Hawk

Dawn was already breaking when I made the last ditch attempt to locate the rest of the Russians. It was pure desperation that led me to check the license plate of the Russians’ SUV, Ice and Doc took Ink to the hospital in and then brought back here. The brothers were already dismantling it in the garage when I came down to ask how Ink was doing. It was a relief to hear that for all the blood on him and around him, the bullets hit no vital organs, but it’s still too early to tell if he’ll make it. I hope he does. I want to shake his hand and thank him for saving Yanna, and then do him every favor he needs from me from now until forever.

The license plate traced back to a credit card and that credit card traced back to a house just outside the suburb of Henderson. It’s too close to other houses to hit during the day, and the one thing we don’t need is another mess like the one at Yanna’s house.

It’s dusk now, soon it’ll be dark. We’ve been staking out the house all day and it looks fucking deserted, but I guess we’ll know for sure in an hour or so.

I had enough time to take Yanna to lunch and get her some new clothes, as well as find her promoter Igor and get him to safety too.

The tournament director decided to call it off. After all the dead Russian mobsters found at Yanna’s house it’d be damn near impossible to convince anyone there wasn’t something fishy going on. Yanna took the news pretty well, but by now she’s probably had enough time to think over all the implications of that and come to the same conclusions I have.

With the taint of having dealings with the Russian mob, she might never be allowed to fight in official, federation events again. But I’ll try to fix it all for her just as soon as this is over. Twist the facts until no one can claim she was involved with the mob. But it might be a losing battle.

I hope I can at least bring her coach back to her tonight. She didn’t beg me to, didn’t really ask, but I know how much it would mean to her. Those sad eyes of hers told me that as clearly as if she’d spoken the words.

It’s time to find out if I can.

Cross is already signaling us to approach and enter the house.

Thirty of our guys are surrounding it and thirty are going in. We have no idea how many Russians are inside, so it’s best to rush and overwhelm them. I’m one of the first through the front door as we storm in.

But the house feels empty, and the thudding of our boots against the floorboards as we search it, the brother’s yells for them to come out and surrender or die, all sounds like the first noise this house has been filled with in a while.

Pretty soon the calls of, “All clear” start coming from different directions in the house.

“They left in a hurry,” Tank says, checking over the kitchen where plates with half-eaten sandwiches, open jars of mustard and mayo, and other food was left out. The kitchen already reeks of food spoiled by the heat.

We found this place too late. Yanna’s trainer is probably already rotting in some shallow grave in the desert, if they bothered to bury him at all. I kinda hope they didn’t. At least then she’ll have his body to bury. That’s always better than no body. I learnt that over the years with all the brothers we lost.

“Alright, let’s get out of here,” Cross says. “They probably fled as soon as things went to shit yesterday. Too bad for Yuri.”

I know what he means. There’ll be no keeping Yuri alive as a warning now, not with others in the wind to tell the tale. His death will serve as the warning, a much stronger and dangerous one than keeping him alive would send, but we’re killers and we thrive on danger.

I’m the last to leave the house and a hollow, thudding sounds from somewhere just as I’m closing the front door. Noise like only a human can make. I hope. It’s coming from the direction of the kitchen, and I stop just long enough to wave Cross back in before going in search of the source.

Once I’m in the kitchen, I realize the sound is coming from below the house, but we never found a basement while searching. And after a couple of minutes of listening intently, I realize why. They’ve pulled a rug and some crates over the latch that leads down into it from the pantry.

And once I remove all that and lift the latch, the thudding becomes clearer, and then clearer still as I descend the ladder. Yanna’s trainer keeps making the noise even after he already sees me. He’s tied to a wooden chair, but he somehow toppled it over and managed to crawl to a wooden pillar, which he’s kicking with all his might.

Finally, a stroke of luck in this whole fucking mess.

* * *

Yanna

I dreamt of the farm I grew up on, my favorite place on earth. I was there holding Hawk’s hand, showing him around on a warm summer day, and happiness, peace, calm and contentment like I don’t remember ever feeling in real life surrounded me. Then I was ripped from it by someone calling my name and shaking me, and it was gone in a flash, replaced by a nightmare, by the fear of facing the winter that would kill me all over again, as Yuri told me I had no freedom anymore, as he told me he’d kill Vlad if I disobeyed him, as his men rushed into my house, as I ran, my heart beating fast enough to explode, and not just from physical exertion.

But then I open my eyes and meet Hawk’s. He says, “Hi’ and kisses me right after. Then all those feelings from my dream are back, only stronger, more vivid, because they are real. And he doesn’t have to say or do anything else for me to know the winter can’t harm me ever again.

But he is saying more. And at first I don’t even hear it, because kissing him also made music play in my head, sweet, soft music that reminds me of home, of the long evenings by the fire I spent playing with my cats and listening to the stories grandma never ran out of.

“I found Vlad. He’s alive,” Hawk says more loudly, then has to scramble to get out of my way as I jump out of bed real fast.

“He’s not here,” he adds, chuckling, as I look intently around the room. “He’s not in the best shape, so we left him at the hospital, but he’ll be just fine.”

“He’s hurt?” I ask, seeing Dima’s blood flow from his body all over again as life leaves his eyes.

“Not too bad,” Hawk says. “He’s a little banged up, but they left him without food and water for a couple of days. That’s his biggest problem. He’ll be alright by tomorrow though.”

He yawns loudly after he finishes speaking, and I get my first good look at his face. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days, the bags under his bloodshot eyes are black, and his skin is sallow and pale.

“You look tired,” I blurt out, which earns me another chuckle.

“Yeah, a little bit,” he admits.

“You should sleep,” I say.

“Yes, I should,” he says and pulls me down on top of him.

And we do get to sleep eventually, but not before kissing more for a long time. I’m transported back to that nice dream, all the feelings of calm and happiness multiplied, electrified to the point of sparkling, all of it even better because it’s real, because he’s with me.

I wish this could go on forever, but the music only he can make play inside my soul lulls us both to sleep much too soon.