Page 11 of Vital Signs (Wayward Sons #7)

Hunter

The thirty dollars in my pocket had cost me everything my parents crossed oceans to build.

They'd sacrificed so their son could have a chance at the American dream.

Given up everything they knew, learned a new language, worked sixteen-hour days in restaurants and factories so I could have the American dream they'd never touch.

They'd built their hopes into my bones, cell by cell, weaving in my father's Korean work ethic and my mother's Chinese determination to survive anything until I carried their sacrifices in my bloodstream.

Four years ago, I was everything they'd dreamed of. ER nurse, steady paycheck, apartment with my name on the lease.

Now I was breaking people for pocket change in the woods behind a trailer park.

What remained of their investment was forty percent withdrawal, thirty percent rage, and thirty percent regret.

The math of survival in rural Ohio winter was simple: twenty dollars got me through tomorrow, forty got me through the weekend, sixty if I wanted to eat something besides gas station coffee and whatever I could steal. Tonight's winnings so far? Thirty bucks.

The "ring" was a cleared patch of dirt behind Greg Kodski's trailer, surrounded by rusted cars and broken dreams. Christmas lights strung between the vehicles provided the only illumination, casting everything in sickly red and green.

A handful of people gathered around, most of them day laborers, unemployed factory workers, or junkies like me.

My opponent cracked his knuckles. Billy Hendricks was two hundred twenty pounds of farm muscle and generational anger. Worked construction until his back gave out. Now he survived on disability checks and whatever he could win breaking faces.

"Ready to get schooled, college boy?" Billy called out, rolling his shoulders. The crowd laughed.

College boy. They still called me that, even after four years of sleeping under bridges. Like education was something tattooed on my forehead instead of something I'd pissed away one needle at a time.

"Ready when you are, Billy."

Greg collected the money. "Same rules as always. Fight until someone can't get up or taps out. No weapons, no eye-gouging, no biting. Everything else goes."

Billy bounced on his toes, shadowboxing the cold air. His stance was all wrong, hands too low, chin exposed. Classic untrained fighter who'd watched too many movies and thought size trumped technique.

The first rule of emergency medicine had been to assess the threat before you acted. Where was the danger coming from? What was the most efficient way to neutralize it? How did you stop someone from hurting themselves or others?

The same principle applied to dismantling people.

"Fight!"

Billy charged straight at me, telegraphing a haymaker that would have been obvious to a white belt. I slipped into a perfect stance and waited. I'd trained in a dojang in Koreatown, where my father had driven me twice a week so I could "stay connected to our heritage."

Part of me wondered if he was watching. Misha, with his perfect face and expensive van. The thought shouldn't have made me fight harder, shouldn't have made me want to prove I was still capable of something beyond begging for change. But it did.

I was performing. Not for Greg, or Billy, or the crowd. For a man who wasn't even here. For brown eyes that had looked at me like I mattered.

Pathetic.

I drove a sidekick into Billy's solar plexus, the technique textbook perfect. He doubled over, wheezing, and I followed with a spinning heel kick to his liver. The organ compressed under the impact. Billy dropped as if someone had cut his power cord.

The rush hit me like a drug. The same sharp focus I'd gotten in the ER when a trauma came in and everything went crystal clear.

My heart rate spiked, my vision narrowed, and the world suddenly made perfect sense.

I used to get the same feeling during successful intubations.

There was something satisfying about threading a breathing tube down someone's throat while they were dying.

I'd known I was the difference between life and death.

Except now the rush came from watching Billy hit the dirt.

The crowd murmured in appreciation. Part of me preened under their attention.

It was the same part that had spent Monday nights watching Stone Cold Steve Austin destroy people while the audience cheered.

This was performance as much as survival.

Violence as entertainment. The same fucking thing that had made me jump off the couch as a kid when The Rock hit someone with a steel chair.

Billy came at me again, more careful this time.

I caught his clumsy punch, stepped into him, and drove my knee into his liver again.

Billy went down hard this time, retching in the dirt.

The crowd whooped like this was fucking WrestleMania instead of two desperate men destroying each other for pocket change.

And God help me, I played to them. Raised my hands like I'd just won a championship instead of degraded myself for thirty dollars. I'd seen that same theatrical flourish on TV a thousand times growing up.

"Stay down," I said quietly. "You don't want me to show you what else I know."

The worst part wasn't that I was using my medical knowledge to hurt people. The worst part was some fucked-up corner of my brain was enjoying the control, how good I was at it, the way Billy's body responded exactly the way my training said it would.

He tried to get up anyway. Stubborn bastard. I almost respected that.

I moved behind him as he rose, slipped my arm around his neck in a perfect blood choke.

Not the flashy submissions from WWE where both guys were working together to make it look good.

This was the real thing. I was cutting off blood flow to the carotid artery, the same rear naked choke my father had drilled into me at the dojang until it became muscle memory.

Billy's pulse fluttered against my forearm. His hand slapped my arm repeatedly. By the time I realized he was tapping out and released him, he was barely conscious.

The adrenaline coursed through my system like its own drug, and for a second I understood why people became addicted to violence instead of just chemicals.

The combination of complete control over another person's body, the rush of technical mastery, and the crowd's approval was almost as good as fentanyl.

Almost.

"Winner!" Greg announced to the tiny crowd. "The ex-nurse!"

I winced, but when Greg handed me thirty more dollars in crumpled bills, I shoved them into my jacket pocket without counting. Trust but verify was for people who had the luxury of principles.

"Same time Saturday?" he asked.

"Maybe." I was already walking away, my hands shaking as the adrenaline wore off. The withdrawal was starting to make my skin crawl again.

I'd made it three steps toward the tree line when I heard that voice. That fucking accent that made my name sound like something valuable instead of a warning label.

"Hunter."

I turned slowly, dread pooling in my stomach.

Misha stepped into the circle of Christmas lights, and he looked like he'd stepped out of a magazine.

Or a wet dream I'd been too ashamed to admit having.

His hair caught the colored lights, making him look ethereal and untouchable.

Everything about him screamed money and control and a life where you didn't have to degrade yourself for drug money.

And fuck, I wanted him anyway. Wanted to pull him down into the dirt with me, see if he'd still look perfect covered in my sweat and blood. Wanted those elegant hands on me, touching me like I was worth something instead of thirty dollars and a black eye.

Shame and desire twisted together in my gut until I couldn't tell which was making me sick.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" The words came out harsher than I intended. Shame made my voice ugly, but underneath was something worse. Hope. Relief. Want. The kind of want that made my skin itch worse than withdrawal ever had.

He'd found me. Tracked me down to the lowest point of my week, watched me beat a man for pocket change, and he was still here. Still looking at me like I was worth pursuing.

That shouldn't have made my cock twitch. Shouldn't have made me wonder what he'd do if I pinned him against that pristine van and found out if he was as fearless as he pretended.

But it did.

"Looking for you." He moved closer, taking in the dirt on my clothes, the split lip Billy had managed to land, the way I held my left shoulder where I'd taken an elbow. "Your phone was off."

Of course my phone was off. I'd turned it off to save battery.

"How did you find me?"

"GPS tracking." He said it as if it were obvious. Like stalking people was normal behavior. "I slipped an AirTag into your pocket at the clinic."

The words took a second to process. "You put a tracker on me."

Not a question.

"I needed to find you." No apology in his voice. No hesitation.

Part of me should have been pissed. The violation was clear, deliberate.

He'd tracked me like prey, followed me to this shithole, and now stood there looking at me like he had every right.

But the rest of me was wondering what else he'd do to get what he wanted.

What lines he'd cross. What he'd do to me if I let him.

"We need to talk," he said.

"This isn't a good time."

"When would be a good time? When you're shooting up under a bridge? When you're unconscious in an alley?" His voice stayed level, but there was steel underneath it. "We have work to do."

"Work." I laughed, the sound bitter in the cold air. "Right. How'd your family meeting go?"

His jaw tightened. "Not well."

"How badly?" I asked.

Misha's hands clenched at his sides. "They voted unanimously. Wait for proper channels. Let them investigate through legitimate means. Don't get personally involved."

"And you told them...?"