Scarred (Lost Series Book 2) (4 page)

“Okay.”

And with that, I got my wish.

To become the monster I so desperately needed to be.

And how sad was it that his claim to protect me cinched the deal?

It hurt to be alive, but I was happy I was. If only I could figure out why what Ethan represented intrigued me. Or at least have the strength inside myself to admit I knew exactly why, and that was what made me a victim in the first place...

River

Three months later

T
here are no katas, no rituals here, malyutka.”

“What does that mean, Pavel? You keep calling me that.”

“Little one, it means little one. Now listen up.”

Pavel smacked my shoulder, and I turned to slide into stance once more. I was still tense, my stomach just knitting together after careful movement from the hospital to Ethan’s home behind the gym. I had my own room, complete with a cellphone, laptop, clothing, and round the clock protection. If Pavel wasn’t there, Ethan was, a silent watcher, never speaking to me directly, but always watching.

It both irritated and exhilarated me. I slept soundly for the first time in months guarded by these two men. It was an odd feeling, one I wasn’t even sure how to react to. It was enough that I was alive, and I hadn’t had any more contact with Derrick. I knew he was there, but I was on my way to being able to fight him.

And that mattered more than anything.

Pavel had decided that Krav Maga would be a form for me to learn. It was realistic, based in self-defense and punishing offensive attacks that my size wouldn’t put me at such a disadvantage. I couldn’t do much, yet, but he had me learning basic moves based on what I could already do, and began my cardio.

“You will learn to move your body farther than you can now. Each punch is to stop your enemy; each kick to maim them. Every part of you is weapon, da?”

“Understood.”

“Now, go run.”

I did as he asked, easing my body into the motion because of my stomach. It didn’t take long before I was sweating, breathing through the pain and pushing past it. A loud cracking sound startled me and I froze, stumbling into the wall. Pavel was on me, flipping me over and holding me down on the ground.

“Still afraid. Still weak. Still dead.”

“Get off me!”

“Dead men don’t speak.”

My heart was pounding as I struggled to breathe. He was right. I was afraid. As soon as I heard that sound everything in me stopped. But he couldn’t expect me to be ready to kill so soon. It wasn't possible. Pulling a trigger was easy. I needed to be able to handle myself to get to Derrick and be able to get away. Killing a senator’s son would put a major bullseye on my back, and I wanted to be prepared. Training right now was as much about giving me time to get things planned as it was learning what to do.

“I’m not ready yet.”

“Yes, that is true, but is not because you are not a fighter,” Pavel told me. He got up and pulled me with him until I was standing. He placed a fingertip to my forehead.

“It’s up here. Most don’t kill because they want to, or like to. They kill because they have to. It’s in the mind. Do you want them dead more than they want to be alive? Will your will beat them?”

I saw Ethan on the edge of my vision, coming out of his office. He headed out of the gym without once looking up at me. It made me feel... I wasn’t sure. Did I like the feeling of his eyes on me? Could I even afford to have his attention? I didn’t know, but I would owe him for all of this, and his refusal to claim something set me on edge. I made plenty of offers, even of myself, but he ignored them as he ignored me.

“That darkness is not yours, malyutka.”

“How’d he get like that, then?”

“Some is not my business to tell, and more I will never know. But, it started with regret. He regretted killing his friend and when he went to prison, he was looking for death. He wanted to be punished for what he’d done. He let them punish him, River. Over and over. And yet his fight, his pride, didn’t let him fall. He always fought back in the end. It didn’t matter how much they tore him down, he wouldn’t stay there.”

“So he impressed someone then, and they eased up?”

“No, malyutka. They pushed harder, until he had no choice but to take the first life. And then, he impressed someone.”

“A Russian,” I said, thinking some of what was on the internet may have been true.

Pavel shrugged. “I’m Russian, sure, and there are others around him that are. He is impressive to us, yes.”

Pavel told me to run again. I understood a wall when I saw one, but a bit of what he told me was enlightening to the enigmatic monster who now held my life in his hands. Ethan had been weak once too, with all the strength of the ring. With everything that he’d known. There had been others who were strong enough to beat him and he’d fallen beneath them. I wondered how horrible his time at Wandsworth Prison was and what happened.

“You’re done for the day; think about what I told you,” Pavel called to me.

I’m sure I would. It was on my mind as I headed to the house behind the gym. It wasn’t huge, the size of the warehouse enclosing the gym hid it from view on the main street. The only way to get to it was through a door in the back of Ethan’s personal area in the gym. It was then enclosed by privacy fences with barbed wire, security cameras and lights, and two guard dogs. It had taken weeks of dealing with them before the dogs would let me by. And only if I spoke the code phrase that kept them from attacking.

The massive Rottweilers scared the shit out of me.

“Legko,” I said to Sasha and Vlad as I passed them. They laid back down on the front porch and ignored me. Inside, I took off my shoes in the foyer and passed by the living room, dining room, and large kitchen to get to the stairs. Ethan’s room was to the right, the master suite, and Pavel used the room next to it when he was there. My room was to the left, with my own bathroom across from it.

After a quick shower I fired up my laptop and found my way into the life of my most recent fascination. For three months I lived in his home and hadn’t spoken much to him. I didn’t know him, and he didn’t know me. He didn’t care about my history, but I tried to devour his. I wanted to know what made him tick; what gave him the strength he had. Some days I could convince myself it was research into who I wanted to be, but most days I couldn’t lie to myself.

Ethan Kendall tempted me.

No matter how irrational it was, I found him a broken spirit that was pieced together with bad shit, but he could be healed. He could be helped. And maybe I thought I could pay him back by doing so. And then I thought that fixing him wouldn’t help me, and I hated myself for being so selfish.

Ethan was a contradiction for me. The man who cried when he’d been sentenced versus the hitman who came out of prison. Softness and strength, weakness and power. All in one man.

“It was the internet that got you in trouble in the first place, River, and most of it doesn’t tell you the half of it.”

I closed my laptop and turned to look at Ethan. He was leaning against my doorjamb, watching me with an unblinking stare. His black t-shirt hugged his chest and hugged his upper arms. His dark jeans were low on his hips.

“Anyone ever teach you to knock?”

“My house. My rules.”

A chill ran through me and I cleared my throat. His eyes narrowed a moment before he shouldered away from his perch. He stalked closer to me and I couldn’t move. I looked in his eyes and waited for him to come closer, close enough to touch. Holding my breath, I tried to calm my pounding hard as I clenched my hands in my lap.

Touch me
.

“Stand up,” he commanded.

I did as I was told, blindly, without thought. My chest pushed against him and I felt lightheaded. He gripped my hips, his scent, dark and thick, wafted to me as I took a deep breath, trying to get my bearings. I didn’t fight him as he pulled me to him, crushing my body to his.

He was hard against my softness, rigid where I was languid. I couldn’t stop my moan.

“I did not tell you to make a sound.”

I bit my lip, cutting off the whimper. I wanted him to toss me down, to control me, to fuck me. I had lost my mind, I knew it, but I couldn’t stop the thoughts from flowing through my head. There was no way to stop my body from reacting. My nipples hardening, my stomach clenching. I wanted the monster to devour me.

“Look at me.” He gripped my neck even as I did as he wanted. His firm hold tightened enough that my breathing changed. I felt the restriction of my airways, that familiar feeling of flying.

Release. Sweet release of all that mattered. Of responsibility, worry, and stress. How long had it been since I felt this kind of peace?

“I could give you what you wanted, and you still wouldn’t matter to me.”

His words were ice in my veins. His hold now terrifying, his hard cock a violation waiting to happen as it nestled against my belly. Everything about what we were doing, what I had done, was wrong. With just one sentence, he took my peace and replaced it with hell.

He pushed me away from him and I fell to the bed. By the time I sat back up, he was gone, but I don’t think I could have said a thing to him. He was a bastard and I hated him. I hated that he made me want things that were destructive. Hated that he could reduce me to nothing more than hormones and flesh while he stood apart, disgusted by what I offered.

And I was terrified of the fact that I knew I would let him do it again, because even the bit of pain I was feeling right now didn’t remove the desire. I curled on the bed, too hurt to cry, too angry to pity myself. How did I want to kill a man when I was more interested in spreading my legs for the fucker who didn’t give a shit about me. I was the fucked up, worthless piece of shit that Derrick called me.

And what was worse? I wasn’t going to be able to stop. But maybe, just maybe, killing Derrick would free me from the stamp he put on me. And men like him, like Ethan, would run away from me.

I’d be the monster, and I wouldn’t have to crave that dark touch anymore because I’d have it at my fingertips.

I was going to Hell, I knew it, but she needed me. Was it okay for a demon to want to have an angel?

Ethan

Three Months Later

I
loved the night. How fucking sick was that? I loved the very thing that seeped into my body and created the worst moments of my life. It was night when I stepped into the ring with Mikhail and ended his life.

It was night the first time I took a beating at the hands of faceless men and felt my soul ripped out of my chest after coming to Wandsworth Prison. The Governor hadn’t given a shit about my leaking face and body because, of all things, he lost money on the fight with Kataya.

I could still feel the excitement in the air and smell beer and stale cigarettes. The gritty mat beneath my feet felt like home. The fight would have been a good bit of money in both of our pockets. Then I felt the impact of his first punch to my chest, the whoosh of air leaving my body before I gasped and countered. If I closed my eyes, I could relive every second of that fight, pause it, rewind, and play it again.

Was there any other way I could have gripped his leg? Any way a simple shift of my weight would have stopped the break? I didn’t know the answer, and I never would. But sometimes, when I wished my life had gone differently, I tried to.

Most days though, it was a simple fact that I had taken his life.

Even worse, it was in those midnight hours, after I’d done so, I gained protection through the use of my hands, and took the first life that hadn’t been an accident. And yet, here I was, sweating and trembling as the clock read two in large red letters, soothed by the darkness. I knew what happened in those hours. I understood how dark it could get, and I trusted that.

I was a torn, fucked up ball of death and decay, and I loved it. Because with it, I survived. Becoming a monster had been the one thing I could rely on during my sentence.

Nine years that seemed like an eternity. Involuntary Manslaughter.

Those words didn’t mean fuck all. It didn’t explain how I hadn’t wanted to kill my friend in that ring. It didn’t explain how the break happened in the first round of the fight, and it was because of me the ambulance got there as fast as it did.

None of it mattered. All that sentence said was I was of good character and hadn’t intended to cause a death. But since it was in the commission of an illegal offense, I deserved a higher sentence.

I didn't come out of that cell with such a clean character.

And in nine years I’d come to love the night and the god-awful things I could do in it. The eight-point stars on my chest taught me to crave the darkness and revel in it. Now? Now, I just had to deal with the nightmares, the moments in time when I saw the eyes of those I hurt.

When I heard their voices screaming into the abyss,  then silenced.

It never got easier, but I lived through it. I was here and I would continue to be.

Tonight though, there was something else in the air. A disturbance in my simple little world that pulled me out of bed in a borrowed house. Pantera Gym was my dream, the one thing I carved out for myself. A remembrance of who I once was and a way to keep money flowing. A sanctuary that was now tainted. I walked to my office, where I could see everything in the gym.

River. She made it all worse.

She was an obsession. That was the only reason I could think to explain why I took her in, paid for her medical bills, and made her one of my fighters. On most days, I was a heartless bastard, she even received the bitter end of that, but it didn’t stop me from holding on to her.

Maybe it was like a dieter buying chocolate cake they knew they could never eat. Just having the sticky, sweet shit near them made them feel better. It helped them remember who they were before the weight changed them. Reminded them of what they were trying to get back to.

River was my chocolate cake.

As I watched her run on the treadmill from the one way mirror in my office, I couldn’t help but admire her determination. I had the mirror built soon after bringing her into my home behind the gym so I could keep an eye out for her while she worked out. Pavel had taken a shine to her, teaching her Krav Maga. The mixed martial style suited her small frame. It didn’t mean she wouldn’t take a punch; it didn’t mean she wouldn’t feel pain, but she’d have the knowhow to finish her fight and, hopefully, live.

I tried my best to keep my hands off her entirely.

It was shitty of me, but I couldn’t let her go. Odd, because it wasn’t about some pretty emotion like love, or even like. I had a grudging respect for her, but that was as far as I could manage. She drew me like a moth to a flame. So I went towards the object of my fascination, and knew it was me that would burn her.

I could see her needs so plainly it was laughable. What she truly wanted, what she craved, she was afraid of now. She wanted to bow, even as she stood defiant. She wanted to be coddled, even as she fought tooth and nail to survive. She was a mass of contradictions, but only one half of her was true.

Perhaps that was what drew me, the fact that I knew which it was.

“It’s a little late for you to be working out still, River. Rest periods are for exactly that, rest.”

She slowed the treadmill to a walk and stepped to the side. Never turning around to face me, she took a swig from her water bottle and meticulously closed the cap.

“I don’t need rest. It’s been six months, Ethan, and I know that eventually Derrick is going to find me. I don’t have the luxury of resting.”

“Pantera,” I corrected her.

She turned then, watching me with a question in her eyes. “Why do they call you that?”

“Because it’s my name, and it’s the one you will use.”

“Ethan Kendall is your name, and I’ve been calling you that the whole time,” she said. She had fire, I’d give her that. But this was my world, my rules. Ethan was a man I wasn’t. A figment of a cracked memory that didn’t mean shit anymore.

“Do you know what Pantera means?” I asked her. My glide toward her was slow. I paused at random intervals, stalking her, pushing her. She was prey. She fought hard not to be, but I still smelled weakness on her, on the edges of her anger. She was always afraid, terrified of what was coming, and not knowing what the result would be. It was that fear that would destroy her.

That fear drew me in.

“Panther,” she said. “I looked it up on the laptop you gave me.”

“I earned that name, River. Carved it out in skin and made my enemies regret ever trespassing against me. What have you done? What have you been made to survive that would ever make you think you could stand on even ground with me?”

I could feel the heat of her anger, but it didn’t stop me. It couldn’t. Anger wasn’t what made me the demon that I was. It was pure, cold, unfiltered hopelessness forged into a blade to cut my way through life.

“You’ve never asked what I went through before,” she said.

I shook my head. “Because it doesn’t matter. I don’t care.”

“You cared enough to take me on after you saw me in the hospital,” she returned.

“That’s where you’re wrong, River. So wrong. I enjoy playing with my food. Your every breath marks you as a victim. Every time you freeze when Pavel attacks you from behind, I know you will fail. And every second you look at me with those fearful eyes, I know that whatever Derrick did, he did because you let him.”

She roared her anger, and I laughed. Even as she leapt at me, swinging her right fist hard, I enjoyed her anger. She was smart, sweeping her left leg to take me down, but I twisted my body into her so we were chest to chest. I sensed the shift in her stance and blocked her knee angled for my crotch and wrapped my arm around her neck.

“You can’t beat me, River. You never could.”

Two seconds. That was all it took to take her to the ground. And then she was under me, punching, twisting, and fighting to get away. I let her do nothing. I splayed out above her, pushing her into the mat beneath us. Then I gripped one wrist and planted it above her head. She fought harder, raking her nails down the side of my neck before I could grab that wrist too.

“You have claws, detenysh, but not like mine.”

I bit down on the soft spot of her neck, where it met her shoulder. Her pulse throbbed against my tongue. She screamed, but I didn’t clamp down. I didn’t need to draw blood or hurt her to prove my point. But, somehow, I lost what I had been trying to convey. Between her scent, filled with lavender, and the feel of her body against mine, I noticed her as a man would.

Her breasts were smashed against my chest, but I could feel their fullness. I was cradled in her thighs, a position that went from thinking of the fighting front mount stance, to darker needs. Blood rushed through my veins and pooled into my dick, short circuiting any rational thought.

I wanted her.

I eased my teeth off her and licked over the abused flesh. She froze, a casualty to my strength, my desire, and I couldn’t stop. I traced my way over her jaw and nipped her chin. Her small gasp was all the permission I needed to take her mouth with mine.

Flavor blasted over my taste buds. How long had it been since I kissed a woman? Since I felt one give under my hands? Of all the ones I’d known, I couldn’t place her taste. It was wild and free, and tinted with tears. I knew that place.

Between youth and cynical maturation brought on by fear.

I’d been there.

She was at a precipice she didn’t even realize. She wanted me to make her a killer and all I could think about was taking her body with mine. How fucked up was I that I wouldn’t stop?

I wanted to punish her for making me want something that shouldn’t exist in my life any more. My life was an abyss and she wouldn’t survive it. I hated her for wanting to make me try.

“You let Derrick do things to you, just like you let me,” I said against her lips. Lips I wanted to taste again. The fluidness to her body disappeared. She was fighting again, pulling away from me.

No, I wouldn’t allow that.

I was a monster, and as one, I wouldn’t act the hero and let her go.

“But I can make you better. Away from this gym, away from training that doesn’t give you real life experience. And in return, I know what you will give me.”

She was breathing hard, looking at me with wild eyes.

I knew what she wanted more than anything in the world. If that got me what I wanted, so be it.

“What?” she asked, but we both knew that she already knew the answer.

“You.”

And we both knew she was going to say yes.