Chapter 61

Cooper

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We pull into the trailer park where I grew up and I hop out of the car, onto the dirt of my old haunts. I jog around the front of the car to open Branna’s door for her. Damn, she’s the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met, but she just seems to get more beautiful every time that I look at her.

She gives me a small kiss before we walk over to where we’re meeting Vlad. Alexei scans our surroundings, like he expects someone to jump out with a gun. A hardened criminal, he doesn’t completely trust us. That’s good; we can only benefit from being alert. I wrap my arm around Branna’s waist, holding her close as we walk over to the abandoned shed down by the edge of the park. When I was a kid, the shed was a hotspot in the trailer park. It was where the junkies would come to do their deals, away from the prying eyes of tattle-tale, busybody neighbors and the plainclothes police who would occasionally show up, search some trailers for narcotics, give some kids warnings for truancy or public underage drunkenness, and then swing by my mother’s well-worn bed to reward themselves for a job well done. These days, the shed stands empty and abandoned, no longer really a part of the trailer park as trees grew around it and cut it off from the rest of the land. It is the perfect place to meet Vlad. 

I try the door of the little, rundown shed, but it won’t give. Vlad blocked it with something, as agreed. I feel bad for pulling Vlad into this, but he is a grown man with the freedom of choice to decide whether or not he will do it and he has military training of his own. He took the most roundabout way here and we are taking all the precautions to keep the mafia from knowing that he is the other one in on the blackmail plan, so he should be fine. Still, he is a real friend for doing this.

I knock again, in the Morse code pattern we agreed on, and then it swings open from the inside. Vlad hurries us in, then closes the door and shoves an old iron gardening chest in front of it again.

“Hi,” Branna says. “I don’t believe we have ever been formally introduced, but I am Branna.” She reaches out to shake his hand, still perfectly polite. The girl can keep a tea party level of class even when she’s about to walk to her possible death.

“It’s my pleasure,” Vlad says, drily. He addresses Alexei, “I wasn’t expecting to see you out of the ring.”

“He’s with us,” Branna says. Right.

Vlad nods at Alexei. “I’m going to need a word alone with Cooper.”

“Of course,” Branna says, with a nod. I give her a quick kiss on her forehead, then follow Vlad back to the small, partially closed-off section at the back of the shed, where rakes and hoes and shovels were stored in its heyday.

As soon as we are behind the wooden partition separating the storage area from the rest of the shed, Vlad drops his cool, calm facade.

“What the fuck have you gotten yourself into, man?” Vlad hisses, grabbing me by the bicep. “If you’re trying to fuck up your MMA career completely, you’re sure on the fucking right track to doing that. At this point, you would have to do everything—and I mean every fucking little thing—more right than right in order to have any chance at a comeback. Do you realize how much this is costing you, how much this is costing us? And what is this thing that you are in now? You need a fucking lockpick, binoculars, ski masks, and fucking handguns!”

“I gave Branna my word” I say seriously, looking Vlad straight in the eyes. “You have to trust me, man, I know what I’m doing.”

Vlad looks at me. He really looks at me, in that deep, all-baring way that only Vlad can do, and nods. “What you’re doing is illegal and dangerous, isn’t it.” It’s not a question, so I just give him a wry smile.

Finally, he shakes his head. “She is a beautiful girl, Cooper,” he says. “And if she is to you what Bettina is to me, I one hundred percent understand how you could throw away everything you have worked for. I have seen you grow and heal in these years and for you to be able to go full on and love someone with all your power, that’s growing up. That’s being a man. I am proud of you, son.”

“Thanks, Vlad. That means a lot coming from you,” I say. It does. “But Branna is in real trouble and she is my girl, so I am in it with her. Life or death trouble. And that is why I’m here.”

“The stuff,” Vlad says, holding up a black plastic bag. It’s like a liquor store bag, but the outlines aren’t of bottles. “It’s done, man,” Vlad says, pounding me on the back. “Don’t even worry about it. But be safe. I want to see you again, soon, and I want to see you with your pretty-boy face still intact, you hear? I know you’ll be fighting again come the weekend. You’ve got this. Failure is not an option.”

I nod. “Thanks.” Vlad never stops coaching, and it is just what I need. This I know how to work with. And results are what I know how to produce.