Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2) by Jack Lively (reading well TXT) 📕

It was the sound of a pent-up crowd releasing their tension. I figured the game of bloody knuckles was over. There was a whole lot of movement. People from outside going back inside, to see what had happened. People from inside going outside to get barbecue. One of the contestants had won ten grand. Both of them had lost the full use of their dominant hand. Was it worth it? I figured it wasn’t up to me to decide that.

Deckart was cursing. I walked over and sat down at their table. I said, “Super glue. That’s what you need buddy. Just glue that thing back on and it might heal. I’d say you have a five-minute window.”

But Deckart was not happy with me. Neither was Willets. Deckart was holding the tip of his finger on, as if it would stay there by itself. Willets was distracted, alternating between me and his injured friend. Deckart looked up at me, and I saw murder in his eyes.

Deckart said, “I’d as soon look at you as kill you.”

I said, “Why not both?”

Deckart was barely managing to hold his anger in check. I looked at Willets, who was looking at me under hooded eyes. I saw calculation in them, but not necessarily the intelligent kind.

I said, “What?”

Then Willets launched himself at me, which is what I had been expecting. He came up out of the seat and over the top of the picnic table. His boot gripped the edge and then he was flailing for my neck, trying to get a height advantage. But I was already gone, slipped under the table and out the side again. When I came up, Willets was spinning around looking for me. He came at me another time. A flurry of fists and elbows, like he’d been watching videos of highly paid fighters. I deflected a right-handed head strike, stepped inside and took control of his arm. I used his own movement to leverage him over my shoulder, heaved, and threw him through the fence surrounding the barbecue area.

The guy serving barbecue nodded to me in approval. He said, “What happens outside the perimeter doesn’t happen.”

I stepped through the broken fence. Willets was getting up and dusting himself off. I surged into his space and open-hand slapped him hard on the ear. The strike put him back down. He coughed and spat.

Willets opened his hands wide. He said, “Alright. You win. Calm down.”

But I had already seen him glancing over my shoulder. He was trying to lure me into dropping my guard. I had a pretty good idea of what it was that he’d seen behind me. I side-stepped, lowered into a crouch and swiveled on the balls of my feet. Deckart was coming with the Bowie knife.

A Bowie knife isn’t a normal knife. For one thing, it is bigger. I needed to even the odds. So I put a right hook into Willets’ jaw. He dropped straight down. No hands out to stop the fall, he tumbled like a plank, flat on his face.

Then I turned to Deckart. Just in time. He was bleeding from the left hand. The knife was in his right, held in the Filipino style. Thumb on the blade’s spine. Deckart came low and fast, leading with his right foot, in line with the blade. Better for the reach. Good form.

Attack was the only way out.

As he came at me, I went at him. Which confused him at first. Usually people run away from a dangerous guy holding a Bowie knife, or they stick their hands up in self-defense. I came right at him and gave him no choice except to strike. Deckart’s knife came hissing in low, going for the inguinal artery on the inside of my leg. I blocked him with a forearm deflection, then stepped in for an uppercut to the jaw.

He jerked his head back and my fist brushed his chin. No stubble. Deckart was already slashing at my neck arteries, going for the bleeders. I pushed his wrist wide and head-butted him hard. I was going for the nose but made contact with his cheekbone. The impact sent Deckart tumbling. Before he could react further, I stepped in and kicked him in the face for the second time that day. His head whipped back and bounced off the dirt. I crouched down and pulled a phone out of his jeans pocket. It was a cheap burner.

I said, “Going to need your phone, buddy.” I thumbed through the buttons. All working fine with decent battery life left and a fine connection to the local cellular networks. “Appreciate it.” I pushed the phone into my pocket. Deckart’s nose was a bloody mess, twice squashed. He sprawled limp and defeated. I stood over him. Loose and ready for whatever he wanted to do. But he wasn’t going to do anything, even if he had wanted to.

A little crowd had drawn into a circle around the fight. A loud wolf whistle cut through them. The onlookers moved back to reveal a late model gold Hummer. The driver’s door was open and the short bald guy who everyone thought was Mister Lawrence sat behind the wheel looking at me. He was a guy in his fifties with the kind of face that stops evolving at puberty. His look was flat and bored. With overly generous lips around a half-opened mouth. No hair of any kind in sight.

Amber Chapman was in the back, window closed. Two guys from the security detail approached Deckart. One of them lifted him to his feet. The other faced off with me, looking straight into my eyes and holding two hands up, palms out. It was my friend with the pointy ears and the shaved head. The first guy spoke softly to Deckart. I didn’t hear what was said. The guy’s t-shirt rippled with muscle.

The pointy-eared guy staring at me was about thirty. Like the others, he was lean and fit and looked dangerous. Like a poster