Sal had his nose in his computer for the entire length of the trip to the tropical island, and even when we checked in at the resort, my manager told me he was going to be holed up in his bungalow for a few hours so that he could call his cousin about some of the legal stuff in the document. Part of me felt a little bad that I had to crack the whip on my friend, but another part of me felt like I’d been an asshole to Zarra.

Jax and Garf’s girlfriends met us in the lobby after we had checked in at the resort. They were both models for this high-end lingerie-swimsuit company, and they had brought half a dozen of their beautiful model friends to hang out with us for the week.

“Hey, ladies!” Jax greeted them, and his girlfriend, Sonya, introduced me to the women that I didn’t know.

I tried to remember all of their names out of politeness, but my thoughts were elsewhere, and I only had enough energy to give each of the women a brief smile. They were all stupid beautiful, but I’d been around plenty of underwear models, and none of these girls interested me as much as Zarra. What was it about that strange woman? She made me feel like I was a high school kid crushing on his first girlfriend.

“Sorry we ran a bit late,” Garf said as he gave his girlfriend a kiss on the cheek. Her name was Monique, and they had first started dating after she was on the cover of the annual Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition.

“That’s okay sweetie. Sorry, I couldn’t stay with you the whole time at Disney. Had to do that quick shoot,” Monique said with a wink.

“We are going to head down to the infinity pool. You three should put on your swimsuits and join us,” Sonya said. She was Ukrainian, and her accent was a blend of stoic Russian and softer ‘H’ sounding Polish.

“Sounds good,” Jax said.

“Yep, see you all in five minutes,” my Asian friend said as he nodded toward the side of the lobby that led to our private bungalows.

My two friends and I walked out of doors and into the tropical sunlight of the resort property. We caught up to the men that were taking our luggage to our rooms, and the three men asked if they could get autographs once they brought our bags to our suites.

“I’m going to hit the gym for an hour,” I said after we had walked for a handful of minutes behind the resort porters.

“What? Dude, this is vacation time! You don’t need to work out. Besides, did you see Monique and Sonya’s friends? Daaaammmmmmn dude.” Jax scrunched his nose at me.

“Just for an hour, then I’ll meet you guys. I need to work out some aggression,” I sighed.

“Leo, is there something wrong?” Garf asked.

“No, what do you mean? I just want to lift some. I haven’t worked out in three days.”

“Yeah. It’s called a vacation. Calic isn’t even here.” Jax rolled his eyes as he talked.

“More of a reason to go lift now. I don’t want to do it later. Calic is going to fucking hurt us when we get back. You guys know this right?” I laughed. Our buff trainer didn’t like breaks, and he’d been pissed off when Sal said he couldn’t kick my ass during my vacation.

“So you aren’t being all aloof because of this new girl?” Garf asked.

“Naw. I’m cool, guys.”

“Okay,” the Asian man said as he glanced at me suspiciously. “But be quick okay? Cause I’d like to echo what my ever so eloquent friend Jax said earlier about the four hotties that our girlfriends brought. Daaammmmmmn. Pretty sure you are going to forget about this other girl and her game in the next few days.”

“Ha. Maybe.” We had made it to a courtyard area with four bungalows facing each other. The group of them were right next to the sand and about two hundred yards from the ocean.

“Everything is clear, Champ,” Dale said as he stepped out of the bungalow I guessed was mine. I saw Chip walk out of one of the other ones and nod to us from across the small grass quad area. Both of the bodyguards were on my payroll, but I asked them to watch out for Sal, Jax, and Garf when the four of us were together.

“Thanks, bud. I’m going to change into some workout clothes and then hit the gym. Do you know where it is?”

“It’s back past the main lobby building. I’ll take you there.”

“Naw. That’s okay. Take a break for a bit,” I said as I followed the porter carrying my bags into my bungalow.

“Champ. I know you are on vacation, but Chip and I are not. Let us do our job.” The big ex-SEAL frowned at me when he talked.

“Ahh fine, but you’re going to spot me okay?” I laughed.

“Looking forward to it, Champ. I’ll go let Chip know.”

“Ask him to keep an eye on Sal. I don’t need both of you to spot me,” I said as I signed the porter’s photo of me and gave him a tip.

“Got it. Don’t leave without me.” My bodyguard walked out with the porter.

I changed out of my jeans and polo shirt and into my workout shorts and shirt. Then I gave the ocean a long look before I walked out of the door of my bungalow. Dale was waiting for me, and he led me back toward the lobby on the other side of the resort.

The place was pretty empty. Sal had told me that the owners of the island had comped all of our rooms, but they were charging Sal’s “guests” an inflated rate so that the resort would be semi-private for the week. I only saw the staff and a few rich looking couples following their porters to their own bungalows.

“Jax and Garf’s girlfriends are at the infinity pool. Any idea where it is?” I asked Dale as we walked past the lobby.

“It is on the other side of this fence, Champ,” the muscular man said as he gestured with his finger. “The gym is up ahead.”

“I see it.”

“I already checked it out. You’ll be happy with it. I’m guessing they bought some stuff because they knew you were going to be here. All the iron looks new and polished.”

“Excellent,” I stepped into the gym, gave it a look over, and smiled.

The space was large, covered with black padded floor mats, and the ocean facing wall was made of glass. There was a towel cabinet, water cooler, half a dozen treadmills, a few exercise bikes, ellipticals, and one of the full body vector machines that were supposed to automatically work out every muscle in your body. The company had asked me to be their celebrity endorsement a few years ago, but I’d tried the unit and thought it sucked, so I refused their money. The room was empty of other resort guests, but a TV hung on each of the four walls, and they all played dance music set to Astafar Unlimited's in-game scenes.

“Ahh, here is the good stuff,” I said to a smiling Dale when he led me past all the bullshit machines.

In the corner of the room was a squat rack, a bench, an assortment of bars, a stack of bumper plates, a deluxe rack of dumbbells, an army of kettlebells, and a heavy hanging bag. This was my church, and it had been too many days since I’d given a confession.

“What’s the plan?” Dale asked.

“You gonna lift with me?”

“Sure thing, Champ.”

Dale was a strong fucker, and his mental game was tough, but his job didn’t involve spending four hours at the gym every day and eight hours of playing a virtual video game. I also didn’t have Calic screaming at me, and I was supposed to be on vacation, so I decided that a lighter than usual session would be appropriate.

Dale wasn’t wearing great workout gear. He carried a pistol all day, every day, and was wearing a large polo shirt to conceal its bulk. He was also wearing tighter than optimal cotton pocket shorts and those topsider boat loafer shoes. He was an ex-SEAL though, and the man didn’t have a problem doing any of my warm up floor exercises.

“Pull-ups first,” I said as I jumped up to the squat rack and grabbed the top. I did them “L-sit” style with my toes pointed, and my legs tensed out in front of me so that they were parallel to the floor. As soon as I finished my twenty, I dropped back to the ground and gestured for my bodyguard to take his turn.

“I’m actually not in the mood for a vacation. Don’t feel like I’ve been working hard these last few months,” I said to Dale. My bodyguards were good for therapy sessions. Both of them were really smart dudes who didn’t sugar coat anything.

“Eh,” he grunted as he finished his last few pull ups and then dropped to the mats. “Sal says you need a vacation. He’s a smart guy. Also, I agree with him. Ever since the championship you’ve been kind of off.”

“What do you mean?” I asked as I grabbed onto the bar and lifted my chest up.

“You haven’t been smiling as much. Or joking as much, but I can understand that all these public appearances are fucking annoying.” He laughed for a second. “Last Thanksgiving I was hanging out with the family back home. Little sister was there with her fiancé. I hadn’t met the guy yet, but he seemed nice enough. Kept bugging me about you. I don’t think people realize how much work you put in. They just think you play video games all day and have fun. Even when I broke down how many hours you train, and that you never take a day off, the kid still had stars in his eyes. These people only see your fame, and they don’t see your struggle.”

“Yeah. It is work,” I said as I dropped back to the ground.

“So you need a vacation sometimes. Even if you love what you do, it helps to take a break from it for a few weeks out of the year. You don’t ever take a break. I’ve seen plenty of burnout with the SEALs. I can recognize what you are going through.”

Dale jumped up to do his pull ups, and I thought about what he said. The door opened to the room, and I turned to see a woman walk into the gym. She was gorgeous, tall, athletic, blonde, and wearing tight yoga pants. She flashed me a quick smile, put on her headphones, and then adjusted one of the stationary bikes by sitting on it a few times and then moving the saddle. I wondered if she was one of Sonya’s model friends from the lobby that I didn't recognize. I hadn't paid much attention to them.

“What’s next?” my bodyguard said as he dropped to the ground.

“Let’s do some military presses.” I walked over to the dumbbell rack and grabbed a pair of hundred pounders.

“I’ll hit it when you finish your set,” Dale said as he glanced at the woman on the bike. She was completely ignoring us, but my bodyguard was used to groupies throwing themselves at me, and he positioned himself to intercept her if he needed.

“Okay,” I grunted as I did my presses.

A man came into the gym, and I saw Dale tense for half a second. The newcomer had gray hair, with a slightly bent back, and he smiled at us with a wrinkled face. The man walked over to the far side of the gym and then took a spot on one of the treadmills there.

“You’re up,” I grunted as I set down the dumbbells back on the rack. I was lifting about twenty pounds lighter than I normally did, and I was only doing half the usual reps. My blood was still pumping through my heart, and I was starting to feel the euphoric sensation of a great workout.

“I’m okay for a bit.” Dale’s voice wasn’t quite a whisper, but he wasn’t speaking loudly.

“Something wrong?” I asked between breaths.

“Naw. We are good.” The bodyguard smiled at me, and then nodded back at the weights. “Go hit it again.”

I grabbed the weights and did ten more presses with them over my head. I could have probably done more weight on a full-length Olympic bar, but doing the movement with dumbbells was better for my supporting shoulder muscles since they had to work to keep the weight balanced over my head. I finished the set, put them down, and actually felt as if I could do another four sets, but I didn’t want to have a hard workout before the pool.

The door to the gym opened, and one of the resort staff wheeled in a towel cart. The man had dark islander skin, and he turned his attention to the towel cabinet without looking at us.

“Leo, let’s go,” Dale whispered.

“Huh?” I asked as I grabbed the dumbbells again. “We are just getting started.”

“Yeah, but let’s get out of here. Set down the dumbbells please.”

“Why? What are you thinking?” I turned to face the space of the gym. The other three people looked completely harmless. Well, the woman looked like she was capable of easily breaking hearts.

“When was the last time you were in a room with people that didn’t immediately want your autograph?”

“Huh. Well, if you--” Sal stormed into the gym, and I stopped mid-sentence. His face was red, and it looked as if the man had been running.

“Leo! Thank Yahweh. We gotta talk right now,” he said as he walked across the gym.

“What’s up, Sal? What’s going on?” I asked as my eyes were suddenly drawn to the resort worker stocking the towels by the door.

The man pulled something out of his cart, and the world slowed around me.

It was a black pistol with a silencer attached to the barrel.

“I’ve been making some more calls about your girlfriend and her company. Listen Champ, you--”

“Get down!” Dale expected this, and he jumped in front of me as the uniformed assassin raised the pistol toward us.

“Shit!” I shouted.

There were some popping sounds; as if the towel man was going to town on bubble wrap. The dumbbells in my hand bucked back against my chest as they blocked the bullets that the assassin shot through Dale. I gasped with surprise when the weights hit me, and I felt my torso jerk backward. I was suddenly off balance and backpedaled to keep upright.

The back of Dale’s white polo shirt was covered with bloody holes, but the ex-SEAL was still standing, and he pointed his own gun at the shooter. An unsilenced gunshot rang out in the gym, and I saw the other man’s face disappear into a cloud of brains, blood, and red skull fragments.

“Are you okay?” Dale shouted as he looked back over his shoulder at me.

“I think so,” I stared down at the dumbbells clutched to my chest and saw small pockmarks on the surface of their polished bumpers. The giant hunks of iron had just accidently saved my life.

I dropped the weights and dashed to my guard’s side. Dale’s shirt was mostly red now, and his blood was dripping all over the black rubber tiles of the gym like rain.

Then I noticed Sal.

The small Jewish man was lying on his back six feet from Dale. He was on his side, and I saw that he was clutching his chest and stomach. A crimson dribble escaped from his fingers, and my friend’s face was white.

“No!” I forgot all about my guard and stepped over to Sal. “Dale, Sal is hit!”

“I know. Just gurraggh!” the ex-SEAL choked, and I turned my head back around.

The blonde woman had cut Dale’s neck wide open with a knife.

He reached up with one hand to try and stanch the wound while he dove backward toward where Sal and I were. I also saw that the old man was running toward the body of the assassin that Dale had shot, and he dove toward the gun in the dead man’s hands.

Shit. This was all sorts of bad.

Dale seemed to realize that the other man was reaching for the uniformed assassin’s gun, and he made a last shot with his own pistol. The boom echoed in the small room like a canon, and the bullet took the old man in the shoulder. The assassin spun around like a tossed football, and he crashed on top of the mostly faceless corpse of his partner.

The woman dove toward Dale and her knife plunged into the muscular man’s chest at the heart. I had no doubt in my mind that my friend was already on death’s door, but the woman’s attack sealed the deal, and his body immediately went limp.

I kicked out with my left foot and hit her in the face. She was a pro, though, and she twisted her neck at the last moment so that the attack landed mostly on her cheek. She kind of leaned back with the movement, and yanked her blade out of Dale’s dead body with an upward slash that almost cut my hamstring in half. Fortunately, I’d guessed that she would do that, and I’d yanked my leg back as soon as I struck her.

We both jumped to our feet, and I moved so that I stood between the woman and Sal. I doubted that my manager was actually her target, but I wasn’t going to let her kill my other friend. I raised my hands over my face at an angle, hunched my back a bit, and took a few deep breaths to steady my racing adrenaline.

Part of me screamed with grief. Dale was dead, and Sal was probably on his way there, but another part of me, the cold warrior that was a world champion video game player, worked at light speed to puzzle out my victory.

The situation looked grim.

They were often underrated, but knives were one of the most deadly hand weapons. They were small and easy to conceal. They made no sound when one attacked with them, and they could do an incredible amount of irreversible damage in only a few seconds. In some ways, I would have preferred to fight someone with a pistol at this close of range. Guns were only dangerous if you were standing directly in the path of the bullet, and I could easily trap a gun away from me, disarm an opponent, and then beat them to death. Knives were almost impossible to trap without getting seriously cut, and an opponent could move their arm to attack at almost any angle. Knives were fucking scary, and someone trained in a martial art that specialized in short blade work, like Filipino Silat or Kali, were top of the food chain in the martial arts world.

But that was just in the martial arts world. The real world was a whole lot more complicated and brutal. When I had hired my trainer, I had interviewed hundreds of martial artists from all over the world. Everyone wanted to work with me, and they were all world class teachers. I had started off each interview by asking the men and women to take off their shirts. They all had gleefully complied to show off their chiseled torsos, but they had failed to realize what I was looking for.

When Bantog had taken off his shirt, I knew I’d found my teacher. The man wasn’t very muscular if anything his body was old and sagging in areas, but his chest, arms, and back were covered with hundreds of scars. The older man had seen some serious shit in his life, and there was no doubting that he had applied his martial arts training to real world situations.

My prediction ended up being correct, and the man had taught me more about martial arts, defense, and killing than I had ever thought I would learn.

Now it was time to apply it outside of a video game.

The pretty blonde woman hunched over slightly, pulled her right arm with the knife close to her breast, and then she extended out her left arm a bit. It wasn’t a bullshit martial arts stance or something fake I would see in movies. My opponent knew how to handle her weapon, and the sight made me relax a little. She was still going to hurt me, but I had practiced against this stance for hundreds of hours, and I could live through the conflict if I got lucky.

There were really only three strategies when fighting with a knife against an unarmed opponent: The first was to just surprise them and kill them quickly with dozens of stabs or cuts to vital areas. She’d kind of done that already to Dale, so that left her with options two and three. If she had been a man and weighed roughly the same as me, she would have just tackled me football player style. It wasn’t elegant, but it was very effective, and how most knife fights in prison went down. It would be too hard for me to fend off her grapple and the knife stabs at the same time. I’d die, and all the martial arts training or real life experience in the world wouldn’t help save me.

The supermodel assassin hadn’t decided to tackle me because I outweighed her by a hundred pounds. She was smart, and she knew she had time on her side. She was choosing to kind of duel me while standing. It meant that I’d be able to bring more of my training into play, and I guessed that the trio had planned for me to be killed by the gunman. The woman and the other man were probably just there to help dispose of the bodies or assist if something went wrong with the initial attempt.

She jerked her right arm forward a bit, but I saw through her feint, and didn’t bother to move my arm to block. Her left arm punched toward me, and I knocked it out of the way with my right palm while I kept my eyes on her knife shoulder. She stepped toward me with a quick thrust, and I twisted my stomach away while I slapped down with my left hand. I caught the top of her forearm with my slap, and the blade went wide of my body. She tried to slash it upward as soon as I hit her, but I’d moved my palm back up and then I smacked the outside of her wrist again to push her right hand across her body. For half of a split of a second, I thought I was about to trap her hand, but she danced a few steps away from me, and I didn’t want to risk reaching for her blade.

The woman hunched over slightly again and took up her fighting position. I was actually standing in almost exactly the same stance, but I didn’t have a knife tucked close to my right torso. Her blue eyes were cold and calculating. They were the eyes of someone who had done this before. They were the eyes of someone that knew she had all the leverage and plenty of time to carve me to pieces.

She made a slow reach for my left arm, and I smacked her hand away quickly. If she grabbed onto my wrist, bicep, or shoulder, she’d instantly start stabbing with her blade, and I’d be dead in less than four seconds. What I really needed to do was get her to extend her knife past her body line so that I could try and trap the weapon. It was probably going to be next to impossible. In the movies, the ‘bad guys’ always stood with the blade outstretched and ready for the hero to knock it free. Real knife fighters kept the blade chambered against their bodies, like this woman did, and would only bring it out to stab when she’d opened my defenses with her left-hand attacks.

“Not going to work, bitch,” I growled at her when she made a third grab attack that I knocked away. I figured that I might be able to get her mad or something, and then she’d let emotions get in the way and slip up, but she didn’t acknowledge my words.

Her blue eyes did glance to her left slightly.

I feinted to look to the side, and the woman moved to snatch my arm again. I had guessed that she was trying to distract me with her eye motion, and I almost smiled when she fell into my trap. As soon as her fingers dug into my forearm, she jerked her right arm forward. I twisted my body to the side with an explosive movement and then punched out my right arm. I felt her blade cut across the side of my stomach, but I’d managed to flip my arm upside down across her throat so that my palm faced the roof of the gym. My bicep cranked around her thin neck like a snake, and I grabbed onto the front of my shirt to keep the choke hold locked.

She moved to stab my arm with her knife, but I twisted her neck down, and her stomach bowed out. If the pretty assassin had kept her left hand on my arm she might have been able to keep me tied up, but she had let it go to try and pry away my modified guillotine choke, and it meant that I could reach my left hand over to grab onto her knife wrist.

Now she was fucked.

The woman was surprisingly strong, but I had her bent back so that she couldn’t get any power from her legs. My left hand grabbed over her hand, and I started to pull the blade away from my right arm.

“Muuurrgh!” she gasped through my choke, and she tried to kick out her legs so that we’d tumble to the ground. The movement backfired, though. I was strong enough to bear her weight with my single arm, and her movement just increased the pressure on her own neck.

The woman’s arm struggled against my grip, and I pulled the dagger toward her chest. My rage and hate seemed to add incredible strength to my arm, and I felt the tip of the blade penetrate the front of her tight lycra workout shirt.

“Muuuuummm!” I guessed she was trying to scream “no,” and I stopped myself from pushing the tip of her knife into her chest. I wanted to kill her, but then the cops wouldn’t be able to interrogate her and find out who she was working for. The other assassin was dead, and the third was--

I glanced over at the second male assassin and saw that he had crawled to the silenced pistol. I had been so focused on protecting myself from the knife-wielding woman that I had forgotten that the third assassin might have lived through Dale’s last attempt to defend me.

I lifted up on the woman’s neck and kind of pushed, kind of carried her the forty feet across the gym. She let out another choked screech, but the man’s hands wrapped around the grip of the pistol and time slowed down again. I was sprinting as hard as I could, and I slammed the woman’s back on top of the man before he could point the gun at me.

Her hand let go of the knife, and I pulled it from her limp fingers. The man was underneath her, and both of their limbs were tangled together like an octopus. He twisted to point the gun at me, and I twisted to find a spot where I could stab him. I was suddenly staring at the business end of the silencer, and I ducked my head out of the way half a second before I heard the weapon make a popping noise.

My right hand grabbed his gun wrist through the woman’s legs. I managed to do a rowing like move and yank the man away from her. We fell onto the open tile away from the bloody corpse of the first assassin and I wrapped my legs around him in guard position.

Then I brought my newly acquired knife into play. I stabbed at the man’s head, neck, face, and shoulders until I’d lost count of my attacks. Blood was all over my shirt, arm, and face. It was obvious that the man was dead, but I gave him one last stab through the skull before I kicked him off of me.

I rose to my feet with a growl of anger and stalked to the woman. Hundreds of different flavors of rage spiraled through my head, and I readied the knife with a dark hope that she would give me a reason to act upon my emotions. I half expected her to beg for her own life, or to try and fight me again, but the woman didn't move when I grabbed her shoulder.

"Fucking shit!" I roared.

I didn't know if I'd accidently snapped her neck when I fell with her onto the other assassin, but there was no mistaking that her blue eyes were dead. I reached my trembling and blood-soaked fingers to her neck. Yep, no pulse. Fucking shit fuck damn it.

Then I noticed the tattoo on the side of her neck.

It was small, maybe the size of my thumbnail. It looked like a five-pointed star, only the corners were rounded. Inside of the shape was another five-pointed shape colored in with light tattoo ink, inside of this design was a third tiny five-pointed shape that was darkly colored with the ink. The tattoo wasn’t familiar to me, and I thought it looked like a flower.

I moved back to the man I'd stabbed in the face, and I checked to see if he had the same marking on his neck. Unfortunately, I had really done a number on his upper body with the knife, and the dead man was covered with wet blood. It would take me precious minutes to wipe him clean and look for the marking.

Sal didn't have minutes, and I kneeled on the floor next to him.

"Hey, buddy. It's okay. It's okay," Sal's chest and stomach were bleeding profusely, and his face was whiter than a cotton sheet.

"Leeee-oooh," he whispered through chattering teeth, and I grabbed his bloody hand.

"It's going to be okay buddy," I lied as I blinked away tears. No. It wasn’t going to be okay. The hole in his chest was right next to his heart. I looked around the gym and wondered why no one was here yet. Hadn't they heard the gunshots?

Were there other assassins? Did they send people after Jax and Garf? I gulped down a mouthful of terror and wondered if the entire resort had been invaded. Sal had told me that there would be a bunch of political bigwigs from around the world here this weekend. Was this some sort of giant organized terrorist attack?

"I'm going to check the door. It's going to be okay, Sal. Just stay awake. Okay?" The small man blinked at me, and I let go of his trembling hand.

I crawled across the bloody tile to the door of the gym. I stayed low and then cracked open the door. There were a few people walking outside in their tropical leisure outfits. They didn't seem to even know what had happened in here, and I guessed that the gym might have been sound proofed.

"Hey! Get help! There has been a murder!" I yelled at the group as I pushed the door open all the way. The resort guests stared at me with dumbfounded shock, and I realized I must have looked like a walking horror movie. I was covered in blood, but most of it wasn't actually mine.

"Get fucking help! Hurry!" I yelled at them again before I went back to my friend's side.

But Sal Gordon was dead.