I would kill him.

Klavs. Klavs. Klavs. I repeated in mind, trying to set the order in my subconscious for when the drug took hold. With every blow, I forced myself to commit important things to memory. Talia cleansing me. Talia stroking my hair. The feel of her palm on my face, and her telling me she loved me. That her heart was full for me.

“You are … for me. No other male. Just me. And me … for you. This is my, ‘I love you.’ These are my words from my scarred soul. They are not borrowed words, but words from my full heart, and my heart only.”

Talia sobbed as I leaned down to kiss her soft, wet mouth, repeating,

“You are … for me, you are … for me…” Then Talia holding my face and whispering back, “I am … for you, Zaal … eternally. I am forever … for you…”

The blows kept coming as I kept circling the cherished memories through my head. Then he stopped. Opening my eyes, my chest raw with chain marks and blood, Jakhua stood before me, sweating and panting. His dark eyes were burning with rage. I knew it was because I didn’t react.

I wouldn’t. When he pulled me from Talia I died inside. I would never give him the satisfaction of seeing me weakened by his hand. I would resist until I couldn’t resist anymore.

Jakhua slammed the chain to the ground. I watched him wipe his sweating brow, then saw the door open.

Every muscle tensed when a man in a white coat walked through. My heart began to race when I saw the needle in his hand. My body shivered. A cold sweat broke out on my body. It was as if my body remembered what was coming.

Jakhua pointed at me and gave the order, “Do it. The sooner that dog is under the better. I need him to kill. I need him doing everything I command without hearing his fucking mouth.”

I thrashed on the chains as the man drew closer. I snarled and roared as he flicked the needle. The chains grew tighter. I shook with the tension on my arms.

Just as the man held the needle to my arm, gunfire exploded down the hallway. Jakhua snapped his fingers at the guard and the guard ran from the room, rifle held in readiness.

My hands fisted. I stared at the door. My heart pumped as the sounds of screaming reached my ears. Jakhua reached for his gun. He scurried to the back of the room. The man in the white coat dropped the needle on the floor, and the glass bottle holding the liquid smashed into the floor.

Crashes and the sound of bullets ricocheting off walls flooded the hallway just beyond the door. I pulled on the chains, and I thundered a roar. I bellowed and bellowed, wanting the fight to come to this room.

I searched for Jakhua. His eyes met mine. My lip curled and I saw the blood drain from his face. My stare was a promise. A promise that if I got free, his life would be mine.

I would kill him. I glanced to the man in the white coat cowering in the corner of the room. I would fucking slaughter them all.

Jakhua pointed his gun in my direction. I saw in his face his resolve to kill me. I pulled harder on the chains, using my feet for purchase. I needed to get free. I needed to kill. I couldn’t miss my chance to kill the fucker.

I wanted revenge.

I wanted his blood on my hands like my family’s was on his.

As he pulled back the safety on the gun, rapid fire sounded just outside the room. Jakhua dropped his gun as the door burst open. I smiled. I smiled as he pathetically fumbled for his gun.

Men spilled into the room. I tried to recognize them, but all were dressed in black, holding their rifles before their faces, aiming them right at Jakhua.

“Mine!” I thundered, causing some of them to avert their attention my way. “He’s mine!” I snarled, just as another man entered the room, a man wearing a hood over his head, bladed knuckle-dusters dripping with blood on his hands.

Then he turned to face me, and I relaxed.

Luka.

Storming forward, Luka pulled back his hood and met my eyes. He turned to one of his guards. “Get him the fuck down!”

A guard ran toward me. Pulling something from his pocket, he worked on the lock. The chains pulled on my arms, but my gaze locked on one man. One man cornered in the room. One man who needed to die. Slowly. Painfully, by my hands.

The sound of a shackle opening hit my ears, and one of my arms dropped free. Blistering fire surged through my arms and the blood filled my muscles. Then the second shackle was unlocked. Both of my arms were now free.

Rolling my neck and shaking out my hands, the chains that had owned me most of my life dropped to the floor. I stared down at the pile of metal on the ground. My chest constricted. I was free.

My eyes shot to Jakhua.

I was almost free.

Luka’s eyes followed my gaze and he lurched forward with his fist held high. Reaching out, I gripped his wrist pulling him to an abrupt stop. Luka’s eyes met mine. I shook my head and growled, “He’s mine.”

Luka’s jaw clenched as though he was fighting the need to take Jakhua himself. I released his arm and said, “He killed my family. Anri was my blood. The cunt is mine to kill.”

Luka stared at me in silence, but eventually he nodded and said, “You’re right. He’s yours. Make the fucker reap what he sowed.”

The guards moved out of my way as I strode forward. Jakhua stood against the wall and watched me. He never took his piss-small dark eyes from me. I stood before him, fire filling my veins.

I breathed. Just worked on breathing as the man that slaughtered my family stood before me. And I was free. No drugs depriving me of my memories, making me forget who I was.

Just me and him.

Me and the man who was about to die.

Walking to the table where Jakhua kept his weapons, the very weapons he’d used on me as a child to bring me under control, I looked at them all lined up in neat rows.

I knew what I was looking for. The weapons he’d made me train with as a child in a cage. Made me kill others in a cage to prove my strength.

My hands twitched as my eyes fell on a flash of black metal. My heart pumped as I reached for a set of black sais. Sharp and deadly black sais.

I moved before Jakhua. His eyes widened as I twirled the sais in my hands. The room was silent as the guards and Luka all watched me.

Walking to Jakhua, I lifted my right sai and placed the thin blade at his stomach. I pushed forward, all the time looking into his eyes … eyes that bulged as the hard steel slowly pierced his gut.

Lifting my other hand, I dropped the sai to the ground. I wrapped my fingers around his throat. I squeezed hard and made sure he looked right into my eyes as he struggled for breath.

His arms tried to hit at my back, but I didn’t even feel them. Jakhua’s face reddened as I slowly and painfully stole his life.

Then with the sai still plunged inside his stomach, I twisted and slowly dragged it up. The blade sliced through flesh. It tore through organs and scraped against bone in agonized slowness.

And all the time I stared into his eyes. The last face he would ever see would be that of a Kostava, the only surviving heir of the family he hated most.

Blood tried to surge up his throat. I squeezed my hand tighter, Jakhua choking as my hand tightened. Still my sai continued to cut. Then just as the life left his body, I ripped the sai from his torso, released my hand from around his neck, and watched as his body slumped down the wall, blood pouring from his wounds.

Stepping back, I looked at the guards all holding their rifles in readiness. With Jakhua’s dying eyes looking at me, I ordered, “Fire!”

The Bratva’s guards followed my command, raining bullets straight into Jakhua’s flesh, the force of the bullets at such close proximity ripping his body to shreds.

I watched as his eyes glazed with imminent death. When the firing stopped, a weight fell from my chest. He was dead. Jakhua was dead.