Yanna

The alarm clock on my phone that’s perpetually set for five AM wakes me, and my first thought is Hawk and how good he made me feel last night. But the thought immediately afterwards sparks pure panic. Both because he’s not in the bed with me anymore, and because my next fight is coming up and the desire to win it I’ve been focusing on for the last year—the last nine years really—is just as soft as the residues of the pleasure we shared last night. Softer even, and so distant I can barely reach for it in my mind.

I do manage to get a firmer grip on it by the time I’m under an icy cold shower, and it’s almost all there by the time I’m dressed and heading downstairs, but it’s once again faded and mostly gone as I spot Hawk hunched over his laptop at the kitchen table. Now it’s replaced by me yearning for more of the fiery pleasure he gave me last night, and the soft bliss that remained once it all burned out.

I thought seeing him this morning might be awkward, since it was always like that with all the other guys I had sex with, but I couldn’t be more wrong. Smiling at him, and wishing him good morning after he greets me is just as fitting and natural as everything else we shared last night.

But the way he makes me forget the only thing I’ve lived for since Dima gave me that first lesson in professional fighting, and told me I had talent, that I could go far if I wanted to, is frightening. I’m almost at the top. Three fights separate me from it. Less than three weeks separate me from it. But watching Hawk smile at me, I no longer care about any of that like I used to. I just want to go over there, sit in his lap and let him do to me all he did last night all over again. I don’t know the me thinking this. And I don’t know the me who didn’t think like this. And what’s even more frightening, this new one feels a lot more natural, a lot more like the me I am.

“Did you sleep well?” he asks.

I smile and walk over to the sink to get a glass of water, but he intercepts me and pulls me down into his lap, which is exactly where I wanted to be anyway. He kisses me too, just like I wanted him to since I saw him from the doorway, since I woke up this morning, since forever, actually.

“I have to get my head straight for tonight’s fight,” I tell him, but he kisses me some more anyway. The fact that I don’t really care about focusing on the fight if it comes between enjoying this soft bliss of his kiss is frightening, but in a distant, inconsequential sort of way. My heart’s thumping awfully hard because of that fear though, so hard it’s creating pressure in my head.

Hawk ends the kiss and pushes me off his lap, slapping my ass for good measure. “You’re right. Go train and get focused. I’ll come watch you fight tonight if I can, but even if I can’t, I’ll still make sure those Russians don’t get anywhere near you today. They won’t get to talk to you again, so you don’t have to worry about that at all. OK?”

I’m still standing right where he placed me, blinking down at him.

“How…how can you be so sure they won’t come and talk to me again?” I ask.

“I’m sure,” he says. “And you can go for a run now, if you want, they’re nowhere near here.”

I start blinking even harder, which makes him chuckle.

“My guys are following them around the clock,” he says, answering my unasked question. “It’s been like that since I came to Vegas and before I met you.”

“So last night…I really wasn’t in any danger? And you just let me shout at you instead of telling me all this.” I’m getting angry again but that’s all faded too.

He chuckles and closes his laptop. “I like seeing you all fired up.”

His grin only gets wider as I glare at him.

“I already told you I’m in town on a different job, which also involves these same Russians that keep bothering you,” he says. “I needed to know if they really are after you, and the only way to do that was letting them talk to you. But now we’re sure they want something from you, right?”

His eyes are piercing me as he waits for my answer. They’re blue like the sky on a windy day, sharp and clear, the lust and desire I always see in them just a faint sheen of light covering it all. I nod.

“They said they’ll come talk to me again and I better listen then,” I tell him.

He nods too. “We won’t let it get that far. They’ll be busy today, and I have to go now. But tonight you’ll tell me exactly what they said.”

“Or maybe tomorrow morning,” I say and wink at him. He smiles and all I want is for him to kiss me again.

But he doesn’t. He just takes his jacket off the back of his chair and puts it on, then picks up his laptop and stashes it under his arm. “Go prepare for your fight. I won’t distract you anymore.”

He passes me and heads for the door. But he turns right before exiting the kitchen, his grin already telling me he’s about to say something else that’ll make me angry before he even opens his mouth.

“Although,” he says in a tone that suggests he just figured something big out. “We won’t have to worry about the Russians using you if you don’t win tonight. How’s that for a plan?”

He laughs and mock-recoils from the look I give him, which I know must be all sorts of sharp and outraged, because he succeeded in making me angry just like his grin foretold he would.

“I plan on winning tonight,” I assure him curtly, and in this moment all parts of my mind believe that I will.

His lips curl up at the edges, and he doesn’t have to say anything for me to know that it was his plan to make me angry so I’ll say that and believe it. It was exactly what I needed and he knew that, just like he gave me exactly what I needed last night.

“I have no doubt about that,” he says and heads out.

“Good,” I call after him because I don’t want to stop talking to him yet. Or stop looking at him. Or stop touching him for that matter. “You’re one hell of a distraction, you know that?”

“I know,” he says as he grins at me over his shoulder, pulling my eyes away from his ass, which they were admiring as he walked away. “But I also know you’re gonna miss me.”

“You’re impossible,” I say and laugh.

I feel exactly as I do when my fans tell me how great I am, what an inspiration I am, and how much they love me. In this moment, all that is rolled into a single package, and it’s all in his eyes and in the air between us, and I love it. Yes, he is a distraction, but he’s also exactly what I need.

That knowledge doesn’t fade even as I’m running down the sidewalk in the chilly morning air, but it’s not breaking my focus anymore. It’s right where it belongs, at home inside a room in my mind that’s been empty and dusty for far, far too long.

* * *

Hawk

If I said that last night with Yanna wasn’t some kind of a dream come true, I’d be lying. I always take issue with people questioning the way I do things, it makes me angry and that kind of arrogance is hereditary in my family, I’m sure of that. She pissed me off with her accusations and by questioning my skills. But she looked so damn hot while she did. It was like watching her true self finally coming through. She shows a lot, but she holds a lot back too. In the cage, she doesn’t hold back. It’s like she’s fighting to stay alive each time she faces an opponent in there. But in everyday life she holds all that raw passion hidden behind a wall of ice.

She held back last night too, fought me every step of the way instead of surrendering to the moment. But I got through in the end, and watching her come hard without any inhibition left was a reward in itself. I almost woke her up a couple more times during the night to get more, but she has her second fight tonight, and I figured I better let her rest. It was hard though.

She’s this perfect blend of sweet meekness and hammer-hard toughness and it gets my dick hard just thinking about breaking all the way through to that sweetness of hers. To the honey. I always liked breaking things down to their essence to see how they worked, and she’s the best thing I ever got to play with.

“Are you with us, Hawk?” Cross asks sharply, interrupting someone who was speaking. I think it was Tank or Ice, but I’m not sure, I was too lost in thinking about Yanna.

“Yeah, I’m right here,” I say anyway, since whatever they were saying must’ve been something we’ve already gone over a bunch of times, since I met them in the execs room at the Vegas Clubhouse two hours ago.

“Didn’t look that way,” Cross mutters. “I’m of a mind to just sell the Russians the entirety of what they’re asking for. It’s not enough to start a war, and we don’t have much to worry about from fifty guys even if they’re armed to the teeth. We can just keep an eye on them, and hopefully we won’t have to deal with them again. With all you’ve seen them do these last couple of days, do you think that’s a bad idea?”

I’d prefer to make it as difficult as possible for the Russians to set up shop in Vegas, but my reasons for that are not entirely the same as Cross’. I should tell him about Yanna, about what I agreed to do for her and how much it involves the Russians. But that conversation needs to happen in private, and I didn’t get the chance to speak to Cross before this meeting started, nor am I likely getting the chance anytime soon, since we’re meeting with the Russians in an hour.

“They seem harmless, mostly because I think Yuri is inept,” I say. “But he is the son of the most powerful guy in Russia, who probably wants a foothold in Vegas and will do what it takes to get it. I say we go with your original plan of giving them one third of what they asked for. If they go elsewhere for the rest, then we’ll know they’re in a hurry, which to me translates to having some immediate plans that require lots of guns. They haven’t done that yet, so they might not.”

“The Vagos will sell them the guns in a flash,” Tank interjects. “We don’t want to get a reputation of not delivering. That could set a bad precedent for future clients and lose us everything the Vipers have so generously provided.”

Rook nods, and Ice does too, and Cross just looks hard and angry the way he always does. They’re completely right. The Vagos, the only other club in the area that can conceivably compete with us, would love nothing more than to see us fade. They’d also very much like to take our whole gun running operation away from us, but so far, they’ve neither made a move, nor shown any signs of planning it.

“I haven’t seen anything to suggest they’re in contact with the Vagos,” I say. “But those cholos leave almost no digital footprint and we don’t have an informant close to them.”

The others grunt as I say it, suggesting it’s high time I got one of those. But the thing is, I’ve been working on turning someone close to the Vagos since we got the guns, and it’s just not happening. Those guys are so loyal to each other they might as well all be related—just one big family. There’s no cracking that wall of loyalty unless you get violent and we’re avoiding that. My brothers know all that so I’m not gonna repeat it now.

It’s a good point about not losing face though. The Russians are our first major new client, so we are making a precedent in how we deal with them. I also see they’ve all probably discussed this at length and that’s the reason for Cross’ sudden change of heart on the issue. But the thing is, I’d rather see the Russians’ reactions than merely speculate on what they might be. Once they’re armed to the teeth they’ll be harder to deal with.

“The best way to test them is to give them less than what they want and see if they go elsewhere for the rest,” I conclude.

It’s a good plan and has the added bonus of keeping the Russians focused on other problems until Yanna’s tournament is over.

“Besides, we can reverse this before it becomes a problem,” I add, since no one is saying anything. “We’ll just offer them the rest at the first sign of them going to the competition. Granted that I haven’t actually seen the Vagos’ inventory in person, but I’m pretty sure they can’t provide them with everything they want on short notice either. They’d have to get it up from Mexico. That takes time and a lot of shit can go wrong. I can make sure some of that shit goes wrong, if it comes to it, which will have the Russians crawling back to us in no time. What I’m saying is, I’d prefer to test the Russians before we decide to trust them. I think that’s still the best way to go here.”

Rook mumbles something about complicating a simple arms deal too much, but Cross seems to be considering it, and I’m pretty sure I have him back on my side in this.

“Yeah, we’ll do it that way. It’s the best plan,” Cross finally says. “We better be as sure as we can before arming them.”

It’s been awhile since I felt relief this strong. It’s been awhile since I felt anything as strong as I feel things that have to do with Yanna. And realizing that takes the edge off my guilt over not giving Cross all the reasons for forcing my way of dealing with the Russians so hard. It is a good plan. And it’s not like I’m putting the MC second. It’s just not as first as it usually is.

* * *

The sun is beating down on the back of my neck, making it hard to focus on anything but getting out of this heat, while I stand a few feet behind Cross and Tank as we wait for the Russians. We’re next to a hangar that today serves as a makeshift weapons storage facility in the desert near Vegas. It’s large and remote enough to fool anyone into thinking it’s a main facility, but it’s just a decoy I found for us to make it more plausible that we need more time to get the weapons they want together. Three black cars are speeding towards us, so the wait’s almost over.

Yuri and nine of his guys get out of the cars once they stop in front of us. I debated not showing my face at this meeting today, since I plan on following the Russians around for the next couple of weeks and the fewer of them that can recognize me, the better. But since I also have to keep them off Yanna, the more of them who know I’m one of the Devils, the better.

I’m second-guessing so many of my decisions lately. Too many. That’s not my style. But the one I’m not second-guessing is agreeing to be Yanna’s bodyguard, and in the grand scheme of things, that’s gotta count for something. But I have to tell Cross, the longer I keep him in the dark about it, the less favorable his response to the whole thing will be. This will be the first personal favor I’ve ever asked him for, and after ten years of doing everything I can to keep us safe and alive, I hope that’ll count for something.

I take a very good look at each of the Russians as they walk up, since I better get good at recognizing them too.

Yuri shouts a boisterous hello at Cross and gives him a bear hug once he reaches him. But both Yuri and Mikhail were giving me very sharp sideways glares as they walked up to us. That’s probably because I interrupted that first chat they tried to have with Yanna.

“Let’s talk inside,” Cross says and leads the way to the hanger, the door of which is flanked by two of our guys.

Having only two visible guards outside is part of the show we’re putting on for the Russians to set them at ease. I noticed Yuri counting us before he reached Cross, so I think the ruse worked.

But we have guys surrounding the whole area and staying out of sight. Four are hiding in the rafters of the hangar, and ten are positioned in the back rooms of it, which we won’t be visiting with Yuri today.

The Russians probably think we don’t know what the fuck we’re doing selling guns. I know for a fact most of the other clubs hold that opinion. But Devil’s Nightmare MC has never half-assed any job we take on, and if we have to prove that fact all over again when it comes to selling guns, we have no problem doing that either. They should all know that about us by now, but then again, they all keep waiting for us to fall eventually, so I say let them have the hope. It’ll make them careless if they come against us, which will make our job of beating them back easier. Not letting your opponent see all your strength was my father’s preferred strategy too, and it works universally. But we don’t fail and we don’t fall.

“This is the first batch of what you ordered,” Cross tells Yuri as soon as we’re all inside and the doors are firmly closed on the heat outside.

Yuri has a good poker face, but he doesn’t hide his disappointment well at hearing this.

“The first batch?” he asks, sounding a little like he doesn’t quite understand what that means. Or like an entitled child used to getting his way in everything.

“Yeah, it’s about one third of what you wanted,” Cross says firmly, in that voice he uses that allows no argument. “It contains a good amount of everyday sorta weapons, like 9 mils and Uzis, but we’re gonna need more time to get the rest out to you. This should tide you over though.”

Now it’s pretty clear that Yuri actually didn’t understand that last remark. And also that he’s sorely disappointed now that he does.

“I was told you were the go-to guy for weapons on the West Coast,” he says slowly. “Was that bad information?”

He means it as a threat that he’ll take his business elsewhere now, but if he expected a reaction from Cross, he’s a fool. This is exactly what we want, we want him scurrying and showing us how badly he needs to amass a boatload of weapons in as short a time as possible. If he’s just here to skim off the gambling industry, maybe set up a couple of escort places, and get involved in other low-level shit, he doesn’t need more than what’s here to get started. If he means to start a war, this isn’t enough.

Granted, they could be planning a war against the other Russians, Italians or Mexicans doing their thing in Vegas, but now that we have the run of the weapons, it could be us they want to eliminate and take that over. So we gotta be careful. I doubt Yuri is thinking that though. The expression on his face still reminds me of a rich kid who didn’t get everything he wanted for Christmas. I was that kid once upon a time, so I know it when I see it.

“I am the go-to guy for weapons on the West Coast,” Cross assures him, speaking like he’s talking to a child, so I guess he sees what I see too. “But it is what it is. You want a good number of assault-grade weapons, and we need more time to get them together. They’re not the usual choice by a handful of guys looking to get in on the gambling action in Vegas, so we don’t keep crates of them lying around. They’re more for cartel and club wars and such.”

He says it cool and collected like he’s just explaining a fact.

“We are planning no wars,” Yuri says a little too defensively for my taste. I’m sure Cross hears that too. “But we do need and want the weapons. When will they be here?”

He flashes Mikhail a look, but Cross keeps on glaring at him. “The next batch will be here in a week and the last batch a week after that.”

“And what can we expect to be in those batches?” Yuri asks, putting lots of unnecessary emphasis on the last word.

“We’ll keep you posted,” Cross assures him. “Or would you like to pull out of the deal?”

Yuri’s face is dark with more than arrogance now. This is anger at being made a fool of, and being forced to submit to the will of another, and I can read those things very well in the faces of men. I also know he has very little choice but to stay in, since pulling out of the deal now would make us angry and keep him weaponless at the same time. And that’s not a good position to be in. We all know that.

“I will take what is here,” Yuri finally says. “And you will inform me as soon as the next batch is available.”

His voice is cracked, and I’m sure we all know he’s using this domineering tone of voice just to save face, since he’s beaten.

“I will keep you posted,” Cross says. “But I expect you to stay exclusive to us or our deal is off. Is that clear?”

There’s no mistaking the threat in Cross’ voice. He’s actually saying, “Stay on as our exclusive buyer or die”. Most men would take that threat very seriously, knowing they’re dealing with Devil’s Nightmare MC, but going by the smirk on Yuri’s face, I don’t think he gets it. He probably doesn’t believe the stories he’s heard about us. But we have no problem showing him how true those stories are and we’ll do it if we have to.

“We will honor our deal,” he says and offers his hand to Cross who takes it.

Then they start inspecting the goods, and I fall to the back, waiting for my chance to speak to Cross. But it doesn’t come on its own, and I don’t force it. Then it’s just me and Ice standing in the failing light, watching Cross and the rest ride off.

“Wanna come see the girls fight tonight?” I ask him.

“The ladies MMA thing you’re following?” he asks to which I nod.

“I’ve seen enough fights,” he says. “Besides, watching women get hit, even if they’re doing it to each other, was never my idea of a good time.”

That’s pretty much what all the rest of my brothers have to say on the subject. Although he’s made the most thoughtful excuse of them all, I’ll give him that. Most of the others just go with how it’s not natural for women to fight like men. I wonder how many of them would even support me in trying to protect Yanna from the Russians. Will they tell me to just leave her to the dogs since she’s a freak anyway?

Maybe I shouldn’t tell them. Maybe that’s the only way to truly protect her.

But no, I trust my brothers with my life, and I can trust them with this too.

I tell Ice he can take the night off, but that I’ll need him tomorrow. I have thirty guys here now, more than enough to keep an eye on the Russians. Doc is joining us too, just in case the Russians decide to use some of their new weapons on us, but he’s not here yet.

To help Yanna, all I really have to do is keep them from fixing the tournament, and I can do that without them knowing it’s me doing it. So it’s not even a conflict of interest, it’s a side matter that doesn’t impact the MCs deal with them.

Maybe Cross doesn’t need to know about it at all.