Chapter 5
“Morning, boss,” Ruger says in greeting and hands him a cup of steaming coffee.
Grateful, Alexi takes the cup and savors his first sip.
Phoenix pulls an elastic hair tie out of her mouth and secures her long red hair in a ponytail. “You know how much I hate early mornings, boss,” she complains.
He smirks at her. “Get used to it.”
As a unit, they all turn down the path leading to the training grounds. Their breaths puff into vapor around them in the crisp morning air.
As they walk, Alexi says, “I want you all running this training with the same standards as the special operations forces. That means twenty hours of training a day. I want to see how the men cope with extreme sleep deprivation and exhaustion. I don’t care if you have to divide the day into shifts for yourselves.
But for the men, training starts at six o’clock every morning. ”
When they arrive at the training grounds, Alexi is pleased to see a handful of men already warming up.
“Thank you for joining me, gentlemen,” he says to them. “Congratulations. You’re the only ones who arrived on time.”
One of the men looks down at his watch as if to confirm that they’re nearly half an hour early. He looks back up at Alexi and smiles.
Alexi doesn’t smile back. “We’re going to do cycles of 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, and 100 burpees.”
He drops into a plank position, then effortlessly lowers until his chest is nearly touching the ground and pushes back up. “One,” he counts.
The other men quickly follow his lead and join him in doing push-ups.
For the next half hour, men continue to arrive.
When they see that Alexi and the others are already working out, they hurry to join.
By six o’clock, many of the men are already red-faced and puffing.
Alexi continues to repeat the cycle of exercises, never breaking a sweat.
Any men who show up after six are turned away by his team.
They know him well and understand that, in addition to disrespect, he also doesn’t tolerate tardiness.
Doggedly, Alexi continues with the calisthenics.
It’s been well over a decade since his own training with the Russian SSO, but he and his team maintain a high standard of physical and mental fitness.
Because it’s the first day of the training program, he knows how important it is to show the men that he’s capable of doing everything he asks of them.
For him to earn their unwavering loyalty, he must first show them that he is worthy of it.
And part of that is them knowing, without a doubt, that he could kick their ass.
As he and the men continue working out, his team strolls around the training grounds. Taking their roles as instructors seriously, they inspect the men’s form, give critiques, and taunt those who seem to be struggling.
“You can quit anytime, ladies,” Phoenix goads from one side of the training grounds.
“Give up now, you sissy.” Ruger badgers one man. “Why are you even here? You’re clearly not cut out to be on the team. It hasn’t even been an hour, and you’re ready to drop. We’re going to wipe the floor with you.”
The man drops to his knees.
“I didn’t say you could stop!” Ruger yells at him, getting in his face.
“I’m just catching my breath, sir,” the man whines.
“I don’t care. If you stop, you’re done. Unless you’re puking or dying, you don’t get to stop until your pakhan does.”
The man looks over at where Alexi continues to effortlessly rotate through the moves.
Ruger points at the path leading back to the bunkhouse. “Either keep going or leave.”
“Screw this shit.” The man lurches to his feet and trudges off, throwing dirty looks at Ruger as he leaves.
“Good news, ladies!” Bill calls out from across the training grounds. “We’ve just figured out who is at the bottom of the totem pole. Does anyone else want to join him?”
Two men toward the back of the training grounds stop exercising. Both men are breathing hard and purple-faced. They’re large and brutish. It’s clear they’ve relied on their sheer mass to win fights in the past and aren’t physically fit.
Alexi sees the dark look they shoot his way before walking off.
They were both employed by his father before he took over.
They’ve sworn allegiance to him, but it’s becoming obvious that they prefer Boris’s lazy, sadistic methods for promoting soldiers.
They were probably rewarded in the past for how brutally they killed, rather than for how effectively they did their jobs.
He makes a mental note to keep an eye on them. He doesn’t imagine they’ll be happy with the grunt work they’ll be assigned now. They may have to be permanently removed from the ranks.
For nearly an hour, Alexi keeps up a rapid cadence of push-ups, sit-ups, and burpees.
More and more men fall behind or leave. A few are clearly close to exhaustion but refuse to give up.
Alexi makes note of those men as well. He wants to see that kind of tenacity.
You can teach someone physical fitness, but you can’t teach them grit.
Ready to move on with the training, Alexi hops to his feet. Raising his voice to be heard above the huffing and panting of the men around him, he says, “Those of you who got here before I did this morning can stop. Everyone else must keep going for another ten minutes.”
Several of the men flop to their backs or drop to their knees, gratefully sucking in lungfuls of air. From the others, he hears groans and cursing. Two more men drop out and wander away.
Alexi marks the time on his watch. After ten minutes, he calls a halt to the exercise. Quickly, he and his team move among the men, arranging them into pairs. He doesn’t give them time to cool down or recover because he wants to see how they perform when exhausted.
“You’re going to fight the man in front of you until I say stop. If you tap out, you’re done. No groin shots or eye gouges. Everything else is fair game. Begin.”
The men look around themselves in confusion. After a few seconds of hesitation, two men square off against each other. As those two start fighting, the rest of the pairs begin.
A few of the fights are done quickly when men are knocked out by a more skilled opponent.
When that happens, a member of Alexi’s team steps into place to spar with the winner.
All the men are exhausted, but Alexi knows it’s important to see how well they fight when they’re ready to drop.
Will they keep going? Or will they break?
Strategically, Alexi waits until one man in particular wins his fight. He’s the man who best kept up with him during the exercises. He was also one of the men who arrived before Alexi. It’s clear that he’s a skilled fighter, very strong, and determined. Alexi wants to find out just how determined.
When Alexi steps forward, the man grins at him and waves him on. Cocky. With precise, practiced moves, Alexi has him on the ground in just a few minutes, effectively wiping the smile from the man’s face.
When the man attempts to rise, Alexi delivers a brutal punch to his midsection.
The man doubles over and staggers to a knee, but he reaches out and yanks Alexi’s leg.
As Alexi stumbles, the man tries to land a punch, but he’s too slow.
Alexi slaps him hard across the face, the hit both painful and demoralizing.
The man’s head whips backward, and he falls to the ground.
Alexi steps back to give him a few seconds to recover.
The man groans and shakes his head like a dog, then pushes himself back to standing.
He’s unsteady on his feet, and one eye is starting to swell shut.
He’s no longer smiling, but there’s a determined look in his eyes.
He knows he’s losing. He knows he can’t beat Alexi, but he’s not willing to tap out.
This time, Alexi smiles and waves him on.
By this point, the rest of the fighting around them has stopped. Alexi’s team and the rest of the men crowd around to watch. Many of the men are sporting bloody noses or split lips, and all of them are still breathing hard. A few are grinning maniacally.
Moving cautiously, the man in front of Alexi puts his guard up and advances toward him. The man throws a punch, but his movements are slow, and it’s easy to dodge. Alexi swipes out with his foot and kicks the man’s legs out from under him.
The man crumples to the ground, then struggles to pick himself back up. Again, he faces off with Alexi. And again, Alexi beats him down. Three more times, the man gets back up, slower and slower each time, until Alexi finally takes pity on him and delivers a knockout punch.
The man’s eyes roll back, and he collapses into a heap on the ground.
Alexi turns to face the twenty or so men who are still standing. “Welcome to training,” he says.
—
Ulayna hovers on the edge of the training grounds, making sure to stay hidden.
Determined to start her own training, she’d woken up early to follow Hawk this morning.
She’d hoped that if she followed him when he wasn’t expecting it, she’d be able to sneak up on him.
Instead, she’d gotten distracted by the sight of the men fighting.
After working out for so long, many of the men were sloppy and slow. They were barely able to stay on their feet, let alone focus on proper form and technique. After receiving just one lesson, even she can see that.
But not Alexi. He’d been magnificent. He’d done the same workout as all the other men, yet he looked completely unfazed when he turned to face his opponent. His moves had been brutally efficient. He’d made it look easy.
Ulayna had found the sight incredibly alluring. She’d been unable to look away. And because of that, she’d lost track of Hawk.
She peeks around the tree she’s hiding behind in hopes of spotting him. Unfortunately, he’s nowhere to be found.