didn’t feel like me.
I went ahead to the narrow staircase at the back of the building, leading down to the underground arena. Yesterday, I hadn’t been allowed downstairs but today it would be my workplace. My breath caught when I stepped into the dimly lit space. A myriad of disgusting smells hit my nose: piss, blood, vomit and shit. Bile traveled up my throat, but I swallowed it down.
I needed to get a grip if I didn’t want to be fired on my first day. Then everything seemed to freeze as I spotted the fight cage in the center. It screamed death. How many people had found their brutal end within those metal bars? Goosebumps covered my skin. Now everything was deserted but tonight the room would be packed with a roaring, blood-thirsty crowd. I’d seen it on TV when my brother-in-law, Growl (my sister called him Ryan but his old name stuck with me) had watched the Darknet broadcasting of Killer’s last fight. Growl was the Enforcer of the Famiglia, responsible for the dirty work, and had a penchant for brutality. But I couldn’t ask him to help me get revenge since his vow bound him to his Capo and forbade him from a mission in another mafia’s territory. He had helped me without realizing it anyway. Immersed in the bloody fight, he’d let it slip who Killer was and where he usually spent his time. Of course, Growl would know.
In that moment, my plan had been set in motion, and now here I was, about to start working for the Bratva to get in contact with their brutal assassin. But as I regarded my surroundings, doubt wormed its way into my body.
“Natalia!” another waitress named Britt called.
“Only Talia,” I corrected her. I’d used a little white lie to explain my Italian name: that it was short for the Russian Natalia and that sadly I didn’t speak any Russian because my parents had been worried, I wouldn’t learn English properly if they taught me.
Britt showed me how to work the bar and warned me to stay away from the expensive champagne and vodka bottles, which were solely reserved for the high-ranking Bratva members in the VIP glass cabin on an upper level above the fight cage. Soon I busied myself with the hustle of a bar on a Friday night until my nerves were only a distant memory. While upstairs in the official bar, a DJ heated up the crowd with a mix of Latin American rhythms and Russian club sounds from the most popular places in Moscow, in this underground hellhole, Death Metal screeched from the speakers. My skin glowed from sweat as I meandered through the crowd. The odor of sweat pressed in on me, mixing with the pungent stench of foul breath from the men around me. They weren’t the kind of company I was used to. Our men mostly kept up an outward experience of normalcy, hiding the monster lurking within, but the guests of the Kazan’s underground arena screamed “criminal” from afar. Their leering smiles set my teeth on edge. Luckily for me, a large number of prostitutes kept their attention occupied.
I’d almost forgotten why I’d come to Miami in the first place when, shortly after midnight, the music was turned down for the announcement of the upcoming fight. A hush went through the crowd akin to the silence of the birds of prey when a raptor crossed the sky above their home tree. I froze, my eyes darting to the doorway.
Killer’s opponent appeared, a massive man with an unpronounceable name who strode purposefully toward the cage and climbed through the opening. He was a new arrival straight from Saint Petersburg. He looked monstrous, almost grotesque with his scarred, twisted face.
The crowd seemed to draw in a collective breath when, finally, Killer towered before us. My mouth ran dry at the sight of him. Now I got why they had to import his opponents from Russia. Everyone who’d ever seen him in person wouldn’t face him in a cage for all the money in the world.
The tray balanced on my palm became heavy, but I couldn’t deliver it to the next customers. My legs were useless.
Killer was even taller and more muscular than his opponent. Every movement accentuated the heavy muscle under his inked skin. He stalked by me on his way to the cage, his eyes capturing mine. My head thrown back to meet his intense gaze, I shivered violently as his arm