Yanna

I couldn’t sleep after Hawk left, couldn’t do anything except think until even my thoughts made no sense anymore. But I’ve been there before. While I was living on the streets after I ran away from the orphanage at fifteen, fearing winter, but fearing going back more. Or after Dima was murdered, when I feared leaving the country and starting over from zero, but feared staying even more. Neither of those things can compare to sending away a guy I barely know. And I kept telling myself what a fool I am for daring to compare it all night, but that didn’t stop it. He’s also first guy who told me he loved me, but that could be a lie. It didn’t sound like a lie, and it didn’t feel like one, but the only thing I really know about all that is that I can’t trust my feelings when it comes to Hawk.

He said he loves me.

But how can he? That had to be a lie. Had to be another way he was trying to manipulate me into…into…my reasoning always falls apart on this point. Because from the first day he came to me, he’s been doing nothing but help me. Even when he wasn’t even trying to, he’s helped me win the fights.

But I also can’t deny that he’s made me soft. So soft I hardly care about the only thing I’ve cared about for the last nine years. Or even longer than that…ever since Dima found me on the street and offered me a home and a chance to be someone.

And that can’t be. I need to be hard to win fights. It’s the only way I know how to win them.

It’s almost eight AM now and I know I won’t sleep. I need to train. Any more sitting around thinking, and I’ll burst with all the things I can’t make sense of.

I text Vlad that I’m coming to the gym, call him when I get no reply, but he doesn’t pick up either. That’s not like him, but he could be busy with something, and I can train just fine on my own. I’d go for a run, but I need to hit something right now.

The ride to the gym pumps me up just enough that a sliver of my steel resolve to be the best of the best starts shining through my confused and dangerously close to despair thoughts regarding the Hawk situation. Vlad’s car is parked out front, so he’s here. That part is going to plan too.

But the front entrance to the gym is locked. I have to enter via the back using the spare key they gave me when we rented space here. Inside it’s quiet and dark, even though it’s almost nine, and there’s usually someone here at all times.

Weights and jump ropes, towels, water bottles and hoodies are strewn around like a bunch of people were just training here then left in a hurry. But it smells fresh and empty like that happened hours ago. Maybe even last night. It makes no sense. This place is always orderly.

“Vlad? Are you here?” I call out and get an even tighter feeling in my chest as the sound of my voice echoes off into silence.

The sound of my sneakers hitting the carpeted floor as I cross the training area to reach the back where we have our private rooms sounds like elephants walking. Or is that just the thumping of my heart? But this is just an empty building, and Vlad has to be here somewhere, since his car is parked outside. What’s there to be scared of? It’s a building that shouldn’t be empty, sure, but still?

I open the door to the room me and Vlad use to watch the videos and discuss things, and everything inside me freezes as though I never escaped that winter when I was fifteen years old.

“Hello Maryanna Sokolova,” the man who killed Dima and shattered my dreams nine years ago says. “I should have recognized you before now, but you changed so well. You were so scrawny when I saw you last, but you’ve filled out into a fine woman.”

I’m not just frozen inside, I’m frozen to the spot too, and as a man grabs me and pulls me further into the room, it hurts like frozen things breaking do. Yuri used to come watch me fight, I remember that, but I always thought it was just to see the quality of the fighters was trying to purchase. Now I’m not so sure he wasn’t trying to purchase me just for me.

“Say hello back. Be polite,” the man dragging me forward hisses, but my voice is frozen too, even once I’m face to face with Yuri Kazarov, the last man on this earth I want to be near.

“She’s scared, poor thing,” Yuri says. “And she, who’s so fierce in the cage. Who would’ve thought?”

I don’t think they know that I saw what they did to Dima all those years ago, but they have to suspect that I know the truth of it anyway. They probably just don’t care either way. Men like these, they’re above the law, above the fears that drive the rest of us. But I’m done fearing them. This is my worst nightmare come true, and I know I wouldn’t be standing here if I hadn’t sent Hawk away last night, but the time for regrets is over. Everything could be over for me.

Hawk. Sokol. Sokolova. We already share the same name. We were meant to be together. I belong to him. But I’m also like a hawk, free to soar, free to be brave, free to live like I want to. And I will face this on my own. Just as I’ve always faced everything before and won.

“What do you want?” I ask surprised yet happy that my voice is strong and cold like the ice of a Russian winter.

Yuri grins darkly. “What I always wanted. You.”

The idea, the way he says it, sends a river of chipped, jagged ice down my back. But I expected this and that takes the edge off my shock.

“Dima wouldn’t give you to me, and then you ran away, but now I found you again and you will be mine.”

The man gripping my arm is still holding me tight. But I’ll bolt as soon as I’m able. I will soar free until the moment I’m shot down. And I will never, never belong to this man.

“You will have to be satisfied with my cold dead body then,” I say in a voice, which sounds like that’s already the case. “Because that’s the only way you’ll ever have me.”

I’m finally starting to once again forget the indecisive, soft girl Hawk found inside me, as I become the cold, tough woman my life has made me. I shouldn’t have sent him away. I know that now. And I know why I had to.

But I also recognize the soft girl now. It’s who I used to be, but she wasn’t someone I knew for very long and was already a complete stranger to me until Hawk found her again. She doesn’t fight. She feeds the chickens and milks the cows, and does all the chores her grandma sets her. She likes to play with cats too, with those furry, chubby gentle giants that always ate too much, but were too sweet and cuddly to turn away. And she hates watching them fight. She’s not the girl I grew up to be. She’s someone else. And it’s right that she’s not here now.

“Such fierceness,” Yuri says. “I’m gonna enjoy watching you break.”

Hearing that doesn’t scare me. I won’t break. I broke a long time ago, and now there’s nothing left to break.

I will soar free or I will die. Those are my two options. Going anywhere with this man is not an option.

“Your eyes say no,” he says and gets up slowly. “But your mouth will be saying yes in a minute.”

He’s sure of this, but he’s dead wrong, I will never say—

Everything inside me freezes for the second time as I glance at the picture on his phone he’s showing me. It’s of Vlad, slumped over in a corner of a dark, windowless room, the only light hitting him coming from the open doorway, which was most likely closed right after this picture was taken. Hopefully, because his whole face is one giant bruise and the front of his shirt is covered in blood. If it weren’t for his angry, defiant eyes staring at the camera, I’d be sure they already killed him.

“You will do one last thing for me before you become mine,” Yuri says. “You will lose the final fight. It’s the only way for your coach to live. Disappoint me and he dies, just like Dima died.”

He knows. He knows, I know and he doesn’t care. He just wants to use my pain to get his way.

He grabs my chin roughly and makes me look at him.

“And after this, if you’re good and nice to me, I will let you fight again. And you will always win,” he says. “But this time you must lose. For me.”

I’ve escaped nothing. All I feared, all I tried to run away from is staring at me with dead black eyes right now. The janitor at the orphanage who kept touching me and would’ve raped me had I stayed. Dima who died so I could have a future. Vlad who gave me that future. Me who grabbed it. Me who lost it. I’ve escaped nothing. I only managed to delay the inevitable.

“Do you understand what I want from you?”

I nod. It’s the only way to stop my worst fears—past, present and future—to keep glaring at me.

“Don’t disappoint me or Vlad dies,” Yuri adds unnecessarily. “As for that biker boyfriend of yours, if you go to him then he and all his friends will die too. Frankly I’d like that very much, but I suppose it’s on you.”

I think I nodded, and I certainly looked away. Now they’re all gone and I’m alone in an empty gym, frozen to the spot, unable to move, unable to think, certain that the winter I barely escaped all those years ago got me after all.

* * *

Hawk

The Russians kept postponing the meeting, but all of a sudden they called and said they’ll meet us at two. What’s worse, the tail I have on them have managed to lose them more than once in the last two days. Sloppy work and not something I’m gonna tolerate, but nothing about this damn deal has gone the way I planned it, so why should this?

“What are you gonna say to them, anyway?” Tank asks Cross gruffly as we wait for them to arrive to this lovely abandoned roadside diner I found for us to meet them at. No more air-conditioned rooms, no more comfy chairs and business-like settings for our meetings. It’s time to bring this to our level. To the wild, outlaw places with not a pleasantry in sight. This place says, “We could kill you all here and no one’s ever gonna find your bodies” and that’s exactly what I was going for. I always hated dealing with the mob, because they hide behind a facade of three-piece suits and fake normality and diplomacy. But they’re just dirty little thugs underneath it and I always hated fake things. It’s why I fell for Yanna. She couldn’t be fake if she tried.

I still have two guys taking turns watching her around the clock and at least those two didn’t fuck up. Not that she moved around a lot, she just stayed at home except when she went to train this morning. Now she’s back home. And that’s all I need to know. After this tournament ends, I’m gonna let her get back to her own life.

Somehow. If I can. But it’s more likely that I’ll go right back to her when all this is concluded, and try to convince her to reconsider ditching me. I can win her back. But it’s better I wait until the Russians are no longer a threat to her in any way. I’m sure she’ll see it my way then, but for now, it’s best to let it cool down.

Cross and Tank are talking, but I missed the whole conversation. I already know what Cross plans to do, he told us. Tank’s question was meant as a criticism, since he’d prefer to just make the Russians disappear the way we would’ve back in the day.

“I think it’s best to keep them around,” Cross says with finality, just as black cars appear on the horizon where the road meets the sky. They’re just black blobs for now, misshapen by the desert heat, but they’re approaching fast. “I’d rather not worry about whoever they send to avenge them if they disappear.”

He’s got a point, a good one actually, but I’d also prefer for the Russians to be gone.

“You know best,” Tank says and kinda sounds like he doesn’t think so, but we all know he does. If anyone would follow Cross in anything, it’s Tank. Their friendship goes back much further than the MC, all the way back to their childhood.

“Send them in when they get here,” Cross says and enters the building, leaving me and Tank outside.

Rook and Scar are already inside, while Ice and about twenty brothers are checking the perimeter and making sure the Russians aren’t trying to pull any shit under the guise of a peaceful meeting, and so far, they have nothing to report.

The two black SUVs pull up in the dirt parking lot a few feet from where me and Tank are standing.

Yuri and Mikhail both glare at me as they approach, and if I didn’t know the guy has nothing to smile about, I’d bet Yuri was smirking at me behind those aviator shades, which are just another fucking cliché on his square face. Two other guys get out of the second car.

“Go right in,” Tank says, sweeping his arm in the direction of the door once they’re near enough.

They do, and I follow right behind them, the darkness inside worse than it should be, because of the glaring afternoon light outside.

“This is not a very nice place,” Yuri says as he sits facing Cross at the single table in the center of the room.

Scar and Rook are already standing behind Cross, and me and Tank join them, while the three Russians take their postings behind Yuri, their wide, menacing stance totally at odds with the expensive suits they’re wearing. They’re ruthless killers, so why not dress the part? Why try to hide it?

“The time for niceties is over,” Cross says. “You’re on my turf now and you’re gonna play by my rules.”

He never fucks around, but he’s getting to the point real quick today, which is a good thing. Talking’s another thing these fakers like. And it’s always just a lot of wasted time.

“We underestimated you,” Yuri says, talking like he’s in charge of this conversation, which by now he should begin to accept he’s not. “But we would like our weapons back.”

“You double crossed us, going to the Vagos and banding together with them to take what is ours,” Cross says. “Normally, you wouldn’t be alive to have this conversation, so count yourself lucky. You’re not getting anything back. From now on, you want weapons, you come to us.”

Or better yet, leave this fucking area and don’t come back.

It’s what Cross is implying, but he’s not gonna say it, so neither will I. Instead, I text Ice to bring some of the guys closer to surround this diner now. It’s best to show these fuckers that we’re not fucking around. They’re alive because Cross decided they should stay alive, and that’s the only reason. But it could change in the blink of an eye and it’s better they know it.

Yuri leans back in his chair, making it creak and groan. “That’s not a very nice way to speak to me. I understand that you are angry, but can we have a second chance? Please?”

He’s not asking, that much is clear from his mocking tone.

“This is your second chance,” Cross says menacingly the way only he can. “Don’t waste it.”

Ice and five brothers enter behind him, making Yuri’s chair groan again, as he takes in the new lay of the land. I bet he’s wishing he brought more guys now. I bet he’s wishing he didn’t come here at all. That much was plain in the expression on his face as he saw Ice, but he’s smirking again as he turns back to Cross. Only he’s not looking at Cross, he’s looking at me.

“I suppose the time for niceties really is over,” Yuri says. “Very well, let’s talk. The woman fighter dies if we can’t come to an agreement I’m happy with today. She will die badly. I’ve heard how you Devils would do anything for your women, and now’s your chance to prove it again.”

It makes no sense. Yanna is safe at home. I was assured of that less than an hour ago.

“As it is now, I have her coach,” Yuri explains. “I told her he’ll live if she does what I want from now on. But that plan can change fast. Her death and his are just a phone call away. But if you give me back what is mine and forgive our little misstep, I will call it off. That’s also just a phone call away.”

Of all the men I’ve killed, I never wanted to kill any of them as much as I want to kill Yuri and the three smirking guys behind him. Cross doesn’t want war, he doesn’t want a problem, he wants the Russians to heel and he wants it all to go his way. Yanna is not even a tiny speck on his radar, while he will make his decision on how to handle this.

But he turns to me. “You want this woman?”

I nod, couldn’t speak if I tried. All that would come out would be a death growl, while I ripped Yuri’s throat out.

Cross shrugs then turns back to Yuri. “Fine. I guess it’s Plan B then. Gotta live up to our reputation.”

Yuri smiles wide, sure he just got his way. But that’s not Plan B.

Plan B is the one Tank’s been pushing, since we landed ourselves in this mess.

And Yuri realizes that too as the three guys he had with him go down with practically a single thud, a pool of blood quickly spreading across the dusty floor as it flows from their throats.

And that stupid dumbfounded expression is still on is face as I grab him by the throat like I longed to do since the second he mentioned Yanna.

“The rest of your men are dying as we speak,” I tell him as I watch Cross and Tank give that very order over their cells. “But first I gotta ask you a few questions. And then maybe, we can figure out a Plan C where you fly back to your daddy in Moscow.”

You gotta give them hope that they’ll come out alive, but I don’t see Plan C happening.

I motion for Scar to follow me into the back room as I drag Yuri there. The thing is, we never saw them grab Yanna’s coach, which means they got guys and a place we don’t know about. It’s not like me to miss shit like that, but this was a special kinda job and Yuri will tell me all about it now.

I text Ink who’s watching Yanna, and tell him not to let her out of his sight, while I let Scar take over incapacitating Yuri.

Cross appears in the doorway to the back room, and for a split second I’m afraid he’s gonna tell me to kill Yuri and be done with it. And maybe I should. But I want to save Yanna’s coach too.

He motions me to meet him by the door.

“Plan C’s not an option given the circumstances,” he says quietly once I do. “But do what you gotta do. I’ll meet you back in Vegas. Good luck.”

Not sure how much luck I’ll need. Yuri looks about ready to piss his pants already. He should be afraid, because I won’t go easy on him.