Giving them a chance to get close to the line, let alone cross it, is the personification of foolishness.
My zero-tolerance policy might paint me as cold-blooded and heartless, but that’s better than being labeled soft.
I’ve seen what that does to people. How caring too much can tear someone open from the inside out. I had no control over it back then—couldn’t stop it or prevent it from happening.
But I’m older now, wiser, harder, and I vowed to never let a variation of those circumstances repeat.
Ever.
The fact that I’m standing in a pool of blood—mine and someone else’s—is a manifestation of the person I’ve become to get to this stage in my life.
The guy in my grip is barely breathing, his eyes are swollen shut and his face is covered with mucus and blood from how much I’ve punched him. This fucker thought he could ambush me on my afternoon ride. He also hit me with a barb-wired baseball bat, knocking me off my Ducati Panigale, but that was the extent of it.
I grab him by the collar and shake him a few times, breathing in the stench of his bodily fluids. Under dusk’s light, he appears monstrous with his face all bloodied and unrecognizable.
“Oy! Look who I found!” Nikolai reemerges from between the trees, dragging a struggling blond guy behind him like a sack of potatoes.
The blond has some muscles on him and he claws and kicks to escape, but he might as well be an ant wrestling an elephant. Not only does he barely land any punches, but the ones he does are completely ignored by Niko.
Our evening bike ride was interrupted by these two. The one he’s currently dragging escaped earlier, but Nikolai is no different from a hunting dog. He can smell anyone, then track them down and trap them.
My friend all but sits on the guy’s back and when he struggles, Nikolai punches him in the face, causing his head to bump against the ground.
He’s shirtless, again. Like me, he was wearing a leather jacket when we went out on the ride, but he threw it down somewhere. The guy is allergic to clothes—it’s a miracle he at least has pants on. It’s also his way of displaying the extravagant tattoos that cover his chest and arms.
Some of his long black hair escapes its binding and flies in the air as he taps his pocket, punches the guy he’s using as a chair again, and retrieves a smoke. He strokes the surface twice as if petting it, then shoves the cigarette between his lips and lights it.
“How’s it going with that cockroach?” He jerks his chin at the beaten-up guy in my hold.
With his face, lips, and eyes swollen, baseball cap and shirt bloodied, all the noise he can release is muffled groans.
I shake him again by my grip on his collar. “Last chance before I bury you where no one will find you.”
He mumbles something and I lean closer to hear him better.
“Fuck…you…”
“I see.” I swing the bat he hit me with earlier and drive it straight into the side of his head.
He falls to the ground, motionless, his body sprawled out at an awkward angle.
“Hey, kid.” Nikolai, who was watching the whole scene with unabashed excitement, flicks the ashes of his cig on the other guy’s bleeding face. “Do you know what your friend did wrong? No? Let me try and simplify it for you. One does not refuse a chance Jer offers. See, he doesn’t do that a lot, so when he says it’s your last, he actually means it. I say, you should do better or your fate will be worse.”
I swing the bat that’s soaked with blood on my shoulder and stare down at the guy.
He’s younger. Probably just started at TKU or maybe he’s a sophomore. Either way, he’s new blood, which makes him scared, unsure.
Usable.
His lips purse, probably unconsciously, and his face is red, due to being crushed by Nikolai’s weight.
“I know you’re Serpents,” I say. “What I don’t know is why you think you can take us out. So how about you clarify that for me and I’ll consider letting you live to see another day.”
“We…” he strains with a hint of a Russian accent. Nikolai is completely oblivious to the struggle since he continues smoking leisurely. “We wouldn’t…know until we try.”
“My, my. What do you know?” Nikolai grins. “Serpents have a suicide squad who are out to get us with guerrilla tactics?”
“Is it worth it when we’ll catch you and kill you?” I say matter-of-factly.
“I say, you guys are not on our level, especially kids like you who haven’t had proper training.”