Inflict: A Novel

Chapter Five

Ivan Petrov happened to be the lucky bastard Connor decided to fight, although not because he had any particular score to settle with the Russian. Connor had simply noticed that every time a Russian put themselves up as a volunteer to fight, no one seemed interested in challenging them.

Maybe it was the venue—a Bratva-owned warehouse. No one liked to cause a possible problem in a place they didn't have any say over, or where they could be killed without dispute for starting an issue. Another reason Connor suspected no one wanted to challenge any Russian, was because some of them were dirty, especially when backed into a corner and they thought they might lose.

Connor decided whatever risk involved was worth it.

One, because he liked money. Two, because he wanted to fight. And three, because even though he didn't have a problem with Ivan, he didn't like the look of the man's face. Sometimes that was more than enough to get the Irish in Connor ready to go to blows.

Both men had undressed down to their boxer-briefs, chatted between one another from opposite ends of the cage, and waited while the money started to flow in from the bets of watchers. Connor was the underdog where the betting was concerned, but he'd expected that reaction, seeing as how this was Russian turf, and he was so far from Russian, it wasn't even funny.

Even if his face wasn't known, the visible marks on his body were more than enough to explain his Irish heritage. From the large, script-styled O'Neil tattooed across the back of his shoulders intertwined with a Celtic cross, to the raised scars of carved shamrocks inside both his palms, there was no hiding what Connor was.

The only likeness he shared with Ivan were the multitude of tattoos covering his body in colorful ink. But where the Russian's ink told the story of his Bratva lifestyle and how he'd come into it, Connor's told his history—from his first tattoo at aged thirteen, to his most recent just a week earlier—if someone cared to look close enough.

Five minutes into the bare-knuckle brawl, and Connor hadn't found a reason to regret challenging Ivan's volunteer to fight. The Russian wasn't a lazy fighter, by any means. He was quick on his feet, had power behind his hits, and he seemed to know what he was doing. Connor appreciated that, if only because it made his wins that much more satisfying in the end. He liked the challenge a good fighter provided, because instead of just kicking arse and knocking heads, Connor was able to actually put his skills to use.

Too many guys were easy money in these fights.

Ivan Petrov was not one of them.

But, Ivan was not a perfect fighter; no one was, not even Connor. It just so happened to be that Connor excelled in finding flaws in a man's moves, and waiting for the opening to come again so he could use the weakness to his advantage. Then he would take the guy out before he even knew what had occurred.

Ivan didn't protect his body nearly enough, because he was too focused on keeping his pretty face covered when the jabs were coming. He also had a tendency of turning away from an oncoming hit, which would be just grand, if he didn't turn slightly to the right every single time he did so. If a man was going to turn to the right every time a punch or kick was thrown out at him, whether that attack came from the right or left, then he wasn't going to see the round-up attack coming from his left when he was too busy protecting something on his right.

Connor figured Ivan had an old injury of some sort on his right side that made the man's instincts want to protect it from further harm—internal bruising from something recent, or maybe an old rib fracture that still caused him some kind of issue. Whatever the problem was for Ivan, it left his left side exposed to the pummeling his opponent was now leveling on him, and the guy seemed almost too shocked to react that Connor had picked up on the flaw.