by Tillie Cole
The steel door opened and Viktor ran in. He crouched before me. “Raze. Son, we need to move.”
I looked up at Viktor, then down at 362 beneath me. “I knew him,” I said, my voice breaking.
Viktor nodded and laid his hand on my shoulder. “I know, son. I knew it the minute I saw his tattoo and your reaction as you stepped into the cage.”
“He was my … friend,” I managed to blurt out, the term unfamiliar and bittersweet on my lips.
Viktor gripped my bicep and helped me to my feet. “We have to go, son.”
Viktor and I walked straight out of the cage and down through the crowd. Hands slapped at my back in congratulations, I kept my eyes low and I started to move faster until I was in the hallway. Then I found myself sprinting into my holding room. Once inside, I went straight to the bathroom and puked into the toilet, my body breaking out in cold sweats.
Viktor was at the door, cursing under his breath. I didn’t know what the fuck was happening to me.
I slumped to the ground, seeing smears of blood on the grimy floor tiles. Viktor wet two washrags and pressed one on my arm and the other on my throat.
I didn’t flinch. “You need stitches, son. That sai got you good in places.”
“Then do it,” I said numbly.
I’d never ever felt this … this … ache before. This pain … this guilt? Was it guilt? I’d always blocked out the kills. Those men I’d faced were just animals for the slaughter, and I was the man that brought death. There was no over thinking. Just instinct and duty to the Gulag carrying me forward.
But this time … I felt everything: remorse, shame, devastation … I felt like death. I felt dead inside too.
“Where are you living, son?” Viktor asked as he pulled out a needle and thread from the metal cabinet above the basin. He began to patch up my arm. I didn’t feel the needle piercing my skin. Didn’t feel the thread pulling together my split flesh.
“At the gym.”
Viktor paused and shook his head. “Damn, son. Just … damn.”
After my cut was stitched, Viktor forced me to shower and took me back to the gym. When he’d gone, I closed my eyes as I lay on my thin mat. All I could see was blood, blood everywhere. And 362 staring up at me as life drained from his eyes.
I’d never felt remorse, regret, but right now, I was drowning in it.
16
KISA
“Why am I taking you to the gym again, Kisa?” Serge asked as I met him on the sidewalk shortly after Alik dropped me off at my papa’s house. Papa was already out entertaining the Georgian mob that had brought Goliath tonight and Alik was en route to join them, so I knew I would have all night free.
It was always like this when the championship was on. The mob bosses had to get business in all avenues done. But tonight just seemed different, my stomach swirling with nerves like something bad was going to happen. I knew it was a combination of both Alik’s strange mood and Raze’s strange reaction after he won his fight tonight.
Alik had been furious that Raze had won. So furious that he hadn’t even used my body post-match as was his usual M.O. He’d just dropped me off at home and coldly ordered me inside.
Alik was fearful. I’d never seen him fearful before. But him seeing Raze beating Goliath tonight with such incredible skill and strength had taken him to a state I’d never seen from him before: introverted, quiet, pensive.
It scared me more than his aggression. I didn’t know what to make of a non-expressive Alik. Of a distant and non-possessive Alik.
But right now, I tried to push all thoughts of Alik from my head. I needed to see Raze. Alik had forced me to watch his fight, trying to assert his dominance over me. And, my God, Raze had nearly died. But something was wrong with him afterward. He didn’t look pleased by his win. He couldn’t get up, like he was shell-shocked, staring down at Goliath with a devastated expression. Viktor had to lift him from his knees to get him out of the cage, support him as he walked down the hallway. And worse, I couldn’t go to him. Instead, I had to go with Alik.
I resented Alik for that. For once, I completely resented him.
I looked to Serge, Raze’s cutting face prominent in my mind. “Please, Serge…” I begged, and he stood stoic in front of me before opening the back door of the Lincoln and gestured for me to go inside. I slipped into the backseat and Serge got behind the wheel.
He turned around. “Kisa? What’s going on? You sneaking out like this is putting us both in danger. I’m not doing it unless you start giving me some answers.”
I dropped my eyes to the sidewalk outside and warred with what to do. I looked to Serge again and my eyes filled with tears.
“Kisa, are you in trouble?” he asked, but I shook my head. “Are you … have you been seeing someone else? Behind Mr. Durov’s back? Are you meeting him at the gym?”
“It’s not like that, Serge.” I sniffled and wiped the tears from my eyes. “It’s more than just ‘seeing’ someone.”
Serge’s face paled. “Kisa! You are seeing someone else? Do you have a death wish? Mr. Durov will kill you both if he finds out. That man is unstable at the best of times, but about you? He’s beyond insane.” His gaze fell but then focused back on me. “Who is it?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. I can barely believe it myself.”
“Kisa, you’re not making sense.”
My stomach rolled with the words I was about to say, the secret I was about to confess. Serge sat farther forward, and I whispered, “You won’t believe me if I tell you.”
“Try me,” he said curtly.
“It’s … it’s … Luka…”
Serge stared and stared at me like I was a moron. “Luka?” he asked. “Luka Tolstoi?”
“Yes,” I replied in a barely audible voice and clutched the purse on my lap. It was filled with photos and mementos from our childhood. Tonight I was going to try and make him remember. Tonight I wanted him to remember me … us … everything.
I just wanted my Luka back … at least I wanted as much of him back as was left. I’d have any part of Luka at all, I’d take any tiny scrap of him that remained.
“You’re being unfaithful with Luka Tolstoi?” Serge said dryly, confusion lacing his Russian accented voice.
I nodded, and he stared at me like I’d gone insane. “Kisa, Mr. Tolstoi died years ago in an accident. His body burned to death. What’s really going on? Who are you trying to protect?”
“Raze—”
“The new fighter?” Serge interrupted. “What the hell has he got to do with Luka?”
“He is Luka, Serge. Raze is Luka.”
“Kisa, I don’t know what—”
“He got sent away to an underground prison after Rodion was killed, off the grid, and he was forced to become a fighter. A death match fighter, Serge. I know it sounds unbelievable, but it happened. He has no memory of who he is, where he’s from, or who we all are to him. He was tortured and abused. He’s like an animal, just fighting and surviving, no humanity, but the fleeting glimpses I get when he looks at me…” I swallowed hard and said, “When he’s with me…”
“Kisa, this is all—”
“His eyes are the same as Luka’s, brown with a smudge of blue in his left iris. His mannerisms are the same. He tilts his head and purses his lips, his full lips that are the exact same shape … And he has these dreams, vivid dreams. They’re memories, Serge, not just dreams. I’m sure of it. Being back in Brooklyn, he’s remembering more and more. It’s Luka. He’s come back to me.” I looked up into Serge’s shocked eyes and said, “And he needs my help. I’ve got to make him remember. I need to know what happened all those years ago. We all do. There’s just so much pain. So many unanswered questions that have been swept under the rug.”
Serge sat in silence, and I knew he didn’t believe me. I didn’t care, because I knew the truth, and it was up to me to save Raze. It was up to me to make him realize his feet had found their way home.
“Just take me
to the gym, Serge. And please wait because I need you to drive us to Brighton Beach later on.”
Serge went to argue, but I turned my head and leaned against the window, ending the discussion.
* * *
I entered the gym and headed to Raze’s training room. The whole place was mostly in darkness, but for a single light hanging from the ceiling. Raze sat against the far wall, his head hanging low and his torso covered with black and red. His legs were stretched out in front of him. I’d never seen someone who’d just won a match look so defeated.
“Raze?” I said in panic and rushed over to him.
Dropping to my knees, I grabbed a nearby towel and pressed it against a long fresh tally mark on his torso, twice as long, twice as deep, and twice as aggressive as his other kill tattoos.
“Raze, what have you done?” I asked and tried to look into his lowered eyes. He didn’t speak, didn’t even flinch when I applied pressure to his sliced torso. He sat gripping a broken pen and bloodied razor blade in his hands.
As I checked the rest of his ripped and scarred body, I noticed a huge stitched-up slash on his arm and stitches along the bottom of his throat.
I remembered the exact moment in the match when he’d gotten them—the moment I thought he was going to be taken from me. Having that happen only made me more desperate to teach him about who he was. He was to fight Alik tomorrow night, the two of them having progressed to the final, and tomorrow night, I would be losing one of the only two men that had ever meant something to me. But I knew who I wanted, who I’d only ever wanted, and right now, he was lying down on this hard floor like his world had just been torn apart.
Luka needed to come back to me. Finally, after all these years in captivity, he needed to be freed. He needed to know he was loved.
“Raze, please look at me,” I ordered in a gentle voice, fighting back tears, and Raze slowly lifted his head. His eyes were rimmed with red and he had the most haunting, devastating expression on his face. My heart lurched at the sight. I reached out and laid my hand on his cheek.
“Lyubov moya, what’s all this? Was it the fight tonight? Was it because you were hurt? Because it was a close match?”
I caught Raze’s hand lift from his side, and the razor blade fell to the floor. His rough, bloodied palm laid on the back of mine still on his cheek, and I froze.
“I killed my only friend,” Raze rasped out, and his fingers wrapped around mine. His grip was so tight … so telling of his internal emotional turmoil.
My breathing caught in my throat and my thoughts immediately went to Rodion. Did he remember? Did he remember that night? Was he talking of my brother? Had he remembered his past?
My hand began to shake with the gravity of what this could mean.
“What friend? What are you talking about, lyubov moya?” I asked, trying to keep the quivering nerves from my voice.
Raze’s gaze took on a blank stare, and he replied, “362.”
I blinked at his answer and immediately thought back to our conversation last night. “362? From the Gulag?”
Raze nodded slowly and his hold on my hand tightened. “Goliath…”
Suddenly, everything made sense. It wasn’t Rodion’s death he was remembering; it was the man tonight, the Georgian Goliath. “The man you killed tonight was—”
“My friend.”
My bottom lip trembled upon seeing this strong, untamed, and harsh man reduced to a hulking body of muscle filled with nothing but guilt and remorse.
“Raze … I’m so sorry,” I soothed.
“He was recaptured when we escaped, by the Georgian mob. He told me if he’d won tonight, they were granting him his freedom. And once free, he could get his revenge on the people that sent him to the Gulag. After all those years surviving, teaching me how to survive … He was innocent. He deserved that revenge, but…”
Raze’s eyelids fluttered, and I leaned in to press a kiss to his forehead, his cheek, and to the back of his hand fixed upon mine. “But what?”
“But so am I…” he whispered, and my blood cooled to ice in my veins.
“You are what?” I pushed.
His eyes widened as something in his mind clearly hit home and his torso tensed as though in shock. “I’m innocent,” he whispered, clearly unable to speak louder. “Kisa … I’m innocent. I didn’t do what I was imprisoned for. I didn’t do what I was accused of.” Raze’s hand now fully encompassed mine, and he looked down at our clasped fingers. “You’re shaking, Kisa-Anna. Why are you shaking?”
A sob escaped my throat and I released my hold on the towel to plant it over my mouth. The tears of relief poured from my eyes. He hadn’t done it. Luka hadn’t killed my brother. He was innocent. I always knew he was innocent.
“Kisa? I don’t understand why you’re crying.” Raze’s head tilted to the side and I dived to his chest, breathing in the heady scent that was all him, not caring if my clothes became soiled by blood and ink.
Raze’s strong and comforting arms wrapped around my back and he kept me close. “Shh, solnyshko,” he whispered, and my crying stopped and I lifted my head and stared into his eyes.
“Solnyshko?” I questioned, and Raze looked up in thought before glancing back down at me.
“It means ‘little sun,’” Raze said matter-of-fact. “In Russian, I think.” Then his forehead creased and his eyebrows pulled down as if he didn’t understand why he knew that piece of information.
“You called me ‘my love,’” he suddenly said, watching me, studying me like I was a problem he was trying to solve. I nodded and fought to keep my bottom lip from quivering. “Lyubov moya,” he said, repeating the words slowly, sounding out each syllable before his eyes widened. “It means ‘my love’ in Russian. You called me ‘your love.’”
“I did … lyubov moya” I replied and pulled out of his embrace. I caught his stuttered, shocked inhale, but just let him sit thinking of my old term of endearment for him.
Quickly wiping my eyes, I then ran my finger around his new tattoo. “Why is this so much longer than the rest? So much more pronounced than the others? You’ve really damaged your skin.”
“Because 362’s death was honorable where the others weren’t. He died proudly. He died like a fighter should.” Raze ran his fingertips over his scar and added, “He died before gaining his revenge. He was cheated out of retribution on those that wronged him. But he never gave up until the end. His recognition on my skin needs to stand out because he, as a fighter and a friend, stood out in my life.”
My heart shredded hearing him speak, and I realized no matter how far I delved into my imagination, into my worst nightmare, I would never fully understand what he went through in the Gulag. He was a child. A child forced to be a killer, and amongst that hell, he’d found someone to care for … and he’d just been forced to kill his friend in cold blood.
Sorrow made me feel sick to my stomach. I couldn’t help but be grateful that 362 was dead and I still had my Raze.
“I thought … I thought for a moment he was going to kill you…” I trailed off, my voice catching in my throat at the thought of losing my soul mate twice in my life. No heart could sustain that.
“He was winning,” Raze confessed.
I gasped, and Raze leaned forward and ran his fingertips down my neck. “But then I saw Durov forcing you to watch me die and it fueled me. Gave me the strength to fight back and overpower my friend.” Raze’s gaze dropped to my lips, and he murmured, “I have to protect you, Kisa-Anna. I believe I was made to protect you.” His face screwed up like he was trying really hard to remember something, and he added, “I had to protect you from Durov … again.”
My heartbeat drowned out the noise of the air conditioner whirring in the main gym. “Again?” I questioned, and his eyes crinkled with confusion.
“Yes. I think … I think I’ve protected you from him before…” Taking my hand, Raze pulled me forward, searching my face up close, and asked, “Have I? Have I protected you from him be
fore?”
I nodded, nerves stealing my voice.
Raze swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and he croaked out, “Did I…? Did I know you before?”
Stifling a threatening sob with the back of my hand, I cried, “Yes. Yes, you did. You knew me very well.”
Raze’s bare muscled chest began to rise and fall and lines framed his scrunched-up eyes. He was trying to remember, but by his held breath and frustrated exhales, I knew he couldn’t. Something was blocking him, preventing him from fully embracing who he was before.
Releasing myself from Raze’s hold, I reached into my purse and pulled out the old silver frame of two young children smiling for the camera and handed it to Raze, who looked down curiously at the picture.
He was like a caveman seeing the world’s treasures for the first time, unsure what to make of the strange world he had been suddenly thrust into.
I watched his face with fascination as his brown eyes studied the children. He pulled the frame closer to his eyes and scrutinized the snapshot while my heart fluttered as fast as a hummingbird’s wings.
His thumb ran across the girl’s face and he looked up, watching my face with the same intense attention.
“I’ve seen this girl in my dreams.”
“Yes,” I whispered, and he lowered his eyes again and reared back his head.
“And this boy too. I know him too.”
“Yes,” was all I could say in response, praying to God he gave Raze the gift of memory. That he remembered who both of those children were, and when he did, he still wanted me … and in some deep, hidden part of him, realized he loved me just as much as I’d always loved him.
“This girl…” Raze said and lowered the picture frame and crawled toward me, his sculpted shoulders rolling at the movement, his packed abs flexing. Once before me, Raze pointed at my eyes, his head tilting to the side. His mouth hovered just before mine and his warm, enticing breath made me close my eyes.
“No!” he ordered, and my eyes snapped open on a gasp. Raze brought the frame forward and placed it next to my face. A knowing expression washed over his sharp, assessing handsome features. “You … you are the girl in this picture.”