BLOOD TIES (Decklan Jennings Thriller Book 1) by Philip Duncan (book recommendations for young adults txt) 📕

Guys like this moved like shadows in the night to avoid gaining any unwanted attention. Decklan and Langley got out of the car and started making their way toward the front door when they suddenly heard someone talking behind them.

“Hey asshole, remember us?”

They turned around and Decklan immediately recognized the group of guys. It was the same guys he just embarrassed in the bar less than a week ago, while he was hammered. Surely they know better than to try their luck while he was sober.

“Who are these guys?” Langley asked.

“Just a group of wannabe tough guys,” Decklan responded, brushing them off as a credible threat.

“We were hoping to run into you again. Now that you can’t catch us off guard, we are going to teach you a lesson,” one of them said.

“Listen man, I don’t want any trouble and I’m sorry for kicking your ass the other night. Now, we have somewhere we need to be, so if you will excuse us…” Decklan said as he turned away to keep walking.

He was hoping they would leave it alone, but these guys had obviously been drinking and had even less sense than when they were sober, which wasn’t saying much.

“There are four of us and only two of you, so I think we’ll decide when this is over.”

Decklan smirked before returning with a typical smartass remark. “I must have hit you pretty hard the other night. Did you forget how it went last time?”

“You got lucky last time. It won’t happen again.”

Langley was watching the situation unfold in amusement, because he knew exactly what Decklan was capable of and it didn’t matter if there were four of them. Someone as highly trained as Decklan was not to be trifled with, especially when you paired that with a man who had nothing left to lose.

He leaned over to Decklan. “We need to get in there now, before we miss our window.”

“Go ahead. I won’t be long,” Decklan said without taking his eyes off the douchebags.

Langley headed inside the party, leaving Decklan to fend for himself and having no worries that he would handle the situation with ease.

“All right ladies, I ain’t got all night,” Decklan said mockingly.

One of them standing to his left lunged forward with a big looping punch, only to miss by a mile. Decklan ducked down and came right back up with a quick but brutal uppercut. One idiot down, three to go. The next one charged straight forward like a linebacker looking for the quarterback. He hit Decklan in the stomach only to find that he couldn’t move him. He quickly found himself being choked unconscious and dropped to the pavement like a lifeless corpse. That was two.

The last two left looked at each other in acknowledgement to attack together. They figured two on one would give them a better chance at success, which would usually be the case. The first guy landed a heavy leg kick to Decklan’s upper thigh, but did little damage. The other one went for a straight cross down the pipe, but hit nothing but air. Another attempt, missed again. Three more attempted strikes, all coming up short as Decklan bobbed and weaved like a world class boxer, which he could attribute to his extensive hand to hand combat training in the military.

The main guy was clearly exhausted from throwing so many missed shots, so Decklan took this chance to throw a three punch combo that left the guy flat on his back. Three down, one to go. The only one left was the only guy who managed to land a shot, even if it was to no avail.

“Last chance, buddy. I don’t want to hurt you,” Decklan said, hoping this would prompt him to give up and walk away.

The frat guy stood there, contemplating his next move. He may have been an idiot but even an idiot could see nothing he could do would allow him to come out of this on the winning side. He threw up his hands, showing he was done, and walked away in defeat.

Decklan’s heart rate was elevated but it only took a minute or two for him to recompose, refocus, and head in the party to find Langley.

CHAPTER 11

Decklan couldn’t believe how many people were at this party. It looked like half the damn town.

Where the hell is Langley?

He walked around, hoping he would eventually find him. About ten minutes passed by before he finally tracked Langley down.

“Hey man, how’d it go outside?” Langley asked. “It doesn’t even look like you got in a fight.”

“It went about how you’d expect,” Decklan replied, knowing good and well that Langley knew how skilled and dangerous he was. “You found our guys yet?”

“I have been watching them, but no action yet,” Langley replied. “They are standing over by the fireplace in the living room.”

They walked out of the kitchen and into the main hallway where they could get a visual of them.

“Right there—you see them?” Langley said, looking in their direction without being obvious.

“Yeah, I see them. What now?”

As soon as the last word left Decklan’s mouth, they saw something. Two young girls walked up to the drug dealers. They appeared to be flirting with the guys, clearly not knowing who they were flirting with. They must have been trying to sweet talk a deal out of them. One of the thugs was soaking it up while the other one was getting irritated. He grabbed one of the girls by the arm and pulled her in aggressively to say something. Unfortunately, there was no way for Decklan or Langley to hear what he said.

Despite being surrounded by dozens of people, no one seemed to notice what happened. This pissed both of them off, but it was about to get even worse. The same guy, still holding the girl’s arm, started pulling her away and down a hallway. They watched, knowing they had to be careful before taking any action. He eventually got