Page 16 of The Celtic Resolution
She sags forward, but rather than attacking me with the same fervor as last night, she goes on the defensive and wraps one arm around her ribs to protect herself.
Wait…
Something’s different.
She’s not as fast or as strong as she was last night. She’s weaker. Slower. Experience in prison warns me against believing such a display as hesitation. It’s how I ended up with a shank between my ribs and three weeks in the med bay. She could be tricking me into lowering my guard, so I surge forward and pin her to the wall with my arm across her shoulders and my gun pressing against the soft, exposed skin of her waist.
She glares at me with fire blazing in her eyes and blood trickling from the corner of her lip where my elbow cut that soft, red flesh. “Go on, then,” she snarls with bloody teeth. “What are you waiting for?”
“Is that it?” I joke breathlessly. “All the fight is gone?”
Her dark brows knit together briefly and her eyes dart about my face, then the shadow of recognition follows as a surge of angry drivers blare their horns at one another in the distance.
“You.”
“So you do recognize me.”
“Maybe.”
I should kill her right here, right now. But something is stopping me. “Surprised it took you so long.”
She slams her knee into my crotch before I can say anything else and I stumble away from her as my balls ricochet up into my fucking throat. Tears of pain spring into my eyes and a strong pull of nausea stretches like taffy through my gut, followed by a pulse of weakness that sends my gun slipping from my fingers.
Holy shit.
She’s got boney fucking knees and I think she just popped one of my balls. No matter how often I get kicked in the nuts, there’s no getting used to this pain. Seeing her advantage, she surges toward me with fists flying, but I take a defensive approach this time while trying to get the tears out of my eyes and my testicles back where they belong.
She tries to punch me and I dodge. She runs at me and I sidestep. What blows she does land are softer and I do everything in my power to stop us from seriously hurting one another because she’s clearly injured. That was me, wasn’t it? Last night.
She’d been like a firecracker thrown into a bonfire and I hadn’t thought much about how badly I hurt her, but seeing it now, plain as day, makes me feel guilty.
Fuck knows why. I don’t do guilt.
“Come on!” She yells after her fifth punch fails to land. “What the fuck are you playing at?”
We stumble to a halt, panting, and remain on opposite sides of the alley. “What, are you bored?”
“Don’t give me that shit,” she snarls. “You piece of shit. You attack me, drag me down, and press a gun to me and now, what, you can’t take a punch? Motherfucker!” She surges at me again, and while her knuckles collide painfully with my jaw, I’m mostly able to sidestep and we switch alley sides. My gun lies on the ground several feet away. There’s no way I can get to it without her reacting.
“Listen,” I gasp, still tasting my balls at the base of my throat. “It’s just business.”
“Business?” She straightens up but clearly still favors one side of her body. “I don’t fucking know you. We don’thavebusiness.”
“Not directly,” I reply. “But the Triad want you dead.”
She wears her anger like a glowing badge of honor, and I watch her muscles coil, ready for another strike until she registers my words and hesitates. Her eyes dart up and down me and she frowns. “You don’t look like Triad.”
“Looks can be deceiving.”
“Bullshit. Triad are like family.”
“Sure.” She’s not wrong. I learned that pretty swiftly in prison after a broken jaw. “But they accept outside help when it suits.” Also a good lesson from inside.
“Why?” She demands. “I’ve never even crossed paths with the Triad.” She straightens up suddenly and barely conceals a wince. “They don’t even operate in New York.”
“They do.” I sag back against the brick wall, finally catching my breath since she doesn’t seem ready to tear my throat out anymore. “They’re just quiet.”
I can see the gears turning behind her eyes as she searches her thoughts and memories for when she could have gotten onto the Triad’s radar, never mind in their crosshairs. An answer I can’t provide since I’m just supposed to kill her.
