted to yank his leg out of my grasp. I timed it and let go at the exact right moment, causing him to fall back and land hard on his ass.

“God fucking damn it!” Dayton cursed.

“No, why?” Father frowned, completely ignoring Dayton’s attempts to hit me. It was like he wasn’t even there.

“He found out some very…interesting information last night.”

“Such as?”

“That woman in our guest bedroom is the leader of The Los Zetas.”

Father blinked, the briefest flash of surprise streaking across his face. “Say again?”

“Drea Ortega is the daughter of El Diablo, Don Andres,” I clarified, blocking another strike from Dayton. “After he died, she took over and now runs the cartel.” I twisted Dayton’s arm behind his back and shoved him away, making him growl in frustration.

“How reliable is this information?”

“She confirmed it, so I’d say pretty reliable.”

“Hmm.” Father’s brows drifted into a hard frown. “That changes things.”

I grunted in agreement. Like me, Father understood the repercussions of having the leader of one of the most violent and bloodthirsty syndicates locked away in our house.

Before Alessandro approached us, we’d had very little to no contact with The Los Zetas. We were aware of each other, like predators out in the wild, keenly aware of where the lines of our territory began and ended, but that was the extent of it.

They primarily dealt in hardcore, high quality drugs that we had no interest in, so there was never any reason to build an alliance with them.

“I thought you found her chained to a bed in Nero’s house? Explain to me how that kusok der’ma, piece of shit, managed to do that?”

I relayed the information I’d learnt last night from Drea while blocking more of Dayton’s attacks, slapping him upside the head in return each time the opportunity presented itself. It was too tempting to miss. His face reddened with embarrassment and anger each time.

The amusement bubbling within me at his expense was unexpected. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had so much fun sparring before.

“He used her as leverage, threatened to kill her if the cartel didn’t do exactly as he said. It was what he would have done with Illayana too, if we hadn’t rescued her.” I ducked underneath Dayton’s fist and sidekicked him, sending him sprawling to the ground. “You’re done,” I told Dayton, taking pity on him.

“Thank God,” he groaned, staying flat on his back.

I faced Father, draping my arms over the top rope. At the mention of Illayana’s kidnapping, a thunderstorm of anger rolled over his face. He was still mad Arturo took that kill away from him.

“We need to tread very carefully here. So far, the playing field is even. We’ve killed some of their men, they’ve killed some of ours. There’s an opportunity to part amicably, but if we kill her, harm her in any way, we’ll find ourselves in an all-out war with the cartel.”

Father narrowed his eyes. “You think we should let her go.” It wasn’t a question. His voice held an accusatory tilt to it, like the mere thought was an act of betrayal.

I sighed, jumping down from the ring. Father wasn’t an emotional man unless it involved his children. His anger over what happened to Illayana, the Zetas’ involvement in it, was clouding his judgement. Otherwise he would have realised what I did already.

“What I think is Grandfather is due here in a matter of days, and it might not be a good idea to start a war when it can be avoided. We’ve got enough on our plate as it is with Dominik and Rayna, the burning of our building, our alliance with the Cosa Nostra in their war against the Outfit and The Dirty Vultures. The last thing we need is to add the Zetas to that list.”

Father studied me, an odd look shimmering in his eyes. “What would you suggest we do, moy syn? My son?”

There was something more to his question, something lying deep in the undertones of his words that I couldn’t quite figure out.

“I think we should contact Juan, her brother and current second, to arrange a sit down and come to an agreement.”

“A truce.” Father rolled the word over his tongue, like it caused him physical pain to even say it.

Dimitri Volkov didn’t do truces. He demolished his enemies with an animalistic ferocity. He didn’t sit down and make peace with them.

“An agreement,” I repeated, giving him a hard stare. “You know as well as I do, we don’t have the men to fight on five different fronts. Maybe four, but not five. We need to eliminate one of the risks. I’ve thought long and hard about this. The Zetas are the obvious choice. In exchange for letting Drea go, we demand a ceasefire and all contact with the Outfit to stop.”

“And what makes you think they’d honour that?” Father asked, the scepticism in his voice clear as day.

I thought back to Drea, to everything I knew about her. Everything I’d witnessed so far. She was fiery. Hot-headed. Prideful. And incredibly smart. She was focused, with the mind of a leader and a natural born alpha charisma that put men three times her size in their place. Above all, she knew how our world worked, where the cartel sat on the board. They were fierce but small. She’d know how outgunned they were, that it would be in the best interest for her and her people to make a deal with us. Especially when I made her realise that, regardless of the reasons, they were the ones who drew first blood. We were well within our rights to kill them all.

“She would honour it,” I answered confidently.

Father watched me closely, a few tense seconds passing before he finally spoke. “Alright,” he nodded. “Contact them, organise the sit down and handle it.”

I kept the surprise I felt hidden but it wormed its way into every cell of my being.

As Father’s second, I had a wealth of responsibilities. I kept track and maintained all our accounts, the money and the inventory. I oversaw the transfer and training of all our men. I packed and distributed our orders. All on top of handling the usual day-to-day tasks.

The one thing Father had yet to let me handle on my own was the sit downs with other rival syndicates. He firmly believed that as Pakhan it was his duty, his responsibility to be there, front and centre at every negotiation, every alliance we formed. He was the face of the Bratva, and anyone we worked with needed to see that.

This would be the first time he wasn’t present at an important sit down. I knew what it meant, understood the significance of what he was asking of me.

And I was so fucking ready.

“Consider it done.”

Father nodded. “Any progress on finding out who’s responsible for burning our building?”

I clenched my jaw. “No. There were no fingerprints on the device they used that started the fire. No camera footage. Nothing.”

“I suspected as much.” Concern flashed across his face. “Another two buildings burned down yesterday.”

Shock slammed into me. “You’re joking.”

“I wish I was,” Father scoffed. “They were both abandoned, like the first one. But it won’t take long for things to shift, for whoever is doing this to start burning the occupied ones. We need to find out who’s responsible, and quickly.”

“Ow, ow, ow.”

I watched, mildly amused as Dayton struggled to sit in a chair at the kitchen table, his limbs shaking and face scrunched up in pain. Bruises were already starting to form on his pale skin; over his face, arms and, even though I couldn’t see it, his chest. I’d struck him there hard enough to pretty much guarantee it.

“Ow, ow, ow, ahhhhh,” he breathed out a sigh of relief the moment his ass landed in the chair, his head tipping back. “God, I never wanna do that again. Everything hurts,” he groaned, closing his eyes.

Eager to burst his bubble, I took a sip of my water and said, “Too bad.”

His head snapped to me. “What? Noooo.”

“Don’t be such a baby,” I grunted, eating a forkful of my beef stroganoff. “I didn’t even hit you that hard.”

“Not that hard, he says,” Dayton laughed mirthlessly. “Not that hard. Okay then asshole, what’s this then?” He pointed to his still-blooming black eye. “Or this?” He lifted the front of his shirt, showing me an angry bruise spreading out across his chest. “Huh? What do you call all this?”

I gave him a blank stare. “Training,” I said emotionlessly, then went right back to eating my food.

“Well, I don’t want to do it anymore.”

“Why?”

“Because I got my fucking ass handed to me, that’s why,” he growled.

“And?”

“And it was embarrassing! I sucked so bad I couldn’t land one hit on you, and you weren’t even paying attention half the time. I’m not cut out for this shit.”

Flora came over with a bag of frozen peas. She wrapped it in a cloth and pressed it against Dayton’s face, over his eye. “Hold this here, child.”

Dayton winced, doing as she asked. “Thank you.”

I pushed my empty plate away and leaned back in my chair, crossing my arms over my chest. “Have you ever been in a fight before?”

The one eye I could see glanced away awkwardly. “Depends on your definition of a fight,” he grumbled.

I just stared at him, waiting for a proper answer. I was a patient man. I had no problem waiting him out.

He sighed, shoulders slumping forward. “My mum’s junkie ex-boyfriend used to hit me all the time when she couldn’t pay what she owed. I tried to fight back, but he was a lot bigger than me. Stronger. I’m not a fighter. Never will be.”

Dayton was tall but lanky. A lot of men would be bigger than him. We needed to fatten him up a bit, put some meat on him.

I drummed my fingers lightly on the table. “I’ve been fighting all my life, Dayton. Since I was a little kid just barely learning how to walk. You were never going to beat me. That wasn’t the point of it.”

He frowned. “What was the point, if not to win?”

“For me to see your potential. Yes, right now you’re not a fighter. You throw yourself around hoping you’ll hit something, which is the worst way to fight. You’re slow, clumsy, and one of these days you’re going to break your hand because you don’t know how to throw a proper punch.” With each word I said, Dayton slumped further into his chair, his confidence diminishing by the second. “But none of that matters because that can all be taught. Learnt. What you possess is something far better. Determination and willpower. I beat your ass into the ground time and time again and you didn’t let that stop you. You got back up and tried again, refusing to lie down. Those skills are what makes a good fighter. The willpower to keep going no matter how crappy the odds are. Everything else can be learnt, you just have to be willing to put in the time and hard work.”

Dayton stared at me, his mouth slightly open in shock. “You-you think I could learn that? To be as good as you?”

I didn’t know much about his life before arriving here, but based on what he’d said so far, it was easy to see he’d been neglected. His mother was a junkie and likely prioritised her next hit over him. She left him to fend for himself on numerous occasions while she was whacked out of her mind. He was scrawny, like he’d never had a steady stream of food. Slightly malnourished. He’d been beaten up so much he wore the emotional scars of it on his sleeve. I was confident he craved the ability to look after and defend himself.

“Is that what you want?” I could show him all the moves in the world, but none of it would matter if he didn’t have the drive to learn it, if he didn’t put in the time and effort he needed to. So far he’d been very vocal about his lack of desire to be here.

Dayton removed the bag of peas from his face, laying it on the table. He gave me his complete attention, his eyes hard and serious. It was the first time I’d ever seen him like that. “I do. I’m sick of getting my ass beat. I wanna do the beating for once. I want to go back home and see how Brent likes it when he’s the one getting his head kicked in.” Venom and hatred dripped from his words, his hands clenching into fists.

“That can very easily be arranged. It would only take one phone call.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You tell me what he looks like and where he likes to hang out and I’ll send someone to kill him,” I said casually, shrugging one shoulder.

Dayton stared at me. “You’ll send someone to kill him,” he repeated in disbelief. “Why? You don’t even know him. He hasn’t done anything to you. Why would you do that?”

I sighed, leaning my elbows on the table. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t understand how we worked, didn’t know there wasn’t anything we wouldn’t do for the people we cared about. I would just have to explain it to him.

“Mikhail is like family to me. For as long as I can remember, he’s been there. He taught me how to drive. How to fire a gun. He was there—” my throat closed up and I closed my eyes briefly, breathing through that familiar pain. “—he was there for us when my mother was killed. He’s the one who brought my father back from the edge. He’s more of an uncle to me than my actual uncle. And you’re his son. That makes you family too.”

“I’m not his son,” Dayton gritted out. “Biologically, we’re related. But he doesn’t give a shit about me. He palmed me off to you guys the first chance he got.”

I shook my head, placing my hands on the table. I pushed myself to a stand. “That’s where you’re wrong. Had Mikhail known about you, he would have come for you. He never would have abandoned you to be taken care of by a junkie. Not his own flesh and blood.”

Dayton scoffed. “We’ll just have to agree to disagree on that one, won’t we?”

“I suppose so.”

I could see why he was reluctant to believe me. He did have a point. Mikhail had just discovered he had a son and instead of spending time with him, bonding with him and getting to know him, he sent him here.

But I don’t think Dayton understood that it was for his own good. He was too close to see it from any perspective other than the ‘abandoned child’ point of view.

Without training, Dayton wouldn’t survive in Mikhail’s world. Mikhail knew that. As much as it would have pained him, he had to send Dayton away to get the training he needed.

The world we lived in was so vastly different to the one Dayton knew. Dayton would hesitate to kill someone, even in a life or death situation. That kind of hesitation could cost him his life.

Dayton would see this was the best option…eventually.

I picked up my empty plate and placed it in the sink, leaving Dayton to his own thoughts. The kid had a lot to think about. Flora and a few of the other housemaids were moving about the kitchen, cleaning and tidying up after preparing lunch.

“Has Drea been given her lunch yet?” I asked Flora, washing my hands.

Flora placed a steaming hot plate of beef stroganoff on the counter. “I was just about to take it to her.”

Even though she was still technically a prisoner, Drea had to be treated a little differently now. We were never going to form an alliance with the cartel but if we were going to part amicably with them, we had to start treating her like a ‘guest’. A guest that was locked in her room and couldn’t roam the house without an escort.

“I’ll do it.” I ignored the look of surprise Flora sent my way and picked up the plate, heading out of the kitchen.

“Zander,” Nik called out, his body standing in the doorway of the security room. “A word?”

“I’ll come see you later.” I was far more excited than I should have been to see that little firecracker upstairs, to try and sort out what the fuck her problem was.

“You’re going to want to hear what I have to say.”

My spine stiffened. Whatever it was, I knew I wouldn’t like it. Nik was using his cautious voice, the kind of voice a zookeeper would use on a wild animal to try and keep them calm.

I handed the plate of food back to Flora. “Keep it warm. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Flora nodded.

Nik stepped back into the room so I could walk in and I shut the door behind me. “What? What is it?”

“Before I tell you, please remember all the equipment in here is really expensive. If you need to hit something, take it to the warehouse.”

I rolled my eyes. “I broke one computer one time.”

“It was an OrionX2 Dual System Extreme Overclocked PC and it was $37,000,” Nik growled.

“I know. You told me that when I broke it.” Well, he more or less screamed it. “Now what did you have to tell me?”

Nik gave me one last hard glare (communicating that he was still pissed about the whole thing even though it happened years ago and I bought him a new one) before dropping into the chair and typing on the keyboard.

I frowned when the camera feed from Drea’s room came up on the screen. The date and time read yesterday, late afternoon.

Why was he showing me this?

When Mila’s thin frame stepped through the door, it clicked into place.

“What the fuck?” I hissed, leaning closer to the screen, my hands squeezing the edges of the computer table so hard the wood groaned under the pressure.

Nik’s eyes darted nervously to me but I ignored him, watching the events unfold. Listening to Mila say she was my fiancé.

A strong urge to eviscerate her, to cut open her stomach and rip out all her internal organs pounded through me when she tried to attack Drea.

How fucking dare she?

Mila was wild. Chaotic. But I never would have imagined she’d do something this colossally stupid. Especially after our last conversation.

How did she even get into the pit?

This explained Drea’s sudden personality change. She thought I was engaged when we fooled around. Any woman worth a damn would hate going after someone who was taken, and clearly Drea agreed because she was no longer fun and flirtatious. She was cold and angry. Even when I tried to engage her in a little light banter, she wasn’t interested. She was disengaged. Like she’d rather be anywhere else than stuck in a room with me.

When Erik punched Drea so hard in the face she flew back, anger exploded in my chest. A white-hot, burning rage that completely consumed me and made me want to carve his fucking eyes out. The table cracked underneath my hands, splintering from the unrelenting pressure.

Nik visibly winced. It looked like he wanted to push me away from the computer but thought better of it.

Considering my increasingly foul mood, it was a smart choice.

“So what are you going to do about Mila?” Nik asked once he clicked off the recording.

As much as I hated it, “Nothing,” I grunted, straightening my spine.

“Nothing?” Nik frowned. “You’re just going to let her make a huge claim like that? She’s going around telling people she’s your fiancé, the future Queen of the Bratva. How can you be so okay with that? Unless—oh God. Zander, please don’t tell me you’re actually planning on marrying her?”

I reared back in disgust. “Don’t be an idiot. Of course I’m not going to bloody marry her. I’m also not going to give her what she wants, which is so clearly a reaction. The worst thing I can do to a woman like her isn’t to hurt her. It’s to ignore her.”

And it would drive her crazy.

Nik chuckled. “Oh, she’ll hate that. Especially when she hears someone else has been getting all your attention.”

“Exactly,” I nodded. “She’ll step further out of line because she just can’t help herself, and then I’ll be within my rights to give her a lashing.”

Nik snorted. “You’re well within those rights now.”

True. Lashings were a severe form of punishment we gave to our people when they stepped out of line. It was exactly like it sounded. A brutal whipping that left their back bleeding and scarred.

Erik had been the last one to receive a lashing for telling Ethan at the main gate that Mila had permission to come through.

“Alright, I gotta run. I’ll talk to you later,” Nik finished, heading towards the door.

“Is Erik still on duty?” I asked, making him pause in the doorway.

He threw a frown my way. “Yeah. I saw him doing a perimeter check not too long ago. Why?”

“Send him to me.”

Nik’s frown grew. “Zander-”

“Send him to me, Nikolai,” I repeated, my voice laced with authority.

He cursed under his breath before turning on his heel and walking away. A few minutes later he returned, Erik in tow.

Dark brown eyes locked onto me, the same shade as Mila’s. He bowed his head and then stood tall. “Boss,” he greeted.

I ran my eyes over him, my anger climbing. “Erik. Do you have anything to report?”

His brows snapped together in confusion. “About the perimeter check? No. Everything was in order.”

I nodded, walking towards him. He stiffened when I began to slowly circle him, nervous energy flowing off him. “Nothing else to report then?” My hands were clasped behind my back, footsteps echoing around with a loud thud, thud, thud.

“Uh, no?” he said with a questioning tone.

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

He squirmed uncomfortably. “Telling, Boss.”

“You don’t sound so sure about that.” I came to a stop in front of him, staring him dead in the eyes. “How did Mila get down into the pit last night?”

His eyes shifted away from me for a moment before returning. He sighed, lowering his head. “I let her in.”

“Any particular reason?” I was sure I knew the ‘why’ already, but I wanted to hear it from him.

“She wanted to talk to the prisoner. I know she’s not permitted down there, but she said she might be able to get her to talk, so I-”

“Thought you’d just ignore the rules, again, and do whatever you like?” I cut in, taking a menacing step forward. “Did you not learn your lesson last night?”

He winced, as if the mere mention of his last punishment caused him pain. The lashes on his back would still be fresh. Sore and tender.

“Not only did you let her back through the gates, you also decided to let her down into the pit when you knew damn well she’s not allowed down there. Tell me Erik, do you want to die?”

“No, Boss,” he answered immediately, body shaking. Eric was a big man. Hard to intimidate. But in this moment he was terrified because he knew if I wanted too, I could put a bullet in his head without a second thought.

“You knew it was against the rules. You knew we’d find out. Yet, you did it anyway. Funny this is Erik, that’s not what I’m most angry about.”

He glanced at me, frowning again. “It’s not?”

I grabbed his hand, the same hand he’d used to strike Drea with and twisted sharply. He cried out in pain, dropping to his knees. “If you ever lay another finger on Drea again, I’ll cut your fucking hand off. Do I make myself clear?”

He sucked in painful breaths as he nodded vigorously. “Yes, Boss,” he groaned.

His agreement should have been enough. But it wasn’t. The video of him hitting Drea played out in front of my eyes over and over again, making it impossible for me to release him unscathed. I wanted retribution.

I pulled a knife free and rammed it straight through his wrist, all the way to the hilt. An ear-piercing scream exploded out of his mouth, loud and full of agony. I let him go and he dropped to the ground. He cradled his arm close to his body, being careful not to cut himself on the blade sticking out of his wrist.

“This is your last chance, Erik. Fuck up again, and you’ll wish I’d killed you here today.” I walked out of the room, not looking back.