Prologue
Moscow, Russia
9 Years Ago
Yanna
I need sleep because my body has to recover, but there’s no finding a painless position to fall asleep in when your ribs are bruised and your shoulder was almost dislocated a couple of hours ago. Some of my ribs might actually be cracked. I wouldn’t let my coach Dima take me to the hospital to have it checked, because if they are, I won’t be allowed to fight in two days, and I need this win. This is the fight that will start my career. Even if my ribs are cracked, I’ll still fight and I’ll still win.
Fuck Ksenia for fighting me like we were doing it for real during practice today. I spent the last three days training from morning ‘til nightfall. I could hardly stand up straight once we got into the cage, but that didn’t stop her from giving all she had. Wasn’t enough though, I still beat her.
She’s jealous because she’ll never be as good as me. She missed her shot years ago and will never get another chance because she’s too old now. I won’t miss my shot. I will be the champion. A couple of bruised ribs won’t keep me from winning this fight and broken ribs won’t stop me either. And I’ll get her back too for throwing this log under my feet now, right on the brink of my big break.
It’s after midnight, but the light it still on in Dima’s little office across the courtyard from this damp, cold room that’s been my home for the last two years, while he trained me to become a champion. I bet Dima is sitting in there just as sleepless as me, trying to figure out how to stop me from fighting this weekend. His face was dark purple and that vein in his forehead was pulsing like crazy by the time he finally gave up trying to convince me to sit this one out. Nothing will convince me to sit this one out. It’s too important.
Girl MMA fighters are a novelty. A freak show, if you ask some people. Well…most people actually. Especially here in Russia. In America and England it’s a different story. Winning this championship will open the door for me to those places. But in Russia, there most likely won’t be another championship like the one I’m competing in now for a good long while. The one I’m winning. So this is my one chance. There’s no room to fuck this up.
The huge metal door that leads into the courtyard screeches open. My bedroom is right above it, so I hear it clearly and there’s no good reason for it to be opening at this hour. Or at any hour. We never open that gate, because we only use the courtyard for outdoor practice and nothing else.
I ignore the pain in my ribs as I leave the bed to go to the window.
A group of men in suits and ties are walking across the courtyard, smoking and talking loud like it’s the middle of the day. Men whose voices I don’t recognize. Men who shouldn’t be here.
“Why have you come?” Dima demands loudly. He’s standing in the doorway that leads into his office, silhouetted by the bright light behind him so I can’t see his face. But I can picture the scowl on it clearly anyway, I’ve seen it often enough when he uses that same annoyed tone of voice with me.
“We’ve come for your answer,” one of the men says, flicking his cigarette and sending it flying in an arc of orange sparkles into the dark.
“My answer is still the same,” Dima spits out. “It’s no, and always will be no.”
The man laughs harshly. “A stupid choice.”
And before Dima can say anything else, the man is standing right beside him, the large knife in his hand reflecting the bright yellow light spilling out from the office.
“I told you before. I will not waste time convincing you,” the man says. “I’ll just replace you with someone who’ll do what I want him to do.”
Dima gasps as the man stabs him in the stomach. Once, twice, three times before Dima finally goes down. He’s the strongest man I know, and the bravest. How can this be happening?
I almost screamed out when I saw the knife and only pressing my fist against my lips prevented it. I’m still doing it now, pressing so hard my teeth are splitting my lips from the inside. I need to stay quiet and I need to stay hidden. The men haven’t seen me. Maybe they don’t know I’m here. This is a run-down, old building and looking at it from the outside, no one would think anyone lives here. Hopefully they don’t know I do, because I have nowhere else to go.
My ribs exploded in renewed pain as I threw myself on the ground as soon as I saw the man stab Dima the first time, and they’re aching worse than before now, but I don’t actually feel the pain, I just know I’m in pain. I don’t feel my heart beating either and no air is entering my lungs. I feel nothing, except a paralyzing panic that’s making my whole body as hard as stone.
“Leave him there,” the man who stabbed Dima instructs. I can hear him clearly because the windows of my room are so damn thin and because I will never forget the sound of this man’s voice. It’s forever burned into my brain now as the sound of danger and complete destruction. “Make it look like a robbery.”
“You’ll rot in hell for this,” Dima says hoarsely and I hear that clearly too.
I crawl back to the window and peer at the scene below again. The other men are ransacking Dima’s office while the one who stabbed him looks on. Dima’s sitting on the ground, leaning against the doorframe, blood gushing from under his hands as he clutches his stomach.
“But you’ll get there before us,” the man who stabbed him says and laughs. “And the ladies will get a new trainer tomorrow.”
My heart starts racing again, sending blood whooshing through my body and making my ears ring. The light from inside the office is illuminating the killer’s face and making it visible. He’s young, just a few years older than me at most, and I’ve seen him before. He’s come to watch me train more than once these last couple of months, and I didn’t like his eyes on me. I made it a point to always avoid him. His name is Yuri Kazarov and he’s the youngest son of the powerful Papa Kazarov, the man who runs Moscow.
His men are still breaking things in Dima’s office, and inside the gym too by the sound of it, and seconds tick by as slowly as years. But finally, the clicking of their leather shoes against the cobble stones of the courtyard once again fade to complete, eerie, nighttime silence. Dima is still glaring after them as I stand up and run downstairs.
His eyes are glassy by the time I reach him, but a fire is still burning bright behind the glass. The fire that convinced me I could be a champion. The fire that wouldn’t let me quit. But the man who saved my life two years ago, the man who gave me a dream and made it come true, is dying right before me.
“You have to leave! Run away, Maryanna,” he says hoarsely. “Leave now. Leave the city. Leave the country. You won’t be safe here ever again,” he adds amid taking long, labored, rattling breaths.
“I’m calling an ambulance,” I say and stand up, but he pulls me back down, my arm slipping from his grasp because his hand is covered in blood.
He yanks the amulet he never takes off from around his neck and holds it out to me with a shaking hand. “The key to the safe. Take all that’s inside and run. Leave Russia. Yuri wants to control the fights. He wants to control you. You’ll never have a future as a fighter in Moscow. I was wrong to make you believe that you could.”
“I’m getting you help,” I repeat, my heart racing, my head spinning and the ground very shaky beneath my feet.
“I’m already dead,” he says.
But I barely hear it, because the ringtone of the phone is deafening as I wait to get connected.
“43 Revolution Road. Send an ambulance now,” I tell the woman as soon as she picks up. “A man has been stabbed.”
She asks me questions, but I can’t answer. All I can do is urge her to send help fast.
But when I finally hang up the phone, Dima isn’t breathing anymore. His eyes are open, but they don’t see. I know, because I’ve seen dead eyes once before. He’s still clutching the amulet with the key I wouldn’t take.
Dima took me in when I was fifteen and living alone on the streets of Moscow, because I couldn’t spend another night in that horrible orphanage. He saved me from the winter I wouldn’t survive otherwise. He took in an orphan no one would miss and gave me a family again. He gave me a life. And I wasn’t there to hold his hand as he left this world.
The least I can do is honor his last wish, he deserves that much from me. I will leave the country, and I will be the champion he trained me to be.
