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Dmitry was the one to speak now, his voice even. “Before marrying you, it wasn’t my place to tell you what your brother did in his free time.”
“Andaftermarrying me?” Claudia asked, her tone accusing.
I glanced out the corner of my eye to see Dmitry looking at Gio. My brother exhaled roughly, and I was shocked to see he looked almost… guilty—an emotion I didn’t know he could feel—before speaking. “I would’ve told you everything. I planned on doing it, but then Nikolai pulled his shit at dinner after our wedding. This wasn’t how I wanted you to find out, even though I knew you would eventually.”
The noise rose slightly, so I couldn’t make out whatever Dmitry was now saying, but I picked up on the last bit, and my heart raced because I knew… Iknewit was the truth.
“Some people need an outlet, sweet girl. Some people need to feel like they are nobody and the same as everybody else all in the same breath.”
I closed my eyes after he spoke, remembering the intimate conversation I had with Gio, when he’d said as much to me. He bared his soul in thatmoment, revealing things I knew he’d always kept buried.
It made me love him even more inthismoment, hearing the same thing from my big brother.
The fight started, and I opened my eyes to take in all the carnage.
The way Gio fought was vicious. He was strategic with his moves, yet the fight seemed to go on forever. But before I knew it, the fight ended, and my man stood over the unmoving body of his opponent.
For a moment, I thought he killed the other man, but I could see the slight twitching of the beaten fighter’s fingers and the irregular rise and fall of his chest.
A few men came into the cage and pulled the loser out, dragging his nearly lifeless body off and out of sight. Blood smeared along the already stained, white mat in a showcase of the brutality we all just witnessed.
The crowd went insane, and I couldn't look away from the father of the baby he didn’t yet know that grew inside me. He stood in the center of the ring, his chest covered with a mixture of sweat and blood. His head was slightly lowered, and he gazed at me.
And then Gio was out of the cage and disappeared into the crowd.
After a suspended moment, the five of us stood, and we were led through the sea of bodies into a darkened hallway.
My heart was racing because the sight of Gio all sweaty and bloody had me wet.
I was good and fucked up for that man.
And I loved it.
26
TATIANA
We only walked for a few minutes before we found ourselves in a crudely erected locker room.
There was a shower room I spotted down a short hallway off to the side that we passed. There were several rows of lockers on either side of us, the majority of them dented, rusty, and banged the hell up. Towels were stacked on benches and spread out on the ground and there were a few duffle bags that belonged to the fighters.
We stood in the center of the room for a few minutes, Dmitry and Nikolai speaking in Russian, and Amara and Claudia having a quiet conversation between the two of them in Italian.
And then a door on the wall to my left, behind arow of lockers, opened and closed, and it was Gio who strode around them, freezing when he saw all of us standing there. Clearly, this was a surprise.
He still wore his skull mask, sweat dripping down his temples, with blood splattered on his chest—unrecognizable if we didn’t already know who he was. But I noticed he was tense. His hands were clenched tightly, and he paced back and forth.
Then Gio stopped moving, his gaze darting between Dmitry and Nikolai, this low sound of warning leaving him. When he ripped off the skull mask and gripped the material fiercely in his fist, I could see how pissed he was.
I looked at Claudia and Amara, and by their lack of shock over the fact that the fighter was Gio, it confirmed to him they already knew of his identity before he yanked off the disguise.
“You,” he said and pointed to Nikolai. “And fucking you,” Gio hissed under his breath and stabbed his finger toward Dmitry. “Both of you bastardsactuallybrought my sisters down here? I thought for sure you’d realize how fucked up it would be to bring them after that conversation the other night. What the fuck is wrong with you assholes?”
Dmitry was tense, his hand still wrapped aroundClaudia’s waist as he kept her back to his chest. Nikolai chuckled deeply, placing himself in front of Amara, as if he thought her brother might hurt her.
Gio flared his nostrils and ran a hand over his face. “Plus, taking them to a fight is one thing. But bringing them to the backrooms—where you clearly wanted them to see me and have my identity revealed—is another.” He snarled as he looked at me, then back at them. “And bringingyourlittle sister here? Bunch of motherfuckers. The both of you, Russian assholes. You knew they'd find out it was me in that ring.” He took a step toward my brothers, and they moved the women back and behind them.
“I would’ve found out eventually,” Claudia said, and all eyes were trained on her now. “I found paperwork last night with your signature on it,D'yavol. I recognized your penmanship. I figured it out that way. But if I hadn’t, I would’ve known the second I saw your tattoos.”
