Puck Money

by Raine Miller

  Two hours later, I’m in a very good box seat with some of the players’ wives and significant others. A pretty blonde plops down in the seat beside me, and says, “Who are you?”

  It’s not a rude question, just a curious one. She’s got a broad smile and a big chest.

  “I’m, uh, Talia Wentworth?”

  “Ohhhh,” she says, as if my name means something to her.

  “Oh?”

  She grins. “You’re the one our Boris is all tied up over.”

  “Oh, he’s not…I mean, I’m just his financial advisor.”

  “His financial advisor and the person he most wants to date,” she answers, grinning like a hyena. “We’ve spent many a therapy session talking about you. I’m Pam, by the way.”

  “You’re his…therapist?” I ask.

  “Physical therapist,” she answers.

  “Oh, okay.”

  “And how do you feel about him? Just as twisted?”

  “Pretty much,” I admit.

  “Gonna work it out in a big way tonight?”

  “I sure hope so,” I say.

  “Go big or go home. You should look up the story about how I proposed to Georg.”

  Actually, I read that story. Pamela Jensen arranged a huge pre-game show and proposed to Georg during the playoffs. It was in all the papers, even up in San Francisco. I loved that story. It made me believe in love. I tell her so and she just winks and says, “Welcome to the family. We all fraternize when we’re not supposed to around here.”

  The game starts soon after and I’m instantly into it. It’s fast and hard-hitting and the Crush play like a well-oiled machine. Evan Kazmeirowicz scores twice in the first period, just a one-two punch that looks completely effortless. There’s the big guy, Viktor, on defense and he just stops everyone like a brick wall as they come toward the goal. The other team can’t do a single thing to move the puck forward.

  There are two fights, mostly on the defensive side. Boris tries to break them both up, which doesn’t surprise me at all. He looks up at the box twice during the game and I wave both times, just to show him I’m really there. I can’t wait to see him after the game. I have so much I want to say. So much.

  I get really into the game, screaming and yelling a lot. I apologize to my suite-mates, who all tell me yelling is perfectly permissible and this is a safe space. By the third period, I know all their names and they’ve all given me guidance on how to “go big” when it comes to admitting my feelings for Boris.

  In the third period, Boris comes out like a madman and scores two goals, allowing the Crush to win their first game by a hefty four-to-nothing. The arena is a madhouse, it’s so loud. Las Vegas came out for the Crush, and their team did not disappoint. I have to say, I think I am a true Crush hockey fan after this game.

  I hang in the box for a bit, talking with the women I just met this evening but feel like I’ve known for a long time, when I get a text from Boris.

  * * *

  Boris: I forgot about a press event after game.

  Talia: Oh, no big deal.

  Boris: I suck at press so it won’t take long. Just meet me at the restaurant so we don’t lose our table.

  Talia: Are you doing talk to text?

  Boris: Yes, duh.

  Talia: LOL Okay. See you at the restaurant.

  * * *

  The restaurant is only three blocks away and it’s a gorgeous night. The streets are filled with Crush fans, off to celebrate the big win on the Strip. I step out into the night, feeling buoyant and excited and ready to see what this thing with Boris will lead to.

  Just a half block from the restaurant, though, I stop dead in my tracks, the hairs on my arms standing straight up when a man steps out of the alley in front of me. I turn to go the other direction, but someone is right behind me. A hand clamps over my mouth before I can scream, and my arms are pulled back so hard I think they may jerk from their sockets.

  I try to remember my self-defense classes from college. I stomp down hard on my captor’s foot, but he increases his grip as a result. He hisses, “Shut up, bitch,” as he pulls me into the dark alleyway. I struggle, trying desperately to get away from him, but his hand is also covering my nose and I can barely breathe. I start to hyperventilate as efforts to escape fade into the sheer terror of trying to catch my breath, trying to stay alert and awake.

  I’m dragged and then picked up as if I weigh nothing. There’s a moment of weightlessness, then I’m in the back of a van, the metal cold through my T-shirt and jeans. The doors slam and I scream. I scream and scream but as the van starts, no one comes.

  Twenty-Five

  F#CK the Game!

  Boris

  Sometimes being the boring one on the team pays dividends. Like now. I scored two goals in the game tonight but the press has already figured out that I’m not good for much more than a quick one-sentence soundbite. Tyler is off being his usual obnoxious self, garnering more attention than me, so I’m able to make quick rounds and then slip away, eager to get to Talia at the restaurant.

  I make the walk quickly, but when I arrive, Talia is not here. I start to worry maybe she changed her mind. But in my heart, I know she’d tell me if she couldn’t make it.

  Something feels not right. I know she left ahead of me and she should be here by now.

  Boris: Hey, are you hiding? I’m at the restaurant but I don’t see you.

  I wait. And wait.

  Boris: Hey, everything okay?

  And then the three dots appear. It’s a long minute before the reply comes through.

  Talia: We have her. Cancel your contract and leave your money with us or she dies – after we’ve enjoyed her thoroughly.

  Talia: Such a pretty girl.

  My blood runs cold. I put a hand over my mouth to keep from roaring in anger.

  I haven’t seen red like this since I was a teenager, dyslexic and frustrated and without an outlet. Since before I started playing hockey. Whoever is on the end of the line sends a picture of Talia, bound and gagged, her shirt ripped with a breast exposed. The image makes me think of nothing else other than murder. I will kill these people. Or make them wish they were dead.

  With shaking hands, I hit the talk-to-text button and send my reply.

  Boris: What do you want? I’ll come. I will give you what you want.

  Talia: Scorpio Street. Look for a rusted metal door. Come alone or she dies.

  I run all the way back to the apartment building, first checking Talia’s place, which is locked up tight. I head up to my apartment after that, dialing Vlad’s number. Go alone? I don’t think so. I’m not fucking going alone and I’m sure as hell not letting those guys hurt Talia.

  As soon as Vlad answers, I launch into a tirade.

  “I asked you to find a way to get me out of this contract. Now they have Talia. You said you’d help me fix this.”

  “I said these things are always more complicated than we want them to be,” Vlad answers. “Good game tonight.”

  “Good game? I just told you they have Talia and you’re telling me good game? Fuck the game and fuck you too!”

  “Whoa! I’ve never heard such language out of you, Boris,” Vlad says. “What is this little girl to you anyway? They hit a nerve taking her?”

  “Vlad, I swear to God I will ruin you for your business in hockey,” I snarl. “They have threatened to kill her. If she is harmed there will be hell to pay so you better send me the best guys you have on the ground in Vegas and send them right fucking now.”

  “Fine, fine,” Vlad says. He chuckles and I swear I would punch him if he were in front of me now. “Hope you marry this one for all the trouble she’s causing.”

  “She is just doing her job, you debil. They ordered me to come alone so I need your guys to meet me here at my place first. Now, Vlad. Tell them to come now.”

  I hang up and head to my closet, pulling a lockbox from the back of the top shelf. In it, a .45 sits, untouched since before I moved to Vegas. I was nev
er into guns much but bought one in Austin so I could learn to shoot. I learned at a range, but it’s been a while since I’ve pulled a trigger.

  I load it and put it in my jacket and then wait, pacing for the long minutes until a sharp knock sounds at my door. I swing it open wide, finding three barrel-chested men in dark suits there, each one more menacing than the next. One of them is positively gigantic. He says his name is Huell and that Heisenberg.

  Fucking perfect.

  I tell them where we’re going, and that I’m supposed to go alone.

  Huell tells me he knows the place. “There’s a way to get in unnoticed. I’ll lead my men in from there while you go in the rusty door as expected.”

  Plan set, we head out on foot. Vlad’s men split off two blocks away from the building, disappearing into the shadows as I make myself obvious, staying in the light. I get to the rusted metal door and it swings open, two big men waiting for me. They saw me coming.

  I’m patted down, my gun taken away the minute I get in the doorway. I’m led down a dark hallway, through a corridor filled with what I suppose used to be individual offices. Each of the men has a grip on my elbows. They control my movements, our pace. My heart is beating wildly, and the need to see Talia is visceral.

  When I do, it takes everything I have to stay neutral and calm.

  She’s gagged, her arms and legs tied tightly to the chair she sits on. Her shirt is torn, her breast still exposed to all who want to look. She’s got a bruise blooming on her right cheek and blood trickles from her bottom lip.

  “You’re as good as dead,” I say under my breath. “I will rip your limbs off.”

  I’m shoved to the ground, a knee in my back. One of them grabs me by the hair and kicks me in the stomach, enough to take the wind out of me. The other steps away, pulling his cock out. He shakes it at Talia, taunting her, telling her how much she’ll like having it up her ass. She winces and closes her eyes as I try to stand. Suddenly, there is a third man in the room, and two of them are holding me back as the guy with his cock out strokes himself, pushing his limp prick toward Talia’s mouth. She’s gagged, so there isn’t much he’d be able to do anyway, but the kidnappers all laugh. They say, in Russian, for him to spread her apart and take her. To teach me a lesson.

  They don’t know it yet, but they just signed their death warrants.

  At the end of this night, the world will be less a few of its degenerate scum, because these motherfuckers are going to die.

  * * *

  Talia

  * * *

  Seeing Boris rage against his captors is absolutely terrifying, and yet he fills me with hope. He came for me. I shouldn’t be surprised because he has always shown his protective side, but watching him transform into an enraged Incredible Hulk on a mission for justice is something altogether spellbinding to witness.

  As soon as the one guy whipped out his cock and started waving it in my face, Boris became supercharged. Their exchange in Russian, I didn’t understand of course, but whatever they said wound Boris up to the point he managed to break free, throwing punches left and right, as well as taking some in return. He’s not a fighter, but he is a hockey player so he’s not unskilled in defending himself. He body-checks one guy into the cement wall, smashing his head hard enough to make him wobbly. That guy falls to the floor as a second one swings at Boris, hitting him in the side of the head. Boris appears stunned for a moment but manages to stay on his feet.

  Bang! Bang!

  Gunshots ring out as two of our captors fall from direct shots to the head, blood pooling around them on the floor. There’s no way they can still be alive. I’m in shock at what I’m seeing—a gun battle right in front of me—and hearing, as people shout and scream and bleed out. Boris rushes me as the men continue to take shots at each other, taking me to the ground with him while untying the ropes binding me to the chair.

  He works quickly, telling me he’s going to get me out, shielding me from a position on the floor where we are more protected. The second I’m free from the ropes, he drags me up and out into the hallway, pocketing a lone gun left on the side counter along the way. I can’t resist kicking the guy who swung his dick at me, as hard as I can in the nuts, when we pass by him crying on the floor like a baby.

  A huge black man speaks to Boris. “Leave it to us. We’ll make sure the message is clearly relayed.”

  We don’t need to be told twice. Boris covers me with his jacket and rushes us out of the room, back through the maze of offices, and out into the warm Las Vegas night.

  We’re two blocks away when we hear the screaming of police sirens.

  Twenty-Six

  Krasotka

  Talia

  It hurts to open my eyes. I think I may just lie here with my eyes closed for the rest of my life.

  Everything hurts, feels swollen, or aches. Swallowing is an effort. I force my eyes to open, but one doesn’t want to open all the way. My right eye. An area above my right cheekbone stings with tenderness.

  It takes a great effort to sit up, and to look around, and then to realize I’m in Boris’s bed at his apartment. I don’t even remember coming here. The last thing I can remember about last night is fleeing from the nightmare of the evil dudes who kidnapped me, being taken out by some possibly less-evil dudes in a shootout, and then running down a dark street hand in hand with Boris to the sounds of screaming police sirens. I must have passed out somewhere along the way.

  My hand shifts into a warm body and I stiffen. Turning my head ever so slowly, I see Boris lying next to me, on top of the covers, shirtless, his hair askew on the pillow, his mouth parted slightly.

  I try to reach out to touch him, but it hurts. It hurts so much. When I moan involuntarily his eyes snap open immediately.

  “You okay?” he asks quietly.

  “Just hurts,” I manage, sounding very garbled.

  “Oh, krasotka.” He orders me to drink some water and then forces two huge tablets of extra-strength Ibuprofen down me that have to be swallowed one at a time. When that’s done, he helps me to lie back down into his soft bed once more. When I fall asleep a second time, it’s to him massaging my scalp and trailing his fingers through my hair, soothing me with soft touches and comforting me with sweet words.

  Whispering to me in Russian.

  I don’t know what the words mean, only how they make me feel.

  Cherished and safe and precious.

  The second time I awaken, I feel so much better it’s downright miraculous.

  Boris is still by my side in the bed, looking as anxious and intense as before though.

  “You’re awake, krasotka. How are you?” He presses a kiss to my forehead.

  “I feel a million times better than before,” I assure him.

  “Did they…hurt—“

  “No. Just smacked me around a little. Nothing major.”

  He lets out a laugh but it’s bitter, angry, and slightly terrifying.

  “They’re either dead or in police custody by now, and I’m here safe with you.”

  “Thank God,” he says before pressing another kiss to my head, against my hair this time.

  “No, thank you, Boris.” I cough, but then I groan because the coughing makes it hurt more.

  “Get some more rest, krasotka. No need to rush anything right now.”

  “Need to pee,” I say.

  “Okay,” he says, rolling away, his feet hitting the floor. He helps me to my feet, then walks me to the bathroom. I stare at him until he gets the message that I can do this small thing by myself. But instead of closing the door, he just turns his back. I don’t know if he thinks bad guys are going to crawl out of the toilet to get me or what, but he’s clearly not letting me too far out of his sight for the moment.

  His phone rings, shrill and hurting my head. He answers in Russian, speaks in Russian. When he hangs up, he says, “All accounts have been transferred. They will not be bothering us again.”

  I finish up and wash my hands, then spla
sh some water on my face and try not to look at my reflection in the mirror. It’s not pretty sight but the cool water feels refreshing and cleansing after my ordeal.

  Boris leads me back to bed.

  “Thank you.” My voice sounds scratchy. “For coming for me.”

  “Why would you thank me? I got you into this mess.”

  “You got me out of it. You came for me.”

  “But I would have gone to the ends of the earth to get you,” he whispers, his chocolaty eyes boring into me. “I’m so sorry, krasotka. So, so sorry.”

  “I had this whole big speech planned.” I swallow and wince. “But right now—“

  “Save it,” he interrupts. “There will be another time. Another day. Just rest now, krasotka.”

  Another day, indeed.

  As I start to drift away with Boris warm and protective at my side, I’m really curious to know the translation for krasotka. “What does it mean?” I ask sleepily.

  “Gorgeous beauty.”

  I’m pretty sure I’m smiling as I fall asleep.

  The next time I wake, I’m still sore, but more aware of my surroundings. I drag on my glasses from the side table and peer at my phone. While I’ve certainly lost track of time, I think I’ve been sleeping for like two whole days.

  My mouth feels as dry as a cotton ball and I have crazy bad breath. Boris is not in the bed to micromanage me, so I get up and shuffle to the bathroom, turning on the shower as I brush my teeth using my index finger and some of Boris’s toothpaste. There’s an ugly bruise on my cheek, my lip is slightly puffy, and my hands are pretty scratched up. All in all, it could be worse. Way worse.