A weight presses down on her from above, and she can hear a man further away ask something in Russian.

"Alright, where're the car keys?"

"Violetta!" Hailey screams. She spits out some blood and groans, then shouts curses back at them in Russian. "Get the fuck away from my wife, you cocksuckers!"

She struggles to pull herself onto her hands and knees, crawling toward Violetta, vision swimming, head spinning.

A boot suddenly meets the side of her head, and she sees stars.

"Shut the fuck up, bitch!"

A familiar man sidles into Hailey's view, and drives his foot into her stomach, laughing.

"Bet you wish you'd taken the money, huh bitch?"

He calls over to one of the other men,

"Hey, fuck her up, huh?"

One of the other men picks up a metal bat, and Hailey can only scream in horror as he delightedly swings it into her wife's head.

Hailey coughs and wheezes from the kick, slumping against the ground, barely able to move.

"Prick," she croaks out, barely audible. "Dn't tch 'er."

The man looks down at her, disgust plain on his face, and—

"Hey! Found the keys!"

One of the men jogs into view and tosses the keys to his friend.

How dare those bastards touch Maya's keys. They don't deserve to polish her rims, let alone touch her keys. 

The man chuckles, and picks Hailey up by her hair.

"Guess that makes this goodbye, huh?"

Hailey just glares at him, burning his face into her memory, memorizing every detail of this night.

This prick and his friends will pay for hurting Violetta and stealing Maya. 

She spits in his face.

He glares down at her for a moment, then—grinning—he drives his fist into her face, and with it, the last of her waining conscious from her mind.

"Say goodnight, bitch."

An indeterminate time later, maybe a few minutes, maybe an hour, Hailey comes to.

She looks around in horror, and crawls to Violetta.

Violetta's breathing, but she sure ain't moving, and that's a lot of blood on her head.

"Violetta, baby, please. I need you, love. I can't lose you. I can't."

She struggles over to a counter and drags a phone down, calling 911, cradling her wife, breath coming in ragged, desperate gasps.

Hours later, Violetta is mostly stabilized, but still unconscious.

They don't know if she'll wake.

She's scheduled for more scans.

Hailey... can't sit still any longer.

She's not doing Violetta any good like this, nor Maya.

She walks out of the hospital, and catches a bus going to the city.

Just over an hour and a transfer later, she's walking up to a garage, ignoring the mechanics, and heading straight for the owner.

The owner is a short, older man with graying hair, holding a drink and staring down into it.

As she walks up to him, he looks up apprehensively.

She gives him a level gaze. She even manages not to growl.

"She here?"

He pauses for a moment before speaking.

"…She was."

A single eyebrow arches in an unspoken question.

He sighs.

"She was, and now she isn't."

"I…"

"…Look, I kicked them out, but… it was Tarasov's kid. Iosef."

He looks down into his drink.

"I roughed him up some, but that's the most I could do. Probably got her plates changed someplace else."