Protect & Serve(129)

Kevin kicked the chair away and started to advance toward me.

“I’m warning you, Kevin, you need to leave me alone.”

His eyes were unfocused and his gait unsteady.

“Just turn around and leave. You’ll thank yourself when you sober up.”

“It’s been such a long time,” he said. “I think we should give it one more chance. What do you say?”

I was backed up into the corner.

“Not another inch closer.” My own anger was starting to rise.

“What are you going to do? Are you going to scream for help? Don’t be ridiculous. I’m your boyfriend.”

When he leaned forward to take another step, I didn’t even think twice about what I was going to do.

I grabbed the heavy, metal stapler from the corner of the table and winged it at his head.

He was slow to react. The stapler hit its mark dead-center on his smug face. He reeled back in surprise and his nose immediately started gushing blood.

“Jesus, Bria!”

Kevin’s right heel caught on the table leg as he was stumbling backward. He fell in a heap.

“What the fuck did you do that for?” he screeched.

“I told you not to come any closer,” I said.

“You’re fuckin’ crazy!”

“Listen up you asshole. I gave you plenty of warning. What did you think was going to happen?”

He scrambled to his feet, clutching his shirt to his nose.

“I’m not done with you, bitch. You’re going to come to your senses soon and start begging me to come back. And when you do I’m not going to forget this little incident.”

Kevin ran up the stairs, grumbling and cursing. The door slammed behind him and I was able to exhale.





17





Luke





I danced around him, letting my impeccable footwork put me in position to strike. When he lunged forward with a sloppy right hand I easily stepped out of range and made him pay with a stinging right hand.

I couldn’t remember his name. It didn’t matter. He was new to the gym and trying to make himself known. So many of these guys came in lacking the proper respect. They thought if they could put on a good performance against me or one of my top guys then people would take notice. They’d go too hard in sparring sessions and break the rules to get their recognition.

The problem was, I knew exactly how to play this little game…

And I always play to win.

I circled away from his power side, barely dodging one hell of a haymaker. Every ounce of muscle was behind that punch, but his brain sure as hell wasn’t. He left himself wide open as I popped him with a series of stiff jabs. His head was snapping back like a Pez dispenser and I could see he was beginning to regret his strategy.

Fighters tend to get desperate when they get hurt. They throw sloppy, looping punches that are easy to duck and counter.

I tagged him with a straight right hand, sending him staggering. I was on autopilot. Years upon years of sparring had given me the insight to destroy amateur fighters. I knew what he was going to do before he did.

Since my phone call with Bria this morning, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her Ex. Who the fuck was he to bother her at work?

My sparring partner made a haphazard grab to take me to the ground. I shut him down with my superior upper body strength then hit him with a knee to the belly that drove all of the air out of him.

She had said he was a lawyer, but he worked for a different firm. I could imagine that stuffed-shirt asshole thinking he could waltz back into her life and get whatever he wanted. It made the muscles in my neck stiffen just thinking about it. I bit down on my mouth piece and charged forward to relieve a little stress.

I threw a combination to the body that only reinforced the damage I had done with the knee seconds earlier. He was having trouble catching his wind. When he dropped his hands to protect from another blow to the ribs, I unloaded with a barrage of head shots.

The first was a right cross that almost took him off his feet. I love the way a fighter’s eyes go vacant when they get hit with a clean punch to the temple. It doesn’t matter how big or strong you are, if you get hit in the right spot, with just the right amount of precision, you’re going to be on wobbly legs.

He threw his hands up and tried to feign that he was okay. It was a tactic fighters had used since the dawn of time to slow their opponents. In the octagon if you showed any weakness at all, you were done for. I was never fooled. I always smelled the blood in the water.

I swung another right, this time an uppercut, and it went right through his compromised guard like a hot knife through butter. The force of the punch lifted his heels off the ground. He fell back into the cage. It was the only thing keeping him upright.