Page 120 of The Beast Who Begged Me

I take the nearest guard from behind. He struggles, a boot scraping hard across the concrete, before I break his neck. Fontana’s man is still fighting him when I turn, one hand clawing at the arm around his throat. Then he goes slack, too, and Fontana lowers him to the ground, the crowd inside swallowing the noise.

Gallo gets the door open. Vitali and Dellacroce hurry over to help drag the bodies inside while Vicente peers down the passage beyond us. Benedetti catches my sleeve.

“I need something. To protect Sammy.”

I crouch and pull the knife from my ankle holster. “Take this.” I press it into his hand and straighten. He looks at it for half a second, then closes his fingers around the handle. “You and Gallo go with Vicente. Do what she tells you.” I catch Vicente’s eye. “Find King. But don’t kill him. He’s mine.”

She nods, and they head into the corridor. We wait until they turn the corner and then I follow them in, Fontana at my shoulder. Vitali and Dellacroce bring up the rear.

There are stairs at the far end, leading down. At the foot of the stairs, the passage opens into a cavernous room. The last I see of Vitali and Dellacroce, they’re slipping toward a side passage with their guns low. Vicente, Gallo, and Benedetti stay together as they move into the crowd. Fontana follows me toward the rail, where the roar hits me full in the face.

There’s a pit sunk into the middle of the floor, cage walls rising eight feet high, barbed wire strung along the top. Behind the people pressing against the rail, tiers of packed seating rise away from the cage. They’re screaming themselves hoarse.

And down there in the pit…

Caligula is standing there. He’s drenched in blood all down his front.

He’s standing his ground with a splintered wooden sword in his hand, chin up, blood running from his nose, and still every inch my Don.

I see the marks on him, the bruises I put there myself, displayed for a crowd of strangers who paid to look at him. Fury punches through me so hard I almost lose my breath.

They’re looking at him. And they have no fucking right.

Sammy’s down there with him, too. He’s down to one working arm, the other hanging loose at his side. He’s dragging himself toward the edge of the cage.

There’s another body on the ground. Dark hair. I can’t see his face, and I can’t tell from here if he’s breathing.

And in there with them is a massive, tattooed asshole, turning in a slow circle with his arms spread, playing to the crowd while they shout his name.

Volkov. Volkov.

A pair of golden eyes find me. Out of hundreds of screaming faces, Caligula Clemenza finds mine, and those eyes go wide with shock. For one heartbeat, he just stares at me.

Which is exactly when the motherfucker in the ring quits playing the crowd and charges.

CHAPTER 37

CALIGULA

Jesse is already down.

He went down early, and I think that was the Russian’s idea of mercy, although I don’t know if he’s alive. Volkov caught him once across the temple and Jesse crumpled to the sand as if someone had simply switched him off.

Sammy is still moving.

So am I.

The lights overhead burn hot against my skin, but the air is cold. My toga is wet with sweat and blood from when I caught a backhand from Volkov. The fabric is clinging to me, doing absolutely nothing to keep out the chill.

The crowd breathes with the fight. It inhales when Volkov moves. It exhales when one of us gets hit, then gathers itself again, hungry for the next blow.

I see Volkov’s rhythm now, the way he pauses for applause and turns every attack into a performance. He’s toying with us. And that’s the only reason we’re still alive. King promised Tiberius a show, and Tiberius wanted it drawn out. Volkov is following orders.

I dodge again, and Volkov’s fist passes close enough that I feel the breeze of it. I stumble, recover, and hear the crowd roar as though I’ve performed some magnificent trick instead of nearly having my skull caved in.

Volkov grunts, annoyed, and stops looking at me. His head turns to Sammy.

I move before I can think, but Volkov is already there, and he’s already caught Sammy by the arm. He swings him around and throws him across the space.