I didn’t move. I didn’t take my eyes off my opponent. Neither did he with me. I crouched low, ready to strike again. Then someone stood between us. My blood haze ebbed away, ushering my return to the here and now.

“Break it up, boys,” Viktor called. I took three steps back as I worked on calming down. I glanced across the cage and caught my opponent doing the same. Closing my eyes, I breathed in and out ten times. I thought of Kisa, my wife, and my unborn baby. I thought of our home and my position as knyaz. I had to. I had to remind myself that I was no longer in the gulag. I was no longer a death fighter, a prisoner in the cage.

Feeling a hand hit my arm, I opened my eyes to see Viktor staring at me with a raised eyebrow. I nodded my head, letting my trainer know that I was back. Luka was back. The bloodlust of my alter ego, Raze, had been assuaged, if only for today.

Viktor moved aside and I walked to my opponent, Zaal, whose eyes were closed as he too centered himself.

I waited until his eyes opened and he looked over his shoulder at me. As I held out my hand, Zaal took a deep breath and clasped his hand in mine. I shook it once and released his grip. Zaal’s chest was still pumping fast when he said, “It will take some getting used to, this”—he gestured between the two of us—“resisting the urge to kill. Not drawing out your last breath. Pulling my killer instinct back at the last second.”

My jaw clenched as I instantly related to his feeling. “One day it’ll come.”

Zaal stared for a second too long, then asked, “You, too?”

Dropping my eyes, I nodded and replied, “I pray that one day in the future I will wake up no longer harboring the urge to kill or draw blood.”

Zaal closed his eyes, then, glancing to the locked office door—the locked door of the office holding our females—said, “Then I will pray for that day also.” Grabbing his towel from the floor, Zaal wiped the blood off his chest and face and said, “I want to be a stronger, more normal male for my Talia. Not this version of me who dreams of stopping hearts and cracking skulls. I still do not understand this life. At times, it becomes too much for me to take.” He tapped at his head. “It gives me pain, in here.”

Looking over my brother’s shoulder to make sure the office door was shut, I closed in and said, “We’re different, Zaal. We were conditioned all of our lives to be like this. Our females know this.”

A pained expression crossed Zaal’s face, and he asked, “Then why do they stay locked away when we spar? Why do her brown eyes get sad when she sees us fight and draw blood?”

I sighed and ran my own towel over my face. But I had shit to say. Kisa accepted that I would never be the boy she used to read to when we were kids. But Zaal was right. The women might have accepted it as part of who we are—the monsters we’d become—but I knew they both struggled to see us like this, choosing rather to ignore the violence within. Like Zaal, I pray for the day we don’t wake up in a cold sweat, programmed to kill merely to survive.

Turning to survey the gym, I found it was teeming with fighters, all training under the watchful eyes of their coaches. Viktor, our newly appointed Dungeon Manager, walked among the fighter scum, checking all was well.

Dropping the towel into the cage-side basket, I had started to move toward the showers when I heard my Mikhail, my head byki, barking in Russian for someone to shut up.

Snapping my head toward the entrance, I stood next to Zaal, who was also staring in that direction. Both of us were ready for the fight. My heart pumped in my chest at the thought of someone coming to attack. Then Mikhail entered the lower level of the gym, dragging an old gray-haired man behind him.

I straightened from preparing to fight and narrowed my eyes on whom he held in his hands. I noticed the office door open. Talia walked out. I watched as my sister looked at Zaal beside me. Her face dropped. Zaal’s face was bruised and his lip was split. I knew she hated seeing him hurt.

I held out my hand to my sister, signaling for her to stay put. I saw Kisa appear beside her, her big blue eyes immediately searching for me. I tensed as she did, but my wife just smiled and nodded her head—she’d accepted that I had to do this.

The man in Mikhail’s grip shouted out when Mikhail brought him to stand before us.

“Knyaz,” Mikhail announced as the old man kept his head down, “caught this fucking krysa hiding upstairs. He was looking for a way in.”

Striding forward, I crossed my arms over my bare chest and peered down at the man. “Who are you?” I asked coldly in Russian, and saw him tense as he absorbed the question.

He said nothing in reply. Mikhail lifted the old man’s head up by his hair and advised, “You answer the knyaz when he asks you a question.”

The man slowly lifted his eyes, but when he did they didn’t stay on me for long. Instead they landed on Zaal and remained there. I watched Zaal tense and narrow his eyes. The old man paled.

Clearly feeling my stare, Zaal flicked a glance to me. I could see discomfort in his expression. When I looked again to the old man, something in his stare made me seek out Viktor. I found him by the far wall, watching us, not the fighters. Flicking my chin, I waved my hand and signaled for Viktor to clear out the gym.

I didn’t know why, but the way the old man was staring at Zaal made ice shoot up my spine. Five minutes later the gym was cleared and the old man was still fixed on Zaal.

Zaal folded his arms across his chest. I could see confusion in his face. Taking the lead as knyaz, I approached the man and asked, “Why were you outside this gym?”

I’d spoken in Russian again and I knew he understood me. Clearing his throat, the old man opened his mouth but stopped himself from speaking. Mikhail tightened his grip on the man’s hair and neck. When I nodded to my head byki, Mikhail let the old man go.

As soon as he was free, the old man turned toward Zaal and bowed his head. My eyebrows pulled down and I saw Talia and Kisa step farther out of the office toward us, Talia taking the lead. My sister looked from the old man to Zaal and back again; then her worried face turned to me.

I had opened my mouth to say something else when the old man whispered, “Lideri, it is you.” I stilled. My heart pounded when the man spoke in Georgian. Kisa, Talia, and my byki all wore expressions of confusion—none of them spoke Georgian—but I did from years in the gulag, and of course Zaal did, too.

Zaal rocked on his feet and he drew in a long breath.

The man had called Zaal Lideri. The man knew who Zaal was. He knew he was looking at a Kostava.

“Name?” I asked the old man, and his head lifted. He forced himself to address me and said coldly, “Avto Oniani.”

The more I watched him, the colder the man’s attitude became toward me. Stepping next to Zaal, I saw the man watching me like a hawk. As I stopped, I asked, “You know this man?” I pointed to Zaal.

Avto nodded his head, and water filled his eyes. Zaal had been silent and absolutely still since the man turned up, but something caused him to snap out of his trance and ask, “How? And who do you think I am?”

Zaal had spoken in Russian, and I knew it was so Talia could understand. There wasn’t anything Zaal did that Talia wasn’t involved in.

The man frowned but answered in like manner. “You are Zaal Kostava, from Tbilisi, Georgia.” He put his hand on his chest. “I am Avto; I was a servant to your family, when you were a boy.”

I heard Talia gasp, but before Zaal could say anything else the man stepped forward with urgency. “Lideri, the night your family was killed I had just lost my mother. I had been at her funeral when the attack happened, but I returned that night to return to my duties to find … to find…,” the man trailed off as emotion clogged his throat. Reaching up, he wiped away his tears.

Zaal was a statue as the man spoke of his family. I could see Talia about to move to her man, but I shook my head in her direction, demanding that she stop. Kisa placed her hand on Talia’s arm and spoke into her ear. Talia was angry at whatever my wife said, but she did as I had signaled.

Avto wiped his face and, stepping yet closer to Zaal, continued, “I found them, sir. I saw the blood.” Avto’s eyes closed as though he was reliving the tragedy. “All the servants had been slain; the guards that had stayed loyal were slain, but for one. He was injured, but not badly enough. He told me what had happened.” Avto lifted a shaky hand to Zaal. “That you and your brother had been taken by that man.”