Friendly Fire

Knife fights are never what they look like in the movies. They aren't a match between two men both lowered into crouches, each jabbing tentatively at the other.

In an actual confrontation, people get cut. There was no way to avoid it. A war of attrition predicated on trading shots. Calculated real-time risk assessment.

A maxim I learned many times over the years, bearing more than a few scars to prove as much. One I was all too happy to embrace again now.

For the past year, Hawk Tate lived in a perpetual state of dread over when the phone might ring. A call stemming from his actions just north of the border many months before, resulting in a marker owed to a certain government agency. An organization that will not be refused, and always comes to collect their debts.

A message from an unknown sender arrives on his work answering machine one Sunday morning. An individual with shared history needing help of a vastly different nature, and Hawk can't say no.

Not to Lake Pawlak, someone he first met when he was tasked with protecting her from an international cartel three years prior. Certainly not to Savanah Vinson, Lake's friend and neighbor, and the reason Lake comes to seek Hawk's help. Savanah, while fighting to provide for her and her young sister after the death of their parents, went missing two nights prior with nothing but a fraudulent text message to explain her sudden disappearance.

Despite a litany of concerns, Hawk agrees to return to Los Angeles with his friend, embarking on a hunt that plunges him into a world he barely knew existed. Full immersion into social media influencing and launch parties. Southern California nightlife, online message boards, and international politics.