Page 9 of The Celtic Resolution
“Across the street, behind that van that’s parked up at the crossroads. He wanders out every so often, but never far,” explains the man who called me. “What are you going to do?”
Cracking my knuckles, I roll my shoulders and stride out of the warehouse. “Talk to him.”
“Wait, wait, should I call someone?”
“If you like.” As I approach the van, a tall figure steps out from the vehicle but he hesitates the second he sees me. “Hey!”
As soon as I call out, he runs.
Shit.
I should have expected that. Luckily, the man doesn’t take off with much urgency and I’ve always been an incredibly fast runner, much to Cian’s frustration when we were kids. The stranger runs back behind the van and out the other side, but I’m there in a few seconds, and he only makes it a few feet when I launch off the ground and collide into him with my body.
We both fall. He hits the ground hard with a grunt, and I land on him then quickly roll off to the side. “Hold on there, pal, where do you think you’re going?”
He clambers to his feet but as he turns to face me, he swings out a fist that I narrowly avoid as I stand.
So that’s how it’s going to be.
He swings again. I duck under his arm and jab at his ribs, land two blows against his back, then I drop down to my haunches and sweep my foot hard at his ankles. He overbalances with a cry of surprise and drops down to one knee, then he swings his torso around and his elbow collides with my gut.
I stumble back, winded, but adrenaline is pouring through me with each frantic beat of my excited heart. Staying low, I kick him back on his raised knee, forcing him to fall to the side. He’s back up in half a second, throwing another wide arc punch, but this time when I duck it, he’s ready for me. His other fist collides with my jaw, stunning me for a few seconds and sending me to the ground. As he tries to climb back to his feet, I twist my hips, lift my legs, and flip myself back onto my feet. Following the motion with a spin, I kick him hard in the face and as he falls, Irush at him and jab him once in the face, sending his head back again, then once in the gut, forcing him to double over.
“Need help?” calls a breathless voice to my right that immediately distracts me. Someone else being here completely changes the balance of the fight, and the stranger notices it too. His attention snaps to the arrival of the man from the warehouse and he steps toward him. My instinct to protect overtakes my desire for answers, so I throw myself between the stranger and my warehouse worker.
Unfortunately, he expects this and I realize it too late. He swiftly lifts one leg and delivers a powerful kick to my gut, sending me crashing hard into the van. Every bone in my body screams in pain at the impact and my world blurs briefly as my head crashes back into the van doors. Then I crumble to the ground, gasping for air and groaning in pain.
“No!” The warehouse worker rushes toward me. He’s by my side in seconds and when I finally clear my vision, the stranger is gone.
Who the fuck was he? And… Why do I feel like I’ve seen him somewhere before?
5
BRUNO
Three soft knocks at the door to my motel room send a flood of cautious alarm through my body. My fingers tighten around the handgun hidden against my thigh as I peer at the door and wait for the call of housekeeping.
It doesn’t come.
My grip on the gun tightens.
After revealing myself at the masquerade last month, my father made it pretty fucking clear that I’m not welcome. All those years apart and he still looks at me like I’m some shameful stain on the bottom of his shoe, barely worth a second of his time. I always thought pain like that would fade with time, but fourteen years aren’t enough to lose the crushing feeling of despair when your own father looks at you as if he wishes you’d never been born.
Going to prison for him apparently wasn’t enough to earn his love. What else can I do?
“Bruno?” Three knocks follow as my sister’s voice drifts through the closed door. “Bruno, it's me. Mary? Are you there? I got your text.”
Mary.
Shit.
I can’t get to the door fast enough and when I pull it open, her wide smile of delight quickly melts into a frown of concern. “Oh, my God, what happened to you?”
I glance down at my bare torso covered in an array of bruises from fighting a wildcat of a woman earlier tonight and shrug. “Do you even want to know?”
“Of course I do!” She glances over her shoulder then steps into my motel room, closing the door behind her. “Please don’t tell me Dad had something to do with this?”
“Please,” I scoff dryly. “He doesn’t care enough about me to get rid of me.”
