Fearless III

by Amarie Avant

  Add Rhy as a submission.

  Squeeze Danushka’s neck until her fake blue eyes pop.

  Beat Grigor to death with my hands.

  Check. Check. Check.

  “Karo, Karo, will you fight Rhy?” one of the reporters starts into the entrance of the restaurant.

  A tiny babushka that is seated at the door wags her gnarly finger. Her voice sounds like dust as she threatens, “This is my place! Get!”

  I’m up from my seat. Danushka begins to move out of her chair, but I gesture for her to sit back down. The skirt she’s wearing is too fucking short, and I’m not ready for all of my food to come back up.

  “Respect this establishment,” I tell the guy. “You want a soundbite, give me a card.”

  He offers me a business card before heading back outside.

  I turn toward the babushka that I’ve never had. She’s always welcomed me into her restaurant. My palms glide along her warm skin, and I press my lips to the creases at her forehead. Damn, I wish I had a grandma for Natasha. “I’m truly sorry.”

  “Nyet,” she waves my apology away. In Russian, she says, “You are a good boy, Mr. Resnov. You’ve helped keep my doors open, found more customers.”

  I kiss her forehead again, then notice behind her down the hallway.

  It’s the ugliest motherfucker I’ve ever seen in my life. After connecting gazes with me, Simeon starts into the men’s bathroom of the Urban Kashtan. The old school restaurant slacks off in this department. I follow. Seconds later, I’m breathing in piss as I look at his ugly ass face.

  “Why are you here, Simeon?”

  “Paid that reporter to step inside. Get your attention, without Danushka riding your wee balls.” He stops in the center of the room. There are old, yellowing stalls on the right, and two porcelain sinks with the rusted finishes to the left.

  We stand at the same height. He’s no cousin of mine. Just a lap dog for my father, and occasionally, he uses those choppers on someone. Not me. I’d put his ass down. Unlike Rhy, I’ll match this mudak glower for glower.

  Simeon asks, “Update on Horace?”

  “Nyet.”

  “You lying to me, kuzen?”

  My mouth pulls into a tense smile. “Want to ask that question again, Simeon? Ask me if I’m a motherfucking liar. Do it, with your wee balls?”

  He shrugs. “I’ll ask you this: Do you know who your motherfucking family is, brat?”

  “Brat?” I chuckle. “Out of all the bitches Anatoly has impregnated, I never considered anybody brat. Not until I got close to Yuri, Mikhail, Igor.”

  “Igor was vindicated,” he grits.

  “His death shouldn’t have happened, Simeon! You were my father’s right hand. Grigor was the left. Why didn’t you keep tabs on Grigor, huh? You say, do I know who my family is? What the fuck? You’re a Resnov too, oh I forget. Anatoly let you play leader since I chose not to.”

  “Dah, you’re right. You should’ve been at Anatoly’s right shoulder. You could’ve kept an eye on our—on your brat! You would’ve known that Grigor and that little piz’da out there weren’t loyal. Your lack of loyalty killed Ig—”

  My fist goes flying. I’m a seasoned MMA fighter, but I take the bullheaded route. My fist slams into his teeth. I want to knock every one of them out of his mouth for saying that I had anything to do with Igor’s death. For every brick I issue, Simeon tosses one back in my direction. He’s left-handed. I have specialized training for mudaks like this.

  I slam my forearm out; his chin slides to the left. My other hand takes quick body shots to his liver. I’m set to annihilate it until his left bounces off my chin. The hit leaves my spine ready to disconnect. I’m heaved back against the porcelain counter. It cracks against the wall. I go falling toward the silver-rusted piping beneath it. Simeon gathers leverage.

  “This is all your fault, Vassili,” he growls, his fists slamming down.

  “Is it?” I grip the back of his neck and break my forehead against his.

  Fuck. My vision swims around. His head is massive. The head-butt did a little more in his favor than it did for me. My hand chops against his windpipe. The bear doesn’t stop letting his fists fly. I press my knee up and into his junk.

  Okay. Dirty. I know. Now, ask me if I fucking give a damn. Nyet!

  Simeon is whizzing laying in a pile of piss, as I jump into a standing position.

  “You big bastard.” I laugh down at him as he pulls out a gun.

  He cocks the hammer, licking the blood from his lips. “You little shithead.”

  “Do it.” I kneel, placing the middle of my eyes between the barrel. “Do it. You want to be me, kuzen, eh? Dah? Do it!”

  And he does.

  It clicks. He’s laughing now, though I haven’t even flinched. Simeon stops grimacing at the pain against his balls and pulls out the clip. “Empty, brat. I am more loyal than you.”

  My hand clamps across his throat. “Say that shit again?”

  That hard blow to his balls has miraculously faded. Simeon lifts his hand. I begin to squeeze him with both hands now, and he tries to work his forearms between my arms to break the chokehold. His massive face is red.

  I grit, “Tap out, kuzen.”

  Bighead. No brain. He continues to work his forearms up between my hands until he gains leverage. I quickly release his neck and take ahold of his hand to pull him backward and onto his stomach. He twists until we’re both on the ground again.

  The door opens.

  A Latino with biker shorts and a fanny pack stares between us.

  Without missing a beat, the guy asks, “Which one of you is Mr. Resnov.”

  “We both are,” Simeon declares since his mother kept her maiden name.

  The messenger rolls his eyes. “Which one is Vassili, Vassili Resnov?”

  “That’ll be this piz’da right here,” Simeon says, patting my shoulder.

  The messenger takes a few steps in and lets a manila envelope float down toward me. “You’ve been served,” he blurts before leaving.

  Simeon and I lean against the toilet stalls. Again, I’m reminded that grown-ass men aim like toddlers as I crack my back. He does too.

  “Feels good,” my cousin groans. “We are too old for this shit, Vassili.”

  “We are. Danushka is right out there,” I grit out.

  “Danny loves the limelight. She won’t come in here.” He gets up, holds out a hand.

  For the first time in my life, I find myself taking the hand of my nemesis. I get up. “No luck on Horace. Okay?”

  “Dah,” he groans. “I hate America. North America, South America. I want to go home.”

  The beast then chews his lips as if he’s considering his words.

  “Are you keeping an eye on Zariah and Natasha?” I ask. Out of our entire lives, I have never asked him anything before.

  “Dah, dummy. They’re at home with her pop. Could never be safer with the Chief of Police.” He points a stiff finger at me then gets to chewing his lip again. “Vassili, they’ll be home all night. We still need to talk.”

  “Nyet,” I grit, aware of how this conversation will proceed.

  “The Bratva is very important, Vassili. One day, if you’d just give Anatoly the same attention that you’ve been giving Danushka this entire time and—”

  “Hello, motherfucker,” I grit out. “I’m only giving Danny attention at Anatoly’s insistence. Nyet, not even for that. I’m waiting for him to lift the protection order off her head because I’m going to take her out! Go tell that to the boss.”

  He shrugs. “Okay, you know that Anatoly wants Danny, Horace. I’m doing in Grigor. I have too, we were close for so long . . . I . . . need to feel his blood.”

  I stare at Simeon for a moment. Aside from arguing, we’ve never had a real conversation. There’s a soft knock at the door. The Bitch is ready to go. I toss my index finger to my lip to quiet my cousin. He glares at the door then moves toward the last stall in the bathroom. I go in the opposite directi
on, open the door. Danushka peeks inside, icy gaze tracking as much as she can see.

  She gasps, “The fuck happened to you?”

  “You see a messenger come through?” I think fast.

  “Dah, he better be worse than you.”

  I breathe easy. She saw him come in, but luckily for us, all the guy who served me the papers must have hightailed it out of the ally exit.

  “He knew karate,” I shrug.

  Danushka can’t understand that I have a blackbelt in various forms. Fury burns red across her throat. She opens her leather jacket to display a pearl-handled gun. “We should catch up with—”

  “Nyet.” I clutch the papers in my hands. “That bitch had me served, and she was smart enough to have someone who can fight do it. I’ll give her that.”

  “You’re getting divorced?” Her eyes transform into Azul gems. Danushka leans against me, rubbing a thumb across my jaw, then licking the blood from the padding of her thumb. “You said it, brat, I didn’t believe you. For that, I apologize. Now, we should celebrate. Girls? How many girls could we fuck?”

  My stomach slams into my throat. “Nyet. Not tonight.” The only female I want is my wife.

  Where the fuck is Horace? Once he’s found, this farce can end. Pretending to cheat on Zariah and become the whoremonger I once was isn’t too bad. Danushka isn’t satiated by a little bit. That greedy bitch always wants more.

  She wants me—for us to be kings.

  24

  Zariah

  “So, Mom, where have you been staying . . .” I tiptoe over my wording. My entire plate is full, and it’s not with the trimmings for Thanksgiving dinner. Vassili’s family and putting my father in his place have controlled much of my thoughts. I was dropping off Natasha with my mom, at her oldest friend’s home, I learned Ms. Zamora Haskins has been spending her nights out. Please don’t let it be another Mr. Overstreet, dear God, please!

  My mom tugs a computer gaming toy for toddlers from its new casing. In retrospect, I should’ve seen the signs. She’s happy.

  Happier than she’s ever been.

  Samuel too.

  “It’s Samuel…” I blurt. When he said he was dating again, the part of me that’s grown accustomed to the world falling had assumed the worst. Winner, winner, chicken dinner! Her eyes light up. I gasp, “You’re the other woman—”

  “The other woman!” Mom grips at the thick, plastic casing so hard that it tears. Wow, I’ve only been able to open packages like that with scissors.

  “No, not the other woman.” I sink down onto the old school, flowery couch in her friend’s house. “The woman. The woman he fell in love with after his wife died! The woman he’s tried to stop craving this entire time!”

  She beams. The red, hot fire beneath her light skin begins to soften into a blush. “He . . . I . . . Sammy and— we’ve . . .”

  “Momma, give me a happily ever after, pahlezzz. My life sucks.”

  She blinks, still flushed.

  “Sammy is the reason you stayed after leaving my house. Also, you’re the reason he brought soul food for breakfast the other day?”

  “Well, I told him not to go in on that particular morning,” Zamora stammers. I can pretty much read that her statement included her laying in his bed while doing so. Clearing her throat, she asks, “Zariah, can I tell the story, or are you hellbent on badgering the witness?”

  “Natasha,” I scoop my daughter up from the bouncer. “Tell your grandma that she’s not the witness, she’s the defendant.”

  “Daddy, daddy,” is all Natasha will say.

  I sink back down onto the chair.

  Lips pursed, Mom plucks out the instructions for the reading tablet Samuel bought Natasha. Mom mumbles, “Oh, so you’re not going to question Cutie Pie about why she’s mentioning Daddy? I’m the only one who has to take the stand.”

  “You’re also about to be held in contempt, Ms. Zamora.”

  She glares at me; I stop and am reminded that my mom was born in the South. I offer an award-winning smile. “Mom, I’ve always thought you and Samuel made a great couple. Throughout the years, you’d hate on any woman he was preparing to bring by for a double-date with you and Dad.”

  “Argh, you have to mention him?”

  “Please, tell me how it happened.” My thumbs rub the back of her hands softly before removing the educational toy from them. “How did you and the brilliant Samuel Billingslea make things right?”

  “Well, I’ve been in love with him since I can remember.” She stops speaking in trepidation to fidget with her fingers.

  “I know. Again, for example, I must use the hours you’d take to get dressed for double-dates that included two other persons.” I taper off my words, so she doesn’t have to hear me mention Maxwell.

  “I met him first,” she murmurs. My mom pulls Natasha up and holds her. Zamora is the only one who the little bully will let cuddle with her, without squirming away. “We crossed paths in college. I know everybody loves to say you’re stubborn and smart like your dad, but I was in my undergrad. We took a few Political Science classes together. Lower level stuff. Same study group.”

  “Did this study group include only two people?” When my mom beams bright, I chuckle. “Poor light skin people. God didn’t make you for keeping secrets.”

  “Hush yo’ mouth,” she cackles. “Well, y’all dark skin people. God made your skin so mesmerizing. I stared at that man. Every second he looked into a textbook, my eyes were glued to the darkest of chocolate. I mean Wile E. Coyote, Hungry Eyes, eyes bugged out. All of that!”

  “Hungry eyes? Okay, so you did a little dirty dancing with him, is that why you never spilled the beans?”

  She clears her throat and shakes her head no.

  “You sure, Ms. Mora,” I try to take on Samuel’s tone of voice.

  “Not in college. I did two years, Zar. The scholarship I had was not reinstated due to a cut in funding. Out of state tuition was no joke, had to take my ass back go Georgia!”

  “Momma,” I groan, having recalled that she did about two years of college in the past. Dad joked about how she pulled enough classes to obtain an Associate’s Degree. “What happened?”

  “He wrote letters.”

  “Okay?” I gasp.

  “I got a job.” She laughs. “Same rib joint we all went to after Vassili saved me from that ass of an ex of mine. Different name.”

  “And the letters,” I reply, telling myself to focus on my mom. The love story reader in me is roused. “What happened? He stopped writing?”

  “Yes. He stopped. I suppose after writing five of them without a response that I’d stop too.”

  “Have you no shame?” I say exasperated, although in an attempt to be funny.

  “Humph, so much shame that I couldn’t bring myself to respond. Six years later, I was out here visiting with my old crew. I always came every summer. This time, I did a California Roll at a stop sign.”

  “Damn, Daddy stopped you?” I groan.

  “Yup. Ruined my life. I should’ve thanked him for a ticket instead of his number. A few months in, I found out that Samuel was a public def—”

  I cackle, “Public Pretender, say it ain’t so.”

  Finally, my mom smiles with me. “Girl, he took the joke out of that title. Advocated for a lot of young, black men. Moving on up, George no Weezy…”

  “No . . .” I shake my head. “No, momma, no. You didn’t!”

  “Yup. Fast forward a couple of months. Zar, girl, you tell me you remember all the trouble I went through during our double dates after his wife died. Well, I’ll tell you. I spent a thousand hours getting ready for our first double. Maxwell said it would be special. My girlfriend wanted me to-to call it a day with your father.”

  “Dang, there would be no me or Martin.”

  “No,” she mumbles. “I invited my girlfriend on the date. Maxwell invited Samuel. The same night I introduced Sammy to my friend in Cali—God rest her soul, your pops proposed. Killed two b
irds with one stone that night.”

  My smile is more genuine than it’s been in a while. “Well, I’m so glad, Mom, that your serendipity has started over.”

  “Can you do me a favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’d like to take Natasha this weekend. Sammy hasn’t had a real day off work in ages. Sure, he travels a lot for conventions and building knowledge. We’d like to do a few enriching activities. You know he’s a Brainiac. We’re heading up to Washington. I might be able to convince him to go to an amusement park or two. There’s also a hands-on museum there, can we take Natasha?”

  “She’d love that.” Also, I consider silently, it will be the safest place for her.

  It’s a crummy Saturday evening. My husband has been served, and our little heart is boarding an airplane. Kicking off my house shoes, I move through the upstairs portion of my childhood home. Maxwell is downstairs. Almost ten of LAPD’s finest are here. I’d texted Vassili that now was the best time as ever to swing by—for us to really play our part.

  It makes more sense that, on my end, he still wants to be together. Although he doesn’t respond to my text message, this scenario will also work for my mission with Tyrese. I’ve taken down every name of the boys in blue that are in the kitchen talking with my dad. This isn’t something they can readily explain on the stand. Sure, there’s a football game on. But they’re in uniform—on the job. I’ll send the list of names to Tyrese, maybe one of them has stepped out of line, and IA has tried to call them out?

  I’m about to call Tyrese to see if he can assist with a search when there’s a knock at my bedroom door.

  “Yes?” I call out, sliding my phone into my pocket.

  Jackson peeks inside before opening the door. “I had the feeling you didn’t want to watch the game with a bunch of guys, so I brought you up a sub.”

  My father’s perfect substitute hasn’t flirted with me in the slightest. I almost glance away from him, feeling a stream of guilt for wishing harm on him and his entire team of goonies. “Thanks.”