Page 79 of Greed
“I told you, I don’t have your pictures.” She wanted her voice to be steady, but it betrayed her fear and wobbled.
“I have them.”
Griffin.
She’d never been more happy to hear his voice as he walked from the direction of the nightclub. His hands were in his pockets, but he looked tense, tight, and furious.
A nod from the pierced man pushed the three men off the wall. The one with the Baker Boy hat flipped open the switch-blade in his hands. His friends went straight for their guns inside their jackets.
Griffin never took his eyes from the pierced man. “Get your hands off her.”
“I don’t think you’re in a position to be telling me what to do,” he replied, nonchalant.
“There’s four of us. Only one of you.” Baker Boy laughed, flashing the metal grill on his teeth.
Griffin calmly assessed the situation, taking note of the men and their weapons, the surrounding alley, and then his eyes landed on Lilo. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” But her heart slammed against her rib cage.
“So, unless you have the pictures,” the pierced man said. “This is between us, and the girl. Push off before you’re hurt, ya tool.”
“I don’t think so. You see, I know things.”
The sound of guns shifting, aiming, getting into position was the most horrifying sound Lilo ever heard.
“Griffin, just go,” she begged. She couldn’t believe she was dragging him into her mess again.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said calmly, looking into her eyes, then he turned to the man with the Baker Boy hat. “As I was saying, I know things. Like, for instance, that grill in your mouth is a cheap one. It looks like silver, but on the inside, its stainless steel cast with iron.”
“He’s insane,” Baker Boy joked with his friends. “What the fuck does it matter what it’s made off, tosser?”
“And you.” Griffin cocked his head to the side as he inspected the pierced man. “It’s the same for your jewelry. Cheap knockoffs instead of the surgical stainless it should be.”
“For fuck’s sake. Get rid of him.” The pierced man lost his patience, waved with his gun at Griffin, and then turned his back, dismissing him.
Bad idea.
It all happened so fast after that. Lilo barely registered what happened. The man with the grill in his mouth suddenly jerked toward the wall as though an invisible hand gripped him from the teeth and smashed him face-first into the red bricks. He lowered, bloody faced, moaning and groaning.
His friends lost their guns—the weapons flew along the alley as though they had wings—just like the way her cattle prod had gone flying when Greed carried her the other night.
Something inside her grew unsettled. She looked around for Greed, but no one else was in the alley except them. Except a savage-eyed Griffin running toward the two men, arm extended, reaching for each throat. When his fingers closed around their thick necks, Griffin used his momentum to push the men back against the wall until their heads hit bricks and bounced.
Damn, he was strong.
They fought back with dirty, street-style moves. A kick to Griffin’s groin, a punch in the kidney, but no matter what they did, the two men weren’t enough to escape his fury. He sliced and jabbed with his fists, punching in maneuvers too fast to decipher. Suddenly Griffin stood back, glowering at them. His fingers splayed apart. He gripped invisible air. As he clenched his fists, the fire-escape platform above their heads rattled and rumbled and shook, and then Griffin stepped back again. The platform came free from its supports and fell.
No. It didn’t fall. It glided, as though being controlled—
Lilo gasped.
He was controlling it.
Griffin was moving the metal… just like… just like…
Her vision swam.
Griffin was Greed. The real one.
