Release Day Blitz: Riot by Tillie Cole
Stolen by the Arziani Georgian crime
mob as a child, 152 was raised and conditioned to be a Mona—the
most subservient of the Arziani Blood Pit slaves.
Gorgeous and
kind, she has been and under the imprisoning influence of the Type B
drug and under the command of the Blood Pit Master’s sister,
Mistress Arziani, for most of her life, until the Master calls her
back home to Georgia.
He wants her under his total control,
and Master always gets what he wants.
But when 152 is gifted
to the Blood Pit’s fearsome champion death match fighter as a
prize, 152 suddenly finds out that the men who appear most brutal,
may just own the kindest hearts. And love may be found, even when
living in hell.
Freedom, family, love, 152 will have to fight
for what she wants and ultimately make an impossible choice.
LUKA
“The real world isn’t ready to
handle our reality. How could they accept that the gulags, the drugs,
and the Blood Pit are real? It is the stuff of nightmares. How could
they believe that males are being raised as killers, for sport and
greed?
“Worse, it would surely implicate the Bratva and my
people in too many ways. We can fight the police and the system here
in our city, but we can’t take on the whole world.” Zaal shrugged
and tapped the map of the Blood Pit. “We need a way in. We need a
solid plan, and we need it fast. I won’t have our freedom
jeopardized. I won’t have what I’ve found with my Talia taken
away from me, after being without her all of these years.” He
raised his brow. “And we know you won’t give up Kisa. We need to
act, Luka, and we need to do it soon.”
Lifting the glass of
water sitting beside me, I brought it to my lips and drained it in
one motion. Zaal stood up. As he passed by, he pressed his hand on my
shoulder. I didn’t move until I heard him leaving my house with
Talia, who had been sitting with Kisa.
Pushing back from the
table, I got to my feet and walked down the hallway. In the living
room, Kisa was waiting for me on the couch, hand lying on her swollen
stomach.
She took one look at me, her face sympathetic. Silently,
she held out her hand. I took it in an instant and dropped to the
couch beside her. Kisa fell against my chest and her hand landed on
my stomach.
She didn’t say anything. Once I’d fought through
my pride, I admitted, “I can’t see a way to defeat Arziani.”
The minute I had confessed what was torturing my mind, a heavy weight
lifted from my chest.
Kisa froze, then tilted up her chin to meet
my eyes. I stared down at my beautiful wife and sighed. “They run a
damn fortress, solnyshko. Arziani seems insane from what Valentin has
said. He’s deluded, thinks he’s some kind of king, some Roman
Caesar. The king of his prisoners. Males, just like me, he drugs them
and forces them to fight on until they die. Kids plucked from
families and or- phanages, made into his monsters.”
I ran my
hand over my tired eyes and asked, “How the hell do we stop him?
How do we even breach his Blood Pit?”
Kisa sat up and brought
her face to hover above mine. “You’ll find a way, baby. I trust
you, we all do.”
I shook my head. “And that’s the problem,”
I said harshly. “Everyone expects me to work this out. Everyone
expects me to find a way in and execute a plan to bring Arziani
down.” I pressed my hand to Kisa’s pregnant stomach, to our baby
she was carrying. “But more than that, I need this Arziani to be
fucking killed. I need to cut off the head of the snake. Everything,
everything we have all been through starts with Arziani. The gulags,
his contact with the Durovs. Levan Jakhua worked with Arziani, using
Anri and Zaal as his prototypes. Then we found out how he keeps so
hidden—by using drugged killers as assassins. They take out anyone
who is a threat.”
Kisa blinked, then blinked again when what I
was saying hit home. “You believe he’s coming for us. You believe
that now we know about him, he’ll send another Valentin.” Her
words were not a question. Because she knew what she said was exactly
what I’d been thinking.
An ache caved in my chest, and I leaned
in to run my lips over hers. “If he came for you. If someone took
you away from me . . .” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Stop,”
Kisa said, moving back to press her finger over my lips. I took her
hand in mine. My mind took me back to the gulag.
I could still
smell the dankness of the cells. I could still smell the richness of
the blood spilled hourly in the ring. I could still feel the heavy
veil of death that draped us all, waiting to strike, waiting to
deliver another soul to hell.
“Luka, lyubov moya, come back to
me.”
I gasped as I heard Kisa’s soft voice cut through the
memory. I tightened my grip on her hand. Once again I looked down to
her stomach. My teeth clenched together, then I said, “I have to
find a way to take him down. I can’t, I won’t, have our baby
brought into this world knowing that the male who condemned me, us
all, to that life is still breathing, still stealing children from
homes, forc- ing them to be killers.”
A tear escaped Kisa’s
eye to fall to our clasped hands. “Luka,” she whispered, “this
man scares me more than anything else in the world.”
Dropping my
forehead to rest against hers, I replied, “That’s another reason
why he needs to be put out of our misery. I want our version of a
normal life. I want this Bratva life with you, with my new brothers
and our families. But as long as that prick lives, it can never
happen.” I paused. My hand, still on Kisa’s stomach, felt a tiny
kick.
My eyes darted to my wife’s stomach. Kisa laughed a single
watery laugh. She covered my hand with her own, just as our baby
kicked again.
Leaning forward, Kisa pressed her lips to mine. When
she pulled back and I saw the love she had for me written on her
stun- ning face, I knew I had to remedy the Arziani problem
quickly.
I had two months until our child came into this world.
What that world would look like depended on me.
A world free from
any threat to our lives. That meant Arziani dead.
His guards
slaughtered.
And the Blood Pit burned to ash.
Tillie Cole hails from a small town in
the North-East of England. She grew up on a farm with her English
mother, Scottish father and older sister and a multitude of rescue
animals. As soon as she could, Tillie left her rural roots for the
bright lights of the big city.
After graduating from Newcastle
University with a BA Hons in Religious Studies, Tillie followed her
Professional Rugby player husband around the world for a decade,
becoming a teacher in between and thoroughly enjoyed teaching High
School students Social Studies before putting pen to paper, and
finishing her first novel.
Tillie has now settled in Austin,
Texas, where she is finally able to sit down and write, throwing
herself into fantasy worlds and the fabulous minds of her
characters.
Tillie is both an independent and traditionally
published author, and writes many genres including: Contemporary
Romance, Dark Romance, Young Adult and New Adult novels.
When
she is not writing, Tillie enjoys nothing more than curling up on her
couch watching movies, drinking far too much coffee, while convincing
herself that she really doesn’t need that extra square of
chocolate.
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