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She gave me another one of those tiny nods and then hurried away. I began to turn toward Grub but stopped when Ronnie ran back toward us.
“I forgot this,” she said, sheepishly grinning at me as she snatched up the tonfa from the ground.
Before I could chuckle, she pivoted on her bare feet and left. She didn’t look back. Her grip on the tonfa was loose, exactly as it was meant to be.
A finger of cold rage scraped up my spine at the sight—the toxicity of my past life was already impacting her. My good girl was already handling a weapon like it was second nature. Christ, what had I done to her?
And was it too late to stop it?
Grub groaned again, the wounded sound louder this time, more aware.
I dragged my stare from Ronnie, a heavy weight on my chest, and turned to the fucker.
He was trying to push himself off the ground, his shoulders wobbling beside his drooped head, his chest barely off the ground. Blood dribbled from his mouth and nose, pooling on the pavers.
Lowering myself into a crouch directly in front of his head, I snagged a handful of his greasy hair and smashed his face hard into the limestone blocks. “Long time no see, Grub,” I said with a conversational tone, raising his head again.
His eyes rolled. Blood and snot flowed from his mashed nose, a grotesque river on his top lip. “Trip…” he mumbled. “I’m gonna kill—”
I smashed his face down into the pavers again.
The satisfying crack of splintering bone accompanied the equally satisfying thud of flesh against rock. Vibrations tickled the bottom of my bare feet through the stone, sending a grim satisfaction through me.
I jerked his head up again, my heart rate slowing. What did it say about me that I was growing calmer the more pain I caused Grub?
Blood and snot oozed from his ruptured face. A glistening white stub on the ground told me I’d broken one of his teeth.
Good.
Adjusting my crouch to a looser squat, a distant part of my brain reminding me I was buck naked, I tugged Grub’s head up higher. His arms and shoulders trembled as he attempted to support his weight on his hands. Without a word, I whacked the side of my hand into one of his wrists. His arm shot out beneath him and gravity grabbed at him. I tightened my fist in his hair, jerking his head back towards his spine, turning his neck into a severe backward bow.
“Fug,” he protested, blood and spit bubbling and drooling from his nose and lips. I assumed he meant fuck. “Gonna fuggen kill—”
I slammed his face into the pavers once more.
He wailed, agony clear in the muffled sound.
“Now,” I said, lifting his head up so I could find his eyes. “We’re going to have a talk, you and I. It’s not going to go well for you. But if you do the right thing, you’ll walk away from here with a message for Rufie.” I paused, chewing over my declaration as I adjusted my grip on his hair. “Maybe walk isn’t the best word. But you and I both know that, right?”
Grub tried to nod. “’Kay.” His right eye looked like a jellied Ping-Pong ball shoved into his eye socket. I felt no remorse or guilt at all. He’d set the playing field with his threat to Ronnie. It wasn’t my fault he wasn’t up to the game.
“This is what you’re going to do, Grub,” I said, forcing his head back farther. He whimpered, clawing at the ground for my feet. His own feet drummed against the ground. I pictured the joints of his spine compressing as I forced them beyond their normal flex. “You’re going to tell me why you’re here. You’re going to tell me who sent you—I’m guessin’ Rufie, but you’re going to tell me for certain. Then you’re going to go back and tell whoever it was to not come anywhere near me or anyone I even think about unless they want to start wearing their small intestines as a neck tie. Got it?”
I relaxed my grip on Grub’s hand. A little. Just to see what he would do.
He didn’t let me down. He reared back in a wobbly, unstable lurch and spat a wad of blood in my direction. With the blood came snot and more chips of his teeth.
None of it struck me. Grub was too beaten to expel the energy required.
I chuckled, clamped my hand into a tight ball in his hair once again, and drew my face closer to his. “I applaud your efforts, fuck-knuckle, as idiotic as they are. Of course, it’s only going to get worse for you from here on out. You know that, right?”
Grub’s eyes rolled. He tried to scramble away.
Tried. Failed.
“No,” he gibbered, staring at me. “I’ll dalk, I’ll dalk.”
I chuckled again, nodding. “Yes. You will.”
