Page 107 of They Break Beauty

One of the two remaining, snatched my staff, while the other tried to come at me from behind in another sneak attack. Not much of a sneak attack when the guy had no stealth to speak of, but whatever.

I yanked on the staff, sliding it under my arm and taking the guy who had hold of it with the jerky movement. He slammed into me and I held fast at the impact, then yanked him around and snagged him in a chokehold with the staff to his throat.

As he flailed and struggled, the final guy came at me. I dodged a kick to the ass—literally—then threw his buddy’s weight in my hold around, smashing into him. As he staggered from it, I swept my boot at the back of his knee and wrenched it out from under him. The moment he hit the grass, I delivered a kick to the side of his head and knocked him out like the other guy.

It didn’t take long before the guy being choked out by my bo-staff lost consciousness, and I released him and let him sink to the ground among the rest of them.

Four down, six to go.

It had been a whirlwind of violence, pain, screams, and a whole lot of bloodletting since I’d stepped into the farmhouse and made my presence known.

My staff was slick with blood as I strode out of the bedroom, where I’d put down two of the last four targets. One was unconscious in there, another was screaming because he’d taken my weapon to the balls after putting up a fight, instead of succumbing to my wrath like he should have. Fucking fool. After witnessing the damage I’d already done so far.

There was broken furniture throughout the house, holes in the walls from me slamming my targets into a few during the battle, frat bros downed and a whole lot of shattered glass all over the kitchen from me driving an opponent’s head into a window to knock him out.

I spun, hearing the hurried footsteps of another guy coming at me, the dumbass thinking he’d be the hero who took me down. I spun into a roundhouse kick and sent him careening down the stairs, watching as he passed out from hitting step after step when he hit the landing.

And then I saw the final target trying to slip away, dodging past me.

I bolted forward, then swept my staff at the most opportune time, ripping his legs out from under him.

He crashed onto the landing, just a foot from making it to the top of the stairs.

I lunged at him and hauled him around onto his back, about to do some nasty damage with my prized weapon.

“Wait!” he called out as I brought the bo-staff down.

I stilled just an inch from driving it into his ribs. He was damn lucky for my quick reflexes.

Through the haze of violence, I took in the identity of a target for the first time.

It was Chase Arlington, the football captain, one of the first recruits to Mason’s resurrected version of Hex.

He wasn’t supposed to be here. He wasn’t a member of the frat.

There were no accidents when it came to the moves Mason made, so he must have separated Chase from the rest of the team and relocated him out here for a reason.

“Rob!” he cried, before I could even begin to determine a reason for it.

“What?” I spat.

“Rob Brown. Your boy reached out to him,” he told me frantically. “Made me put him in contact with that dangerous freak.”

“And? Why does that concern me?” I had my suspicions, obviously, but I needed them confirmed.

“The girl, the one you’re into… Mason has him investigating her.”

Jesus.

Rob Brown was the intel man of this shithead’s father, Atticus Arlington. Rob was ex-military, a fucking shadow nowadays. And because he was, he was able to venture places that very few others could and obtain extremely hard to acquire information. Just like the very thing I was trying to keep Mason away from.

“How long?”

“A couple of weeks.”

Christ. That was an age for a man like him.

It meant Mason knew something.

---