Outlaws by Matt Rogers (phonics books TXT) 📕

first decent blow usually gets the upper hand. There isn’t a whole lot of back-and-forth when you can break bones and tear muscle with a single well-placed punch or kick.

There isn’t usually time to chat.

So the three remaining men had one mode: Attack. Their brains were flooded with unfamiliar stress chemicals, screaming, Kill this motherfucker.

There was no processing space to think, Maybe he’s right. Maybe he can do to me what he did to the first guy.

They really should have considered it.

King faked an all-out charge at the first of the three and then pulled up short. It made the guy flinch, rooting him in place for the couple of seconds King needed to focus on the other two. He leapt forward, sensing a window of opportunity, and stomped down with the sole of his boot on the outside of the second guy’s knee. With two hundred plus pounds of bodyweight behind the stomp, and the awkward angle with which he’d skewered it into the ligaments, the results weren’t pretty. His whole leg contorted inward and he went down on it, adding more weight to the injury.

In the same smooth-flowing motion, King ducked into a crouch and pivoted at the waist and cocked his left hand and curled a fist and threw it with every ounce of kinetic energy he had to give.

Right into the unprotected liver of the third guy.

Who doubled over and hit the floor like he’d been disembowelled.

King straightened up, and saw the final man charging at him, but now it was one on one.

The guy threw a right hook, and it was pretty respectable. It actually came close. King used a dash of head movement to slip to the side — boxing 101 — and then the guy was right there, inches away, vulnerable and exposed. He’d overcommitted with the right hand and now he was stretched out like an amateur, about to stumble past King.

King didn’t let him.

He smashed his calloused elbow into the centre of the guy’s forehead and smacked his brain around in his skull. The guy didn’t go out cold, which was also pretty respectable. But he sure as hell didn’t play it off like it was nothing. He stumbled a couple of steps in a semi-conscious state, his equilibrium gone, his balance non-existent, his gait that of a baby deer learning how to walk.

He actually reached the desk, and planted his palms down on its oak surface, and made a second of woozy eye contact with Donati.

Then, in his clouded state, he seemed to remember that he was in a fight.

He turned around.

King struck him in the face with an open palm, adding insult to injury. He only put as much weight into the palm strike as he knew he needed. It flipped the switch inside the guy’s brain, capping off the performance, and he went limp and collapsed at the foot of the desk.

It was a gesture designed to intimidate.

King had taken care of Donati’s last man by practically swatting him aside.

King paused to give Donati time to process what had happened.

Four men out cold. Two shut down by liver strikes. No one around to put up anymore of a fight.

Donati tried to keep his composure, but his throat turned redder, and sweat broke out across his upper lip.

King said, ‘Pick up the phone. Call off the hit.’

16

Donati didn’t exactly burst into motion.

So King switched gears.

He backed up a couple of steps and came to a halt beside the guy he’d hit with the clean liver kick. The man still sported the same mask of agony, the same twisted features and inhuman grimace and general air of surrender. King put a hand on the back of his neck and tilted him back a few inches so the downlighting in the office caught his features.

Presenting him to Donati as an example.

King said, ‘I can very easily do this to you.’

Donati didn’t respond.

King said, ‘These six men are the only help you have in-country. Besides me, of course. I could keep you in this penthouse for as long as I like. I could make things very painful. I don’t think you’re even remotely prepared to deal with it.’

Donati said nothing.

King said, ‘Think about your options.’

In his head, the clock ticked. It had been just over sixty seconds since Donati had got off the call. King had spent the first thirty stepping into the office and talking to the man, and the other thirty taking out his entire entourage.

King said, ‘I won’t give you any more time.’

Donati reached for the phone on the desk.

He picked it up, thumbed a button, and pressed it to his ear.

‘Speaker,’ King said.

Before it had finished ringing, Donati lowered it and thumbed the touchscreen. The ringing erupted from the phone’s tinny speakers, filling the silence in the office.

It connected.

A low voice said, ‘Yes?’

‘There’s been a development,’ Donati said. ‘You haven’t moved in yet, have you?’

‘We’re seconds out.’

‘Call it off.’

‘Why?’

‘Do I pay you to question me?’

A pause.

Not a long one.

Then the voice said, ‘Okay. There’d better be a damn good reason for this. This took some serious prep.’

The call disconnected.

King breathed out.

Donati gently placed the phone back down and surveyed the scene of destruction all around him. He grimaced. He said, ‘What happens now?’

‘Now we talk.’

‘I don’t want to talk. I did what you wanted. What is this? You going to rat me out now?’

‘We’re going to talk,’ King said. ‘You’re not in a position to say no.’

‘You’re doing your job terribly,’ Donati noted.

‘I think I’m doing my job just fine.’

‘What is it you want to know, exactly?’

‘The supposed CFO of Zima Group,’ King said. ‘The guy in the background of the surveillance photo. That was bullshit.’

Donati hesitated, as if ashamed to admit he’d been ousted.

Then, begrudgingly, he nodded.

King said, ‘It was always the girl, wasn’t it?’

Another long pause.

Then a shrug.

Donati said, ‘Yeah. I came up with the other thing on the fly. You bought it.’

‘You’re a good liar,’ King said. ‘Explains why you’re a billionaire.’

Silence.

He hadn’t asked