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“Hey. Dickheads.”
I spoke the words casually but loudly enough to attract their attention. Two of the goons turned immediately. The one about to deliver the next strike halted, mid-punch.
“Wanna try that shit on someone who’ll hit back?”
All three of them stared back at me in disbelief as I made my way in their direction. To the casual viewer I might’ve looked like some macho hammerhead, strutting his way into something entirely not his business. In reality I was sizing them up. Calculating which of the three would be the most dangerous, and then positioning myself within striking distance of that particular target.
This time around it was the tall guy in the suit. It wasn’t always, though. Most times the guys in thousand-dollar suits were the ones giving the orders, while the two goons in bad jeans and cheap, knock-off shoes were the ones hired purely for muscle. But this guy carried himself differently. His smirk wasn’t only for show, and beneath his dark eyes lay a strange intelligence. A cool, menacing confidence that fell just short of swagger.
“This isn’t your business,” the tall man said smoothly.
“Business?” I scoffed. My eyes flitted to the woman. “Is that what you’re calling it?”
I took a casual step in his general direction, then snuck in another. The others finally began moving in reaction to me. In a few seconds they’d circle around to take me from the side, or even behind. It was a move even the dumbest of goons knew well.
“Walk away, friend,” the tall man ordered me. “Trust me when I say it’s in your best interest to—”
The signal happened in the middle of his sentence. A shift of the eye. A quick, forward wag of two fingers. It was fast, too. Very fast.
But I was faster.
“NNNNGHHH!”
The goon closest to me had lunged forward, quickly but clumsily. I sidestepped him easily, grabbing his collar and using his own momentum to send him headfirst into the brick wall.
He crumpled like a sack of rotten potatoes.
“Fucker!”
It was almost comical, the incredulous way the second goon grunted the curse word. On the surface he seemed even dumber than the first. He looked slower too, which was why I ignored him completely. Instead I shot forward and drove the hard ridge of my hand directly into the tall guy’s throat.
“ACCKKK…”
The surprise on his face was quickly overshadowed by pain, then panic. He fell backwards, tripping over the sprawled form of the woman he was just beating up.
Ahhh, you justgottalove karma.
“Come,” I urged, whirling to face my third and final attacker. When he hesitated, I laughed in his face. “What, you don’t like the odds anymore?”
He’d halted, and the goon’s dirty blond hair had flopped forward into his face. I could still see his eyes though, shifting back and forth. Watching to see if his boss or his friend got up. Waiting to see if they’d do something first, or if he were forced to finally make a decision all on his own.
“Three assholes beating up a woman,” I snarled. “You couldn’t make this shit up if you—”
My words trailed off, as a sudden realization stole over me. The tall guy was still on his knees, still clutching his partially-collapsed windpipe. His eyes were murderous. But they were also somehow familiar…
No.
I cocked my head, forgetting the other goon entirely. The face made sense. So did the custom suit, the silk shirt, the Sebastian Cruz necktie. The Hermes belt around his waist…
No fucking way.
His eyes flared wide, and he tried to get up. He failed miserably, gasping for air. Falling back to the filth-smeared alley, he rolled onto his back still desperate to catch his breath.
But those eyes remained locked on me.
It’s him.
I knew it in my heart, even before my own eyes confirmed the high cheekbones and sharp, angular nose. It was unmistakably him. Either him or his brother.
