“Get down!” the driver shouted seconds before a hail of bullets battered their SUV.
Hawk stayed down as the vehicle swerved back and forth across the highway. The men in the approaching car continued assaulting the SUV.
When there was a lull in the shooting, Hawk peered just above the back seat and fired back. His first few shots stunned the two men in the front as they started screaming at him.
“What are you doing?” the driver said. “Those men will kill us.”
“Aren’t they already trying to do that?” Hawk asked.
“They’re just trying to scare us,” the passenger said. “They’re not going to kill us, at least not yet.”
Hawk ducked down and eyed the two men cautiously. “If we get them first, we won’t have to worry about them doing anything to us later.”
“You don’t know who we’re dealing with,” the passenger said, all color gone from his cheeks. “Those men are ruthless. They won’t just stop with killing us. They’ll make our entire families vanish.”
“What’d you do to make them so upset?” Hawk asked.
The two men shrugged and shook their heads subtly.
“That bad, huh?” Hawk said before turning around and firing a few more shots.
Seconds later, another burst of bullets sprayed their SUV. This time, one of them found its mark, piercing a tire and sending the SUV careening off the road. As it left the highway, it hit something on the shoulder, launching the vehicle into the air. When it came back down, it bounced and then tipped over onto its side before skidding what felt like an eternity to Hawk.
He winced in pain, disoriented from the accident. Outside the closest window, all he could see was a wall of snow.
That was the last thing he remembered before he lost consciousness.
CHAPTER 10
Yakutsk, Russia
EDDIE TYSON SUCKED a short breath in through this teeth as he repositioned the bag of ice on his leg. It’d been three days since his last fight, but he still wasn’t fully recovered. Peter had called him earlier, begging for him to come in for a match that evening. But Tyson knew his limits, which required far more recovery time now that Father Time was getting some punches in of his own.
He pulled out his phone and scrolled through the list of world times. Miami was fourteen hours behind Yakutsk. And no matter how well he knew the difference, it always confused him.
The clock on the wall read 10:21 P.M., meaning it was 8:21 A.M. in Miami.
Sheila would be getting the kids ready for school. He missed the frenetic pace of the morning and always enjoyed watching Sheila work her magic as she rounded up all the children and had them ready to leave the house looking like rock stars. When she had left him alone with the kids for infrequent trips out of town, they were lucky to make it to school fully dressed with their books and lunches.
He groaned as he hobbled over to his laptop and used his secure server to tap into the family computer located on a desk near the breakfast nook. After he connected, the image came across clear. It was almost as if he hadn’t disappeared from their lives for the past year.
Sheila was already put together, wearing a white blouse and skirt. Her hair looked as if she’d just walked out of a salon. The only thing missing was her lipstick, which she saved for the time she’d spend sitting in Miami’s congested morning rush.
Samantha was looking far too old for her age, wearing clothes that he wouldn’t have approved of. Tyson had argued plenty of times about his teenage daughter’s attire, which was a stand Sheila obviously didn’t want to make with him gone.
Joey was busy playing a hand-held video game, complete with virtual reality goggles. That also was a pet peeve of Tyson’s. He’d told Sheila a hundred times that she shouldn’t let video games be a babysitter. And as much as it inconvenienced her to fight Joey about it and listen to him whine about how all the other mothers of tweens his age let their kids play video games, she went along with Tyson’s request. Whenever Joey claimed to be bored, Sheila sent him outside or gave him a book to read. But that too seemed to be a battle she didn’t want to fight alone.
Then there was Caleb. Their four-year-old son was sitting at the table like an angel, carefully guiding each spoonful of Cheerios into his mouth without spilling even a drop of milk.
Tyson smiled as he watched his son dutifully eat his breakfast.
“All right, gang,” Sheila said, snagging her tumbler and filling it with coffee. “Two minutes and everyone needs to be in the car. Sam, help your little brother get buckled in. Joey, take the goggles off and join us back here in reality, ok, bud?”
Nobody bucked her, much to Tyson’s surprise. Sam whisked Caleb out of his chair, tucking him beneath one arm while toting her backpack with the other. Joey nudged his goggles onto his forehead and grabbed the rest of the things. Tyson continued watching until Sheila glided across the kitchen and disappeared.
Tyson turned off the computer and sighed. The ache in his heart rivaled the pounding pain in his leg. He reminded himself that they wouldn’t even have the life they were living if he dared to return home. He’d be dead within a week—and so would the rest of his family.
But for now, Tyson had to be satisfied with being a ghost and catching glimpses of their life without him. Every time he logged off, he wondered if he should continue to torture himself. He wished he could just forget about them, but they were the reason he was here—and the reason they were all still alive.
It was just one moment, a moment he wished he could erase from his life. But what he saw, what he knew—it scared him. He realized the immediate danger he put everyone around him in with just the simple knowledge of its existence. He’d even tried to forget it, cramming it into a memory hole. But every morning when he woke up, there it was, staring him in the face.
He hobbled back to the couch and adjusted the ice pack over his knee. He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep. But the pounding on his front door startled him awake.
Bleary eyed, he tried to focus on the clock. An hour had passed since he stopped watching Sheila.
Who the hell is banging on my door at this time of night?
He peered through the peephole and growled. One by one, he released a series of deadbolt locks, all of which had come with the house. When he first moved in, Tyson ignored them. But after a few weeks, he found listening to the click of each one somewhat cathartic after returning from a day out in Yakutsk.
Tyson cracked open the door just wide enough to see a Russian general standing in front of him with a pair of aides.
“General,” Tyson said with a nod of his head, “is there something I can help you with?”
“May I come in?” the general asked.
“I’d prefer to keep this conversation brief,” Tyson said. “You woke me up and I’d rather get back to sleep.”
The general ignored Tyson’s plea, pushing past him. “Let’s sit down and talk.”
Tyson sighed and waited for all three men to enter his apartment bringing the bitter cold with them. He shut the door and followed them into the living room where they’d all made themselves comfortable.
“I’m going to get straight to the point,” the general said.
“Okay,” Tyson said. “What’s this all about?”
“We know where your family is, Mr. Tyson,” the general said.
Tyson’s eyes widened. The whole purpose of finding refuge in Russia was to avoid this type of strong arming from powerful people. Tyson now realized he was the fool for thinking the Russians wouldn’t play the same game. But he wasn’t going to acquiesce to their threats without pushing back.