Vassili Karo Resnov
Never get angry. Never get…too angry. And keep my fucking chill when outside of the octagon. That’s what I agreed to do, in order to make my marriage work.
I’m seated wide-legged on a leather chair, so fucking big and plush, it was made just for me. Before me is a massive flat screen. I can be seen slaughtering my opponent with a roundhouse kick that leaves the guy knocked out in midair and falling like a rock. The KO segues into another one of my Killer Karo approved highlights. This time my tactic is a raw submission. I had Hauser in an ankle hold that broke his shit clear in half almost two years ago. I’m waiting for my call to connect, fisting my iPhone in my hand. The images keep flickering of me in beast mode, going for the kill. I’m too good at this. Too good at being bad.
She finally answers.
“Hey, baby,” Zariah says, breathing a tad heavy.
Damn, I realize my lungs were overdue for oxygen during the wait for her to answer. Just last month, my wife was pressing the “away” button repeatedly and disregarding my calls. “Zariah, beautiful, you on your way?”
“I'm trying. Your child refuses to walk.” Zariah’s voice sounds muffled. “I opened the garage. Forgot something. Now I'm headed back to the garage with Natasha on one hip, her favorite juice spilling on me.”
I tilt my head to the shiny ass chandeliers above, silently thanking God she’s forgiven me for acting a fool. “That’s Natasha, mayhem with apple juice.”
From my peripheral, I notice my cousin, Yuri, has dropped his cane and is leaning against the doorframe. This fat, mudak—asshole—is eye fucking the pin-up doll for a maid, who so far has done more bending over in my face because some idiot blabbed about my impending match this weekend than readying the hotel room for my wife.
“Whatever, Vassili. I don’t have time to be abused by your mini me.”
“Oh, you don’t?” I break into a grin. Our one-year-old is part of the reason I’m forgiven now.
Yuri turns around. “See, kazen, told you Zariah is all talk. You two are good.”
My wife continues with, “I’m all sticky, and we have less than an hour to...”
My eyebrows knead.
Yuri winks. He thinks all is good. That I’m out of the dog house.
But Zariah’s tone is stricken with fear, and her voice lowers, “We —we have….”
My head tilts somewhat, facial expression darkening as Yuri stops leaning against the doorframe. He turns his attention from the slutty maid to me.
I ask, “Zariah, girl. What’s wrong—”
“Mrs. Resnov, you've taken everything from me…” I hear a Latino male voice in the background.
Zariah scoffs, “Mr. Noriega…wh-what are you doing at my house? How do you know where I live?”
“Zariah,” I shout into the phone. “Who is that!”
“Oh, is your husband on the phone?”
There are muffled noises. Yuri is silently asking me what's going on. He mouths Zariah, and I nod.
“Mikhail will be at your house in a few minutes, kazen,” Yuri whispers.
I yell into the receiver, “ZARIAH, WHO IS—”
“Tell him.”
She’s trembling, fuck I can feel it light years away, as she speaks into the receiver. “It's Juan Noriega. I’m representing his wife in their divorce,” her voice scales down. And then she's pleading to him. Begging him to allow her to put our child in the house so they can talk. And I’m... useless.
Juan motherfucking Noriega? It feels like a knife has slid into my bones. Without fail, I always force Zariah to provide me with a rundown about every case she picks up. Regardless that it’s family law, I will not have my wife in a dangerous situation. There was no mention of this mudak, Noriega. I’d have refused her request to take on any case that had anything to do with the infamous Loco Dios gang member. Shit, shit, shit. Whomever she represented against Noriega was more than deserving of justice. Instincts slam into me and churn sour.
This is revenge…
“Does he have a gun?” My voice is tapered. Her fucking answer, ‘yes’ is enough to feel two slugs piercing into my heart. But I continue to stay calm as Yuri sends out his own message.
“Put him on the phone,” I command, lips hardly moving.
“Okay,” Zariah says, her voice wrapped in a fear I've never known.
“The infamous Vassili Resnov,” the man’s voice is callus to the core.
“Who. The. Fuck. Are. You?”
“Ay dios mio, you sound scary,” he laughs.
I glare at the television screen. There’s so much fucking blood. I’m massacring my opponent. My gaze fixates on his eyes, clouding as he taps out in my arms, so hard that the visual blurs before me.
“Sounds like I'm talking to the motherfucking Terminator. I'm Juan Noriega. I take it, you know of me. But no worries, mi amigo, I'm a nobody these days. I know all about you though,” Noriega says. “Ex Welterweight UFC champ. Loved by the masses. And I also know you're a fucking Resnov. Your family isn't to be fucked with.”
The luxurious hotel is gone from before me. All I see myself doing is tearing this man limb from limb, killing him with my bare hands until his bones fracture, turn into powder, to dust and then become nothing. Painting my hands with his blood until my knuckles break. “Then I don't need to inform you of my capabilities. My family's capabilities?”
“No, hombre. I’m dead already. My parental rights were terminated for my ninos because of your bitch. My bitch up and took my house, my cars, everything I have, also because of your bitch. At this precise moment, I've got a nine to your bitch’s head. But don't worry, like I just said, the bitch took my wife, and my two kids. I heard your bitch is pregnant. I prayed to God the two of you were having a boy. So, the little nina and the baby in her tummy will meet the same ending.”
“Noriega.” My blood slows to freezing point. I gulp down the lump in my throat. “Listen to me clearly, if you touch my wife or my daughter you will die a thousand deaths. I will beat you with my bare hands. That’s already in the motherfucking cards. You've already consigned yourself to that. But do you want me to fucking murder you and revive you a thousand times, all just to have me torture and murder you again?”
“You're capable of that, Mr. Resnov. The only problem is, I no longer have a heart. Adios, mi amigo.”
Click!
I storm through the suite. “Where are my keys? Yuri, where the fuck are my keys?”
My cousin starts arguing with me. Finally, he halts my bulldozing through the room by grabbing my shoulders.
There’s pain behind his eyes. Yuri’s still favoring his one leg. But he grits through it and says, “Nyet—no! Vassili, brat. Everything will be good.”
My world has tilted on a spindle. My head is chaotic, crazed. I’m seeing red. And I’m about to serve him the left hook he got when we went to jail a little while back. My bark is hard, “Yuri, move—”
He flinches, holding his palms out. “I can’t. You can’t. We can’t fucking do anything for them no matter how much we—”
My forearm slams against his neck.
He’s reddening by the second. “Va-Vassili, we are in Australia.” He bites out the words.
My eyebrows crinkle. I. Am. In. Australia. My title match is tomorrow. I'm a world away from my fucking heart! I let him go, and clinch at the top of my head. There’s no more Mohawk to tug. “Fuck the belt, Yuri. I don't want it.”
Yuri rubs at his neck. “Okay, kazen, but—”
“I need to get home!” I punch the wall next to him. It's all marble. My knuckles crush against the glossed stone. The skin has pulled back and blood smears along it, leaving a trail.
“That's impossible, Vassili, we are too far away. We’re in fucking Australia! I have a crew on the way…” My cousin is speaking, though I can't understand the words. All I see is myself becoming a monster.
“Kazen! You'll have a heart attack. We will handle this. Mikhail promised to keep them safe. He is on the way to your home right now,” he argues through gritted teeth. But Yuri’s words hardly penetrate. I focus on God. Over the years, having faith hasn’t been easy, but it will be the end of my relationship with Him if the worse occurs.