"Your kind of female doesn't get to say no."
Okay, so the wrong thing to say, right there. Jim stepped into the path of the guys and spoke to the woman over his shoulder. "You all right?"
As she turned to him, it was clear by her hard face and her terrified eyes that she was keeping it together by force of will only. "Yup. Just taking a break."
"Why? Is your mouth tired already?"
Jim faced off at the guy who'd spoken. "Why don't you back the f**k off."
"Who are you? Another one of her pimps?" The SOB reached around and grabbed her wrist. "Why don't you let her do - "
Vin diPietro, who had closed the distance, moved like the street was still in his blood. Before Jim took action, he was on the unwelcome contact, catching the biceps of that arm and breaking the guy's hold on the woman by snapping the kid around. He didn't say a thing. Didn't have to. He was ready to pop the motherfucker, gray eyes no longer cool, but volcanic.
"Let go of my goddamn arm!" the punk yelled.
"Make. Me."
Jim glanced at the woman. "My buddy and I are gonna handle this. Why don't you grab a cup of coffee and tell those other two girls to hang with you. I'll give you a shout when the attitude adjustment is finished."
Her eyes drifted over to Vin. It was clear she didn't like accepting the help, but she wasn't stupid. Given the buzz in the college kids' eyes, there wasn't just booze fueling them, but some coke or meth, too. Which meant the chances of things going downhill fast were high.
"I'll call for a bouncer," she muttered as she opened the locker room door.
"Do me a favor," Vin said, still vapor-locked on his boy. "Don't call anyone."
She shook her head a little and ducked out of the hall.
And that was when the knife appeared in the quiet kid's hand.
Leaving Vin to deal with the chatty Cathy of the pair, Jim stepped forward and anticipated which direction the lunge with the blade was going to come from. Ah, yes, fidiot with the sharpie was going to cruise in from the right because he was right handed, so it was just a case of waiting -
Jim grabbed the guy in midcharge, snagging his wrist, whipping him around, and applying pressure to the joint until the weapon dropped to the floor. And just as he introduced the bastard's face to the wall, Vin broke into a fistfight, ducking a wide punch, then coming up with his bare knuckles like a boxer. His impact was a cracking stunner...but the trouble with illicit stimulants was that they carried, in addition to the possibility of felony and addiction, the certainty of anesthetic properties.
So the kid with the ugly, and now bloody, mouth didn't seem to feel a thing. He slammed a return hook into Vin's face and it was on. The pair of them went hog wild, turning the hallway into an MMA octagon - and check that shit out: Vin was both the aggressor and the punisher of the pair.
To give him plenty of room for the beat-down he was delivering, Jim dragged his deadweight out of the way, prepared to keep things civil as long as his load of crap kept the trouble and the opinions to a minimum.
Fucker had to open his mouth, though. Just had to: "Why do you give a shit what some whore does? She's just a heartbeat and a hole, for f**k's sake."
Jim's vision flickered on and off, but he got a hold of himself and glanced up at the ceiling. Sure enough there were pods at regular intervals - which meant this was all being recorded. Then again...he and Vin had been smart enough to let their opponents throw the first punch and take out the weapon, so legally they could argue self-defense.
But more to the point, two college-aged f**k-twits who'd been doing illegal drugs weren't going to want to report shit to the police.
So no reason not to finish this.
Jim tightened his hold on that wrist, secured another grabber on the upper arm, and yanked the kid back so he could whisper in his ear. "I want you to take a deep breath. Come on, now...concentrate. Calm down and take a deep breath for me. That's it..."
Jim squeezed and squeezed some more until pain cut off any struggle. And when there was plenty of compliance with the even breathing, he dislocated that arm right from its shoulder socket with a quick twist. The resulting scream was loud, but the music from the dance floor drowned out the echo. Which was why, all things considered, clubs were not a bad place for throw-downs.
As the kid sagged onto the floor, Jim knelt in front of him. "I hate hospitals. Just out of one myself. You know what they're going to do to someone with your kind of injury? They're going to put the arm back where it belongs. Here, let me show you."
Jim took the flopping limb and didn't bother telling the guy to breathe deep. He just applied the appropriate pressure so that the bone popped back into its home. No screaming this time - the SOB just passed out cold.
In the wake of his stab at being an ortho doc, Jim glanced up to see how things were going with the other half of the altercations - and got an eyeball full of Vin working his opponent's liver like it was bread dough. College Boy was wilting badly and looking royally licked, his hands up not to throw punches, but to ward them off...and his knees knocking together like his balance was going fast.
Which would have been great except for the fact they had trouble.
At the end of the hall, they were attracting attention, a clubgoer peering down the corridor. The lights were dim, but not that dim. They had to clear the f**k out. "Vin, we got to go," Jim hissed.
The newsflash didn't register, and that wasn't a surprise, given the brutal focus Vin was bringing to his fight. Shit, screw the peanut gallery; if he was allowed to keep this up, he was going to kill the guy. Or at least turn the fool into a linebacker-size vegetable.
Jim stood up, prepared to intervene with more than words.
Chapter 13
Vin was having a f**king ball.
It had been years since he'd thrown punches at more than a bag of sand in the gym, and he'd forgotten how good it felt to physically express his opinion of an ass**le - directly in the guy's face. Man, it all came back, the stance, the power, the focus.
He still had it. He could still fight.
The trouble was, like all good things, the party had to come to an end and it turned out not to be of the knocked-out-opponent variety - although given the way the college kid's pins were wobbling, if Vin had just a little longer...
But no, Jim broke up the fun, locking a heavy hand on Vin's shoulder and yanking him out of range. "We've got an audience."
Panting like an fin bull, Vin glanced up the hallway. Sure enough, a guy with glasses and a mustache was staring at them all, his expression like he'd been witness to a car accident.
Before anyone could react, however, the back door to the club swung open and an African-American man came striding down toward the melee, looking like he was capable of tearing the front fender off a car. With his teeth.
"What the hell is going on in my house?"
Vin's dark-haired woman stepped out from the locker room. "Trez, the two in the skull shirts are the problem."
Vin blinked like a dummy at the beautiful sound of her voice, but then he refocused and muscled his kid face-first into the wall. "Feel free to finish what I started here," he said to the club's owner.
Jim pulled his loose bundle of frat boy off the floor. "This one had the knife."
The Trez guy looked the kids over. "Where's the weapon?" Jim kicked the thing over and the owner bent down and picked it up. "Police been called?"
Everyone glanced at the woman, and as she shook her head, Vin found himself unable to look away. From across the club she'd made his heart pound; up close she made the thing stop dead: Her eyes were so blue they reminded him of a summer sky.
"I think these boys are done," Trez said with approval. "Nice work."
"Where do you want them?" Jim asked.
"Let's take 'em out back."
Look at me, Vin thought at the woman. Look at me again. Please. "Roger that," Jim said, and began hauling his load down the hall.
After a moment, Vin followed the example, pushing his guy along. When they came to the door, Trez opened the way like a perfect gentleman and stepped to the side. "Anywhere you like," the owner said.
Jim 'liked' the brick wall to the left, whereas Vin preferred the opposite side - Just as he dropped the kid on his ass, he froze.
The security lights around the door shone down over the heads of the boys, casting a solid blanket of illumination all the way to their feet. So their shadows should have been on the asphalt. They weren't. Both of them had dark halos on the brick behind their heads, a twin pair of smoky gray crowns that weaved ever so slightly.