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At first, his punches are so quick and random that it’s hard to discern any kind of pattern. But even a loose cannon like Darragh can’t make his movements random and unpredictable forever. A rhythm emerges, a method to his madness, and, strangely, it almost reminds me of the notes of music. Each pumping blow a bright, discordant note that jabs its way into a song I feel like I might actually be able to get a hold of. And predict.
I probably have my Songbird to thank for that. Never gave two shits about music before her. And here I am, turning Darragh’s lunging punches into notes so that I can get my head around them. Maybe some of her university lectures have rubbed off on me. Is there a class on turning the physical pain of somebody punching your ribs and your arms into a soundtrack in your head? There should be. Hell, maybe I could teach it. Step one: let some nutcase use you as a punching bag. Step two: do it long enough that the pain turns into art.
And art that you can analyze, not just gawk at like a dumbass. With every moment that passes, I get a better and better sense of Darragh’s movements, his patterns, the raging rhythm building in my brain.
So when that rhythm stumbles, when it slows, I know the millisecond it happens.
Maybe it’s cliché, but time gets real fucking slow in that instant. The only thing that’s fast is my fist, slicing like a shark through water, jabbing straight forward until it connects hard with Darragh’s face.
Even with how fast I move, Darragh still manages to bounce to the side slightly, almost avoiding my blow.
But nobody, not even Darragh, is good enough to avoid my fist when it comes down. I may not hit his nose like I’d been aiming for, but my knuckles slam hard against the soft tissue of his mouth, driving his lips and cheek so hard against his teeth I think I might have knocked at least one of them loose.
Darragh stops bouncing and blocking instantly, going utterly still, which is kind of impressive considering the momentum he must have built up. He stares at me with those odd eyes of his, chest heaving but not making a sound. Then, he opens his mouth and spits right there on the mat between us. A big old mouthful of blood and at least one tooth splatter at his feet.
There’s no cheering, no laughing, no chatter. The entire room holds its breath. I can practically feel the tension radiating off of Enzo behind me. He, like all of Darragh’s guys, is no doubt wondering if I’m about to get knifed in the belly for having the audacity to beat Darragh at his own game and on his own turf.
Darragh doesn’t bother wiping his mouth and chin, and blood streams steadily from a very busted lip and some injury inside his mouth that I can’t see. Between that and the electric, crazed fucking look he gives me, he looks more like some feral vampire than a man. Like he just ripped somebody’s heart out with his teeth and he’s mad that I just stole it from him.
“Fair and square,” I tell him when he doesn’t say anything to acknowledge my win. My voice is raspy. I’m breathing a lot harder than I realized. Even just blocking his punches was an insane amount of work. He’s not only fast as fuck, but he’s strong, too. Pain is starting to cut through the fray of adrenaline. Aching in my wrists, and a deep pounding in my side that tells me I might be pissing blood tonight.
“I won. You’ll leave Deirdre alone now. That was the deal,” I remind him. I reach backwards and get my gloves back from one of my guys without taking my eyes off Darragh. I assumed he’d honour a deal he made, but now I’m not so sure.
Maybe Enzo was right to be worried. Because Darragh looks so intense. Not even specifically angry, just… I don’t even know if there’s a name for the emotion pouring off of him like poison. It’s like anything and everything going on in that head of his is turned up to eleven, every feeling and thought so loud, so explosive, it turns into a big, screaming soup of a mess that’s impossible to define as any one single thing.
“Fucking say it, Darragh,” I command him as I tug my gloves back into place. “Fucking tell me we have a deal. Or tell me we’re about to start a fucking war.”
Darragh blinks, and the mute, hostile, writhing thing inside him appears to go completely blank. His expression relaxes, and he finally wipes at his face, smearing blood. He stares down at the blood on his hand for a long moment then says, “I’m done with Deirdre. She’s yours, and I won’t use her to get to O’Malley.” His voice hardens. “I don’t go back on my fucking deals, Titone. It’s the-”
“Principle of the thing?” I finish for him, echoing his words from earlier about O’Malley.
“Precisely.”
He swipes at his face again, shaking drops of blood forcefully off of his fingers. Rowan appears at his side with a clean towel, and Darragh takes it, wiping away both blood and sweat.
“Well, gents,” he says, his tone light if slightly slurred by the swelling, his eyes like lasers, “I’d invite you to have a drink with me, but it looks like I’ll be making an emergency trip to my dentist today.”
“Dentist?” I ask, raising a brow at him.
“Of course,” Darragh scoffs. “You just knocked one of my fucking teeth out. Didn’t your mammy ever tell you that a man’s smile is his calling card in this world?”
“Can’t say that she did,” I reply blandly, shrugging into the shirt Curse has just passed me through the ropes.
“Ah. Well. Neither did mine,” Darragh says with a rueful, disconcertingly bloody grin. “But then again, she and my Da didn’t have a single good tooth to count between ’em.” He turns, about to leap down over the ropes and out of the ring, when he suddenly twists to look back at me over his hard, bare shoulders.
“Shall we shake hands then, d’ye think?”
“Not necessary,” I tell him in response. I don’t have much interest in being around this goon any longer than I have to, and knocking his damn tooth loose should be good enough to seal our deal.
“You know what? I like you, Titone,” Darragh says, though I don’t believe him for a goddamn second. “Fists over handshakes. Blood over ink.” He casts a meaningful look down at the crimson splatter with its lone white shard of a tooth.
Then, he finally jumps down out of the ring.
I turn and do the same, landing more heavily than Darragh with his weirdly light-footed animal grace.
“Let’s go,” I tell Curse and Enzo. “We’re done here.”
The hushed crowd parts before us, wide-eyed and thin-lipped.
