Hawk

I called Ink, told him to get Yanna out of the house and somewhere safe. He was surprised, since as he put it, watching her is about as much fun as sitting around an old people’s home, but he didn’t argue beyond that. All I’m really worried about as I round the corner into her street is the absence of my brothers in position to wait for the Russians to arrive.

The gunfire I hear a split second after I spot the black SUV parked across her front lawn is completely out of place and totally unexpected. But I don’t even think. I just race to the house.

All the doors of the SUV are thrown wide open, people are shouting, lights turning on it the houses all around. Where the fuck is the backup I told Cross to send?

A Russian is lying in a pool of blood at the front door. Another is hiding behind the sofa. He turns to me as I run into the house, but he doesn’t even have time to point his gun at me before I put a bullet right between his eyes. I don’t remember drawing my gun, and I don’t remember aiming. Squeezing the trigger hardly registered too, and a split second after he goes down I’m already scanning the room for sight of Yanna’s blonde hair, hoping I don’t see it matted in blood somewhere. I don’t, thankfully, and outside I can hear the rumbling of bikes approaching. In front of me, another Russian is lying on the ground. Three of them are down. But four doors of the SUV were open.

“Yanna!” I yell out as I take cover behind the sofa. “Are you here?”

No answer. The house feels empty and a draft is coming from the kitchen. A cold wind that’s totally uncharacteristic of the desert, so I might just be imagining it. I might just be feeling the last of her soul leaving this earth. I could’ve prevented this. If I’d kept my dick in my pants until this threat was dealt with, I could’ve prevented it.

“What’s happening?” Ice asks and Doc join me behind the sofa. Good of Doc to finally show up. But it might be way too late.

“We gotta clear the house before the cops come,” I say, not really surprised, just shocked at how calm my voice sounds.

Ice waves the rest inside. I show them the stairs, gesture that there’s three bedrooms and two baths upstairs, and a kitchen and pantry in front.

I go upstairs first, shocked at how steady my legs are. The bedroom door is closed, and I’m already seeing Yanna’s body on the bed where we shared it all. Seeing it so clearly, it barely registers that the room is actually empty, cool and dark.

“Clear upstairs!” I yell, hardly recognizing my own voice.

“Clear down here too, but you better come!” Ice yells from downstairs. I can hear the wailing of sirens in the distance. We don’t have much time.

Doc is crouched over someone on the ground, groaning as he pumps his hands over his chest.

“It’s Ink, he’s been hit,” Ice tells me a second before I see it for myself.

“He’s still alive, but he needs to get to the hospital. I can’t fix this on my own,” Doc says breathlessly, his arms covered with Ink’s blood up to the elbows. “The best I can do is keep his heart beating until he gets to the hospital. Maybe.

Ink doesn’t look alive, and the guilt I’ve been feeling over leaving Yanna alone for this to happen just got so deep I hardly see beyond it anymore. It’s bad enough I fucked up the deal with the Russians, but for anyone to die over what only I should be dying over is unthinkable. So I won’t think.

“Take care of him,” I say to Doc. “Take the Russians’ car and get him to a hospital. I got you all covered.”

It doesn’t look like he’s gonna make it. Doc sounds uncertain about it too, and he’s tried to save enough guys in the wars he’s been in to know what’s what, and what’s beyond saving. But thinking won’t help any either.

Ice and a couple of the guys are already helping him move Ink to the car and the wailing of sirens is almost here. We have to leave unless we want to spend the next few days explaining to the cops what we were doing here in the first place. I need to get out of here to start smoothing things over and begin erasing all trace of our presence here. That’s my job, that’s what I do for the MC. This mess is gonna involve the cops, and that’s exactly the kind of mess Cross wanted to avoid at all cost. He’s not gonna be happy.

I should be focusing on all that, but all I want to do it find Yanna. Did the fourth Russian drag her somewhere? I may not have found her body here, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t lying somewhere near, in the dirt.

If there was time, I’d search the surroundings, but as it is, the flashing red and blue lights are already lighting up the end of the street.

I’m riding last behind my brothers as we race away from the lights and the wailing sirens. I’m on autopilot, because my entire mind is with Yanna. I just wish I knew where the fuck to look for her.

* * *

Yanna

5666 West Boulevard is a large building in the middle of nothing but sand and concrete. It took me hours to reach it and my whole body’s in pain like I’ve just run a marathon. One of the Russians took off after me, but I lost him quickly and even after that, I only stopped running when I absolutely had to. Like when I couldn’t breathe anymore, or had to ask for directions to this place.

But if I stopped for too long then I’d start thinking. Start deciding this isn’t a good idea. That it might be better for everyone if I just disappeared. There’d be no reason to keep holding Vlad prisoner if I was gone. Hawk wouldn’t be in danger if I was gone.

But I can’t disappear, because then I’d never see him again. I don’t want that. And that’s the only thing I managed to really figure out while I sat silent in my living room all day.

Once I reached the building there was nowhere else for me to run to. I’ve been hiding behind the only shrubbery for miles around, right next to a couple of dumpsters, which smell like they haven’t been emptied in a long time. Thinking about going in. Deciding to do it. Over-thinking the decision, making none.

Thirty bikes are parked out front, and men keep coming and going from the building. The lights are on too. And every time the front door opens I hear talking. I don’t hear Hawk’s voice. I haven’t seen him enter or leave. None of them have seen me yet. And I still haven’t decided.

Stay or go?

I’ve left so many places in my life.

I hate leaving.

I thought I finally had it made when I came to Vegas. That was just over a month ago.

I thought I finally had it made when I met Hawk. He said he loved me.

I don’t think I have another new start left in me.

But I can’t make this decision.

Another bike is approaching, going real fast and loud, so loud the noise of the engine drowns out even my racing thoughts, as it grows louder and louder the nearer it gets.

And then just like that, it’s quiet again. But my thoughts don’t resume the racing.

I recognize those wings on the side of the tank. And I know what I have to do. It’s the only thing I really want to do.

“Hawk,” I call out as I step out from behind the dumpsters.

My voice is very faint, but he hears it, has no trouble seeing me despite the darkness obscuring me.

Then suddenly I’m in his arms and I know, I know beyond any doubt, beyond any nagging thought still left in my brain, that I’m right where I belong. That there’s no running away from here.

“Are you hurt?” Hawk asks as he checks me over without letting go of me.

I nod and hug him tight.

“I’m so sorry,” I tell him then kiss him hard and deep, because that’s the only thing that makes sense, the only thing that makes everything alright. I’m not even aching anymore after that kiss.

“Vlad…the Russians took him,” I say. “And the man you left to watch over me, he’s dead.”

My voice is very shaky as I tell him that.

“He might live,” Hawk says and releases me from the embrace, yet wraps his arm around my shoulders right after. “Come on, we’ll talk inside.”

His arm on my shoulders is heavy and his grip on me is strong, exactly the way I need it to be. It’s my anchor and my strength, the thing I’ve missed my whole life, because I’ve only ever had myself to lean on. But he’s here now.

“I shouldn’t have sent you away. It was a mistake,” I whisper as he leads me into the building. It sounds like a hundred men are talking over each other inside, but he hears me perfectly despite the noise.

“I told you so,” he says.

“I love you,” I say a little louder, but I could’ve whispered that too and he’d hear me.

“Yeah, me too,” he says and grins.

The talking noise has ceased, but maybe that’s just because I can’t hear it anymore. And all I see is him. I’d be perfectly happy, if we could stand here looking into each other’s eyes just like this, for a long time, because in his I see all that I never had, all that I lost and now found again, and all I ever wanted, but didn’t dare admit to myself, not even in my darkest, loneliest moments. Someone’s calling his name and all eyes in the room are focused on us, so I guess I didn’t just imagine the room going quiet.

This night is far from over. And we’re far from having all the time in the world to just look into each other’s eyes.

* * *

Hawk

What I want to do is take Yanna to one of the rooms upstairs, lock her inside and keep her safe with my own body from now until eternity. I missed her plenty, but I didn’t know just how much until I heard her call my name outside.

But I have a job to do. And I know that perfectly well too. Cross starts grilling her as soon as I finish explaining what happened after they left me and Scar alone with Yuri. She turned pale while I tell them Yuri had left orders to kill her if he hadn’t returned from the meeting by nightfall, and she turned even more pale once Cross asked her to explain what happened at her house before we got there. I was on the verge of telling him she’s in no fit state to answer, but her voice was strong and clear once she started talking, not shaky at all, until she got to the point where she told us how Ink got shot twice while telling her to run.

But she did start shaking all over as Scar dragged Yuri into the room.

“Alright, that’s it, I’m taking her upstairs,” I say and pull her up from the chair she’s sitting in.

I suppose Cross just wanted Yuri to know we have her now, and that he has nothing more to bargain with, and the best way to achieve that was letting him see her, but it was a crude move nonetheless, and not something she needs to face on top of everything else right now.

Cross doesn’t object, just tells me to come right back down.

“Hope you are ready to bury another coach, Maryanna,” Yuri yells at her in English, since he clearly wants all of us to know this too. She starts shaking even worse, but I just wrap my arm around her tighter and keep her moving.

“You really are a death sentence to everyone who gets too close to you, aren’t you?” Yuri adds. That motherfucker is on a roll. She stops dead frozen then, but that anger in her eyes is fiercer than it is in the cage.

“I saw you kill Dima that night, I saw you stab him,” she yells at Yuri, her voice strong and clear, sharp like a knife. “It was always my plan to make you pay for that one day. And now that day has come! Enjoy the rest of your life, which I’m sure will be short.”

Yuri’s face froze when she started talking, and it’s still frozen now.

“You bitch!” he yells, and tries to lunge for Yanna. His sudden movement caught Scar off guard, but he doesn’t get far regardless. Yanna didn’t even flinch.

“That’s no way to talk to a lady,” I say, as Scar grabs him hard enough to make him wince.

“Remember my face, Yuri,” she tells him. “You never should’ve messed with this bitch. Your daddy isn’t here to protect you now, but my friends, they’re here to punish you. How the tables have turned, huh?”

Yuri’s eyes are bulging out, and he’s breathing hard.

“She’s right, for what it’s worth,” Cross says, chuckling. “You shouldn’t have messed with her. But let’s get this over with now.”

Scar takes that as the order it is and drags Yuri out of the room. Yanna is still frozen to the spot, glaring at the door Yuri disappeared through. I have to push her to move her. But her frozen fierceness is gone by the time we reach the room I plan to barricade her inside, and she’s shaking so hard her teeth are chattering.

“Will you save Vlad?” she asks in a very small voice.

I want to promise her that, with everything I am. But he’s not a priority for us, and he might already be dead besides. She doesn’t need to hear either of those things, and I don’t want to be the man who tells her, though I think she already knows them anyway.

“I wanted Yuri punished for what he did to Dima for so long,” she says in a shaky voice. “I can’t believe it’s finally happening.”

I get her inside and close the door behind us.

“It’s happening,” I tell her. “You don’t have to worry about him anymore now.”

But she will worry, and she will remember forever. That’s what the sadness in her eyes is telling me. I have to do something to chase that sadness away, for good, because I never want to see it in her face again.

“I’ll do what I can to get your coach back, but—”she stops me talking by placing her hand over my mouth, her eyes very wide and very shocked but sparkling like dew covered grass in the morning. Our morning. The one I feared would never come again.

She kisses me softly and then releases me.

“Go and do what you have to do, then come back to me,” she says. “It will be enough.”

She doesn’t quite mean it, yet she does. And it’s the most perfect thing anyone has ever said to me.

I kiss her again, and that’s even better than just looking into her eyes.

We’ll have more mornings, we’ll have all the mornings left in this world, but right now it’s still the dead of night, and I’m needed elsewhere.