Submission Specialist(Still a Bad Boy #2)(34)

“Sor- oof!”

His fist struck my stomach, knocking the wind out of me. He’d been standing close enough that I didn’t think anybody else saw the punch, and before I had half a chance to recover, he gave me a shove backwards that sent me to the floor, smashing my elbow against a metal railing.

Pain flared from my funny bone, sending an electric sting all the way down my arm. Some people who saw him push me looked like they were in shock. Others, who didn’t, simply thought that I fell, and I heard them laughing at me.

Whoever this guy was fed off that laughter and seemed to puff back up as I sat there with one arm folded over my stomach and the other hanging uselessly at my side. My breath came in a painful rasp and my vision was blurred with tears.

“Get the fuck offa me you drunk bitch,” he said. “Don’t you know who I am?”

“Hey, I know you!” said a voice I knew well.

Austin came from behind and passed me on my right. The guy in the suit barely had time to turn in Austin’s direction before my husband planted a front push-kick on him that launched him clear off his feet, hitting the corner of the bar in his ribs before landing awkwardly on his back.

The bigger of the guy’s two friends stepped in front of Austin. “Whoa, man, stay out of this!”

Without any pause, Austin scored his second knockout of the night with a right hook, and suit number two fell to the ground by his friend, who was trying to struggle to his feet.

“Aren’t you that cunt who can’t fuck anymore?” Austin shouted, and stomped him right in the nuts, hard enough that I wouldn’t have been surprised if a broken pelvis resulted.

The man’s screams were blood-curdling, and the number of people who had fallen victim to shock when I was first pushed to the ground skyrocketed. Austin shot suit number three a look, and the guy’s hands went up as if Austin had pointed a gun at him, like they were on strings.

I started to get my breath back as Austin bent down to lift one of the guy’s feet up off the ground. Before I could understand what he was doing, I heard a sickening crunch and the screams were reinvigorated.

“Aren’t you the shit-for-brains that can’t walk anymore?”

Austin dived on top of him, grabbing a fistful of the guy’s hair and holding his head against the floor. Gripping suit number two’s hair in his other hand he started using the unconscious man’s head as a blunt weapon, pulping the guy’s face.

“Aren’t you that motherfucker who has to eat his food through a straw?” Austin frothed.

It was terrifying to watch. All that power and training Austin had, all that rage and violence inside him, focused on men who had no chance whatsoever. Teeth were flying and the guy who punched me wasn’t even moving anymore.

Bouncers swarmed in, and most were sent reeling backwards even though Austin was on the ground. Some fell themselves, clutching their knees, or broken fingers, but eventually enough of them got a good enough grip that they were able to pull him away.

I sat on the floor, dumbfounded by how quickly things had turned from perfect to… whatever you called this chaos. The next thing I knew, Emily and her boyfriend were pulling me to my feet and rushing me out of the club.





Chapter 17

Austin

When I pushed the door to my bedroom open, Skylar was there in front of the mirror. She was holding up her shirt and having a look at her stomach, where the bruise that had once been a perfect imprint of a set of knuckles was now out of focus and faded to a sickly yellow color.

Just seeing that mark on her made me want to fucking maim somebody. I’d told Ian, Ross and Robbie that if I ever saw that asshole out of his wheelchair, I’d put him back in it.

I would have told the police too, if the NHBFC lawyers hadn’t kept me from making any statements. Skylar dropped her shirt and turned around as I let myself fall backwards on to the bed.

“Didn’t hear you come in,” she said. “So?”

I laced my fingers together over my forehead and closed my eyes as I took a deep breath. The mattress shifted slightly as Skylar climbed on, and a moment later I felt her hand gently tracing random patterns around my chest and stomach.

With all the meetings with lawyers, NHBFC management, police bullshit, the media and every other fucking thing, it felt like we hadn’t had a spare second to ourselves in a month. Skylar had been like a little rock throughout the whole thing, her support was unwavering and went light years beyond what Robbie and his team of writers had cobbled together for her in this clusterfuck.

I could feel her there, right next to me. Lately, it felt like that all the time, whether she was physically with me or not. The way she was touching me now was like a fan blowing back the clouds of blinding rage that threatened to creep in every time I thought about that motherfucker in the club.