Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 113996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
When he keeled over with a groan, I stood over him. “Yeah, I felt that loud and clear, Willy. And I gotta say, it really wasn’t that impressive.”
“You fucking bitch… you gonna pay…” He spat, clutching his balls.
“So you keep saying.” I crouched down beside him and leaned closer so only he could hear me. “Just so we’re clear. If you ever try to put your hands on me again, I’ll fucking kill you.”
Rising to my feet, I pushed open the front door and burst into the mid-afternoon sun, making a sprint to my beat-up car parked in the alley behind the club. I hated being late to pick up Noah. We’d only been in Destiny for three months, and he really hadn’t made any friends in that time. He wasn’t a confident kid, no matter what I did to try and boost his self-confidence.
I sped across town, arriving twenty minutes late, panic flaring in me when Noah wasn’t waiting in his usual spot under the maple tree in front of the administration office.
I sent a text message to his phone. Where are you? Then checked the playground, the parking lot, and finally the bus shelter.
That was when I saw him.
With a stranger.
A stranger with tattoos up and down his arms.
A stranger in a Kings of Mayhem cut.
BULL
“Where’s your mama, kid.”
The kid was watching me intently, and I had a feeling those eyes of his didn’t miss a thing.
“I don’t have a mom. Just my sister, and she’s late picking me up.” He looked around the empty lot, and his gaze landed on the three punks watching us from up the street.
“They do that often?” I asked.
When he didn’t reply, I took a step toward him and he looked at me.
“They pick on you a lot, kid?” The look on his face told me I was right. “You spoken to your sister about it?”
He looked away and nodded. “But she calls the school and tells them, and that makes them meaner.”
“I see.” I drew in a deep breath as I thought about it for a moment. When I crouched down so I was eye-level with him, he looked up. “You wanna know what I do when someone is mean to me?”
He nodded.
“I defend myself. If I can’t talk my way out of shit—I mean, a situation—then I make sure I can fight my way out.”
I glanced at the kids up the street. Tommy was lighting a cigarette and started to cough. When the twins laughed at him, he shoved one of them in the shoulder.
Yeah, I wasn’t leaving this kid alone on the street with those little punks watching. Sure, they said it wouldn’t happen again, but I knew how kids were prone to temptation.
“Want me to show you how you can protect yourself while we wait for your sister to show up?”
The kid’s eyes lit up and he grinned. But it faded quickly. “She says I can’t talk to strangers.”
“Your sister sounds like a real smart lady. And she’s right, you shouldn’t. You got a name?”
“Noah.”
“That’s a pretty cool name, dude. You can call me Bull.”
“Your name is cooler than mine.” He glanced over at the kids still lurking at the end of the street. By the looks of it, the twins were trying to get Tommy to leave, but he wasn’t having any of it. He leaned against a streetlight, watching. Noah looked nervous. “I suppose we ain’t strangers no more.”
I smiled. “I guess not. That mean you want me to show you how to stop them if they try bullying you again?”
He nodded shyly.
I walked him through some simple block moves, and was surprised at how quick he picked it up. It was almost like he already knew some of them.
So, I showed him one or two moves you wouldn’t find in any martial arts handbook. Thug moves. Because when you needed to protect yourself against a thug, you needed to know how a thug moved.
After showing him the quickest way to get someone’s hand off you, I glanced up. The kids up the street were still watching us. Good. Let them see what this kid was about to learn. Maybe then they’d stop bullying him. The little fuckers.
But just as I was about to show him something else, I heard a feminine voice call out. I glanced up. A woman was storming across the parking lot toward us. And for God knows what reason, but in that moment the first thing that squirreled its way into my head was how fucking hot she was. Good body. Long legs in the shortest, tightest Daisy Dukes. An ample rack barely contained behind a black tank top. A thick ponytail trailing behind her.
When she reached us, I was taken back by the fire in her big brown eyes.
She looked like she was ready to kill me.