Page 71 of Princess's Revenge

The instant he looks away, Andrea throws a kick worthy of a ninja to the base of his spine with her steel tipped boot. It’s thekind of the thing that could keep someone from walking for the rest of their life!

He’s still reeling from the shock of the attack when she follows up by grabbing his collar and pulling him backward. He comes down—stool and all—and lands hard.

Andrea goes to work immediately and plants kicks to his gut and his ribs…even a few to his face. These are not the kicks of a little girl. Andrea has muscle, speed and ferocity.

He wasn’t expecting a fight. I stand there with my gun pointed at him—just in case—and let her do her thing.

Buscemi’s got his hands up like we’re going to do something to him too, so I tell him, “Relax, we’re just teaching him a lesson, you’re all good.”

The thug is now missing his two front teeth, he’s bleeding from his head and mouth.

Andrea picks up the stool and smashes it on him, beating him with it again and again till all that’s left is kindling.

Now he looks like he’s been in a car wreck…and that’s when he uses what’s left of his breath to whimper, “Stop…stop…please.”

The next step would’ve been to stab him in the heart with one of the wooden legs that resemble a stake.

Andrea reaches into his coat and pulls out the Manila envelope and a flip phone. From the envelope, she pulls out a hundred dollars and puts in on the counter with a smile, “For the stool. Sorry about that.”

“Thanks, yeah,” Buscemi says with more confusion than fear.

She hands the envelope to me and opens the phone. “This must be Josh,” she says, “most incoming calls.”

She puts the phone to her ear and waits.

“No, Lonnie’s on the floor,” she says, “let’s get something clear, these are now my routes, my stops, my money. This time Lonnie is going to leave in an ambulance. The next guy you sendto take what’s mine? You can pick him up in the morgue. This is your final warning.”

She turns to Buscemi with another gorgeous smile. “I’m terribly sorry about all this, it’s just a huge misunderstanding. You’ll call the ambulance, won’t you?”

“Sure,” he nods vigorously.

“And you’ll tell them?” She raises her brow.

“I was in the back, I came out here and found him like this, I didn’t see nothing.”

“Excellent, thank you, Mr. Buscemi. We’ll see you next week.”

“Yeah,” he nods again.

Andrea jerks her head at me—Let’s go.

The rest of our five stops go pretty much like the first four, there was no one to stop us, all we had to do was explain that that the lines had moved and their businesses were underourprotection now.

We didn’t have to renegotiate any terms or amounts because word spreads fast withour thing.

There’s a new boss and she commands respect.

Buscemi seemed like a good guy, but I guarantee the minute we left his bar, he was on the phone to another wise-guy and telling him what happened.

They’re going to steer clear of our stops.

They’re going to wait to see what de Soto’s reaction is.

CHAPTER 21

It’s been three days since Andrea cleaned Lonnie’s clock down at Buscemi’s bar.

The way Francis tells the story you’d think that Andrea was a superhero.

---