Page 50 of Hollywood

“Hey, you hear that?” I closed my eyes and strained my ears towards the sound of a scuffle on the outside of the door.

“It’s probably those stupid bikers just roughhousing.”

“Okay grandma. Quiet.” I kept my eyes closed and listened. I couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like a fight. Flesh pounding against flesh. And then a gunshot rang out followed by another, much slower grunt. “Somebody’s fighting.”

“Somebody’s dying,” Lu clarified. “That was a gunshot, right?”

My heart started racing. “Sounded like it, yeah.” It could be Hollywood here to rescue us but then again it could be a rival gang here to exact revenge and they would either kill us or take over whatever plan the Jade Devils had for us.

When the door smacked open and several Asian bikers rushed in with their guns out, Lu and I both screamed at the top of our voices.

“Shut the fuck up!” One of them shouted at us but I heard more fighting outside that door and hope swelled within me. They were afraid or worried, possibly both, and that gave me even more hope.

“What’s going on?”

“I said shut the fuck up, bitch!”

Lu shushed me but I ignored her.

Another gunshot rang out, this one sounded even closer as if the gunman was heading this way.

JT rushed into the room, past the three men who had entered first and stood behind the larger man who looked more like a bodyguard than a biker. “One more step asshole and I’ll put a hole in both of these bitches’ heads.” To prove his point or maybe to press his advantage, JT rushed to me and Lu, standing behind us with the cool metal of his knife pressed against my belly. “I fucking mean it!”

Oh yeah, he was afraid. His hand trembled against my skin.

Another gunshot sounded and another grunt followed by the sound of dead weight collapsing. And then there he was, the man of my dreams, the man who held my heart, my body, and my soul. “Hollywood!”

He was gorgeous even with the thin sheet of blood coating his face and his thick blond hair. He gripped a gun in his right hand and the wooden handle of a machete in his lefthand, a furious glare fixed on the man who stood between him and JT.

The first two men rushed him, and I held my breath as Hollywood raised the machete and made one impressive slice from left to right, sending both men to the ground, crying out their pain.

“Stop,” the big man urged even as he stepped back, perhaps knowing by the expression on his face that Hollywood would not be deterred.

His gaze landed on JT, and he grinned. “If you hurt either of them, I will peel you like a fucking orange.”

“Whoa,” Lu whispered under her breath.

JT stood a little taller and his hand shook far less as he pressed the tip of the blade against me. “Try it. We’ll see who has a quicker response time.”

Hollywood flashed his brilliant smile my way. “You okay, babe?”

I tried to shrug, and my arms screamed out in pain. The wince didn’t go unnoticed, so I tried for a smile. “Mostly.”

“They touch you?”

I shook my head. “Nothing I can’t come back from.”

He nodded as if that was all the information he needed before he raised his gun in JT’s direction. The big man moved left and put himself between Hollywood and his leader. “You want this instead of him?”

The man nodded.

“Suit yourself.” He lowered the gun and seconds later two gunshots rang out, one in each kneecap.

The man howled his pain as one leg and then the other gave out. The gun fell from his hand and slid across the room. He tried to crawl on his forearms towards the gun, but Hollywood was there, his size thirteen boot pressed against the man’s back. “Remember why this happened to you,” he grunted and took the sharp tip of the machete, dragging from the man’s ear down to his mouth. “JT is why you’re now a cripple.”

The man put one hand to his bleeding face and cried, actually cried like a child. It would’ve been sad to see if I wasn’t naked and chained up.

JT held me tighter and used me as a shield. “Let me go right now and we’ll end this. For good.”

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