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I smoothed my hands over my thighs and glanced around once again. I saw men dressed in dark fatigues close to where we were seated and could almost smell the Russian guard-dog vibe pouring off them.
The noise was so loud it was deafening.
God, this place is utter chaos.
After a few minutes, everyone in the room suddenly went absolutely wild, the volume inside this underground space becoming completely overwhelming. Apparently, they’d seen someone come through one of the many doors along the perimeter because, a moment later, a massive man jumped into the ring. He had dark-red hair that was buzzed close to his head, and there was a crazy looking dragon tattoo that covered one of his shoulders, the hind legs and wings draping down his arm.
Anticipation and adrenaline raced through my veins when everyone went totally quiet, as if they knew something fucked up was about to happen.
And then—pandemonium.
The people who were in the very few areas with seating stood up and shouted, raising their hands in the air as they screamed angry, violent things along with everyone else besides us.
I leaned in close to Amara, my sister-in-lawpregnant with my niece or second nephew, and I rubbed her arm in support. The noise was obviously too much for her, and I was about to tell Nikolai to leave with his wife when my brother sensed her unease and pushed the long fall of her hair off her shoulder. He leaned in and said something to her. She shook her head, and he gave her a narrow-eyed look and made a huff of irritation that he clearly wasn’t getting his way.
He reached into his pocket and handed her a pair of earplugs, which she took and put in with a grateful smile. He offered me a pair, and I was tempted to take them, but I decided to wave him off, hoping it would give him the impression I wasn’t as weak as he and our brother thought I was. I assumed Dmitry gave Claudia the option as well, but I was too focused on the ring and what was to come.
To my left, I saw people moving out of the way and sat up straighter, trying to catch a glimpse of who was weaving through the crowd. Although, I already knew. God, I knew it washim. I felt the charge of electricity in the air.
And then I saw him.
He was a head taller than everyone else.
When he climbed into the cage, I couldn’t helpbut stare at Gio in all his vicious, intense, and highly addictive glory.
A skull mask covered the lower half of his face once again, and he wore black shorts, tape wrapped around his knuckles, and nothing else.
Everyone was shouting, “D'yavol!” But all that noise faded as soon as my eyes landed on Gio.
I glanced at Amara, and her expression was too confusing for me to tell if she was aware this was her brother. But when I peeked over at Claudia, her look told me all I needed to know.
She’d already known who she would be watching fight tonight. But how?
As if my thoughts were shouted for all to hear, Amara looked at her sister, her eyes wide as they bounced between Claudia and D'yavol.
Yup. Now, she knew, too.
But like a negative and positive magnet, my eyes were drawn back to Gio. Yet, it was Claudia and Dmitry talking beside me, loudly enough I could hear their words, that had my ears focused on them. And since I was a nosy bitch, I eavesdropped.
“Why don’t you look surprised, little wife?”
“I wasn’t snooping!” Claudia blurted out, and I could tell she hadn’t meant to say it.
Even though I was staring at my tattooed dreamman inside the ring, I was totally focused on the two people beside me. I felt my eyebrows rise a little in surprise at Claudia’s high-pitched yet haughty tone. To say I was eager to hear the rest was an understatement.
“But I found paperwork.”
Paperwork?
“And I realized D'yavol was Gio. Figured it out from his signature.”
What in the hell are they talking about? How could Claudia find out D'yavol’s identity from paperwork?
I looked at Nikolai and then Dmitry, and then it clicked.
Even if this was illegal underground fighting, my brothers would have made sure they had their asses covered. So there had to be some kind of contract between my brothers and Gio for him to fight for Nikolai and Dmitry, and why the Head of the West CoastItalianMafia had chosen aRussianname as his alias.
“We sign the letter A of our last name with the same flourish at the top. Always have, ever since I saw his signature when I was young and thought it was pretty, so I started doing it, too. It was the same stylized A in D’yavol’s signature,” Claudia murmured but not soft enough that I didn’t hear her.In fact, really being nosy, I leaned toward her so I could catch the words clearly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
