Vassili
“Can I have my phone call, now?” I ask the guard as he places me into the community cell. The place is crowded, but the closest people standing near me are a young man with too much eyeshadow, another dude who smells like he bathed in rum, and my cousin. The processing took a few hours, and each time I asked, those mudaks acted like I spoke the words in a foreign language.
The guard locks the gate without so much as offering me a glance and heads toward the security door.
“Who? Vassili, who the fuck will you call?” Yuri asks from behind me.
I let go of the bars and turn around with a snarl. For a man who has known the backseat of many police cruisers, the cops had to force him into one of the many cruisers surrounding the local gym. Shit, this motherfucker is the reason the cops treated us with extra force.
Either the death glare in my eye doesn’t penetrate or Yuri goes postal when cooped up in small places, because he doesn’t shut the fuck up. He continues to taunt. “Who, Vassili, huh? Who the fuck are we gonna call? My dad wants to be out of the game. He can’t make demands without collateral. Igor is sick as usual. This mission isn’t for you know who.” He mutters my father’s name beneath his breath, as if I ever been in a predicament that Anatoly fixed. There’ll never come a day. He finishes with, “You gonna call Zariah, so she can chew you a new one? Ha! And we sure as hell aren’t in our area to make demands.”
I rub the back of my neck and take a seat on the cement slab. “We’ll be out soon.”
He stands in front of me, still flapping his jaws with, “Our return flight leaves at 11PM, Vassili.”
“You, get the fuck outta here with all that arguing,” I roar. “If I say we’re leaving soon, we are. I just need to make a call.”
Air swooshes past my nose as Yuri slaps a hand toward my face. Although deadly with a gun, my cousin is no fighter. It’s funny how, despite being older than me, Yuri can turn into the pesky little brother I never knew I wanted until hanging out—and bumping heads—with him. I toss a stiff finger at him. “Do it again, you’ll be on a gurney just like that motherfucker we just left.”
“Oh yeah?” He glares down at me.
I stand to my full height, chest puffed out, lips sneered. Yuri is just as menacing, in his coal gray suit and shiny shoes. The crowded cell is divided in half as the guys smell a fight coming on. We toe around each other, sizing each other up, as if this is our first fight.
“I’m fucking tired of you calling the shots, Vassili,” he says.
“Shut your cunt, do something, then!” I’ll allow him to toss the first punch. Then I’m gonna punch his face in!
My cousin goes for a cross hook. Too bad there’s a faint glint in his eye which reads exactly what he’s intending to do before he strikes. My hand catches his fist, and then I smack it down.
His stance is all wrong as he issues a sloppy uppercut. The hit is thwarted by my forearm. I laugh just as my cousin slides his shoe between my Nike’s, tripping me up.
The readymade crowd cheers as Yuri’s heavy body lunges toward mine. I counter the takedown with a knee to his jewels. The cheers are followed by heckling. Fuck them, I wanted him to stop with the pussy monologue.
“Fu—” Yuri stops breathing, grabbing at his balls.
“See, I was just waiting for you to shut up, kazen.”
He lowers himself, bullrushes me with his head spearing toward my abdomen. Like a wave, the tight-knit group of guys move to the opposite side of the cell. My hands gather into a tight fist above my head, and I pound against his spine as my own slams against the cement wall.
“Fuck,” I gasp, hardly able to get the word out myself.
Yuri starts pounding against my lungs. Shit, I’ve taught this fucker too much while he watches my practices and my matches. I reach beneath and grab his neck, spinning him around. When Yuri’s ass hits the ground, his eyes are wide with shock. I have him in a triangle choke hold, the one I promised to Karsoff for his mouth. Well, my cousin’s mouth is even more annoying. So, I continue to choke, and watch his face shake, his lips gloss with spittle and him gasping for air.
CLANK. CLANK. CLANK.
A baton grates along the bars. The noise aggravates my ears, so I let go of my cousin. He falls face first on the ground.
“Hey, you boneheads, break it up or no calls,” the guard says.
I hold my palms out, as innocent as they come.
“Resnov,” he shouts, “Which one of you fucks is Resnov?”
“Right here,” I nod, holding my side, as my cousin croaks.
“Well, who wants to make their call first?” He glances between us, the pathetic pair that we are.
“By all means,” Yuri wheezes out at me.
The electronic bars slide open, and I determine who’s more than capable hands will get us out of the mess that I’ve made…