AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You are such a piece of shit!” she said.
“This is about money, Becca,” Ripper said. “The MC needs to stop this candy cane bullshit about being the white knights of this town. We’re leaving millions of dollars on the table. Millions. Boomer and his stupid fantasies about being the good guys is costing us a fortune.”
“He clearly understands the situation better than you do,” Becca said.
“With the cartel on our side, we would have fat stacks of cash and the firepower to wipe out anybody that looked at us sideways.”
“And be their slaves,” Becca said. “Not to mention ruin the very same town you live in.”
“Shit, lady,” Ripper said, “you sound like Boomer now.”
“He’s smarter than you could ever hope to be.”
“Well, after I’m done with you, I’ll be heading over to finish off Boomer,” Ripper said. “Fuck this subtlety shit. Now open this fucking door.”
“I have… I have a gun in here,” Becca said.
“The fuck you do,” Ripper said. “Why do you think I asked you about that earlier? But you’d better believe I have one.”
Becca tried to think of something, anything, to say to try to delay Ripper a little longer, but nothing was coming to mind.Come on, Griz, where are you, she thought, when Ripper finally spoke again and she knew she was out of time.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll do this the hard way.”
Heavier blows began to rain on the door now, concentrated this time, and with every one, Becca felt the door buckle beneath her. She tried her best to strain against the door, pushing her back against it with every muscle in her legs, but soon, she heard wood splintering and felt the door start to give way behind her.
Finally, one of the pounding blows pushed the door open and threw her partly across the room. She whirled to try to rush back to the door and shut it, but the door was already flung wide open, revealing Ripper standing in the doorway.
He had a towel tied clumsily around his leg. Blood stained the middle of it where Becca had stabbed him in the thigh. Still, he was able to walk stiffly into the room, as she backed away, looking around for a weapon with which she could defend herself.
Ripper held a silver .357 Magnum revolver in his hand, but he shook his head and tucked it into the back of his waistband. All the while, he kept moving toward her, closing the distance.
“I should shoot you,” he said, “but I already had to dump one gun. Besides, now I’m fucking pissed, so I think I’ll just strangle you instead.”
As soon as he got close, Becca grabbed a lamp off of the nearby dresser and swung it at his head. His arm came up, blocking the attack easily, and then he wrenched the lamp out of her hand and tossed it to the floor. Almost effortlessly, his hand swung back upward and backhanded her across the face.
It connected hard, harder than Becca could have imagined. She’d never been hit before, especially not by a man as large as Ripper, and she spun toward the ground, seeing stars.
Then, he was grabbing her, and she started trying to fight back, clawing with her nails, swinging her fists against him, but it was like trying to fight a truck. Nothing seemed to have any effect.
His hands were on her throat now, crushing out the air, and Becca’s eyes went wide as she struggled vainly to pull his hands away from her throat. Panic and desperation were everything inside of her now, as the desperate need for air turned her into a thrashing, wild animal trying to survive for another second and another second and another second.
The world started turning into a tunnel, narrowing more and more. She could feel herself fading even as the last of her struggles began to reduce to little more than weak twitches, and the only thing she could think wasGriz, where are you?
Then, there was a heavy noise and the pressure was gone from her throat. Air sucked back into her lungs in a great rush, followed by another heaving breath, and then the world expanded back from a narrow tunnel into full focus.
Griz was there, on the floor, wrestling with Ripper. The noise she’d heard had been his body slamming into Ripper and knocking him off of Becca, and now, the two of them were punching and grabbing and tearing at each other like wild animals.
They both gained their feet at the same time, squaring off for less than an instant before going after each other again. Ripper tried to pull his revolver out, but Griz knocked it easily out of his hand and it flew to the floor.
Ripper’s free hand came around and hit Griz squarely on the jaw. Becca had felt just how hard Ripper could hit even with an open backhand, but the closed fist seemed to have no effect on Griz. He simply took the hit and then moved in, striking back low with an uppercut to Ripper’s midsection.
Ripper had a heavy leather jacket on, like Griz, but it was unzipped and open in the front. Griz’s fist made its way up in that open space, hitting him in the solar plexus just below the tip of the sternum.
Now it was Ripper’s turn to lose his breath. His eyes went wide and his legs went out from underneath him as he crumpled under the strike, the wind knocked out of him. Even as he fell, Griz punched down with his other hand, connecting hard against the side of Ripper’s face.
Ripper fell heavily to all fours. Griz didn’t let up for an instant, didn’t give him a single moment to try to recover, but kicked him down flat to the floor.
He didn’t stop there. He stomped with his heavy, booted feet on Ripper’s back, again and again. On one of the blows, Ripper screamed loudly and his body contorted into a spasm that flipped him over onto his back.
