I’d also clocked Tex sitting at the bar with a bottle of Bud in front of him. I didn’t look at him, but I clocked him. Then again, with his mass, that would be hard not to do.
Brian, I didn’t see and I didn’t look. I knew Brian enough, if he told Lee he was in place, he was.
I ordered a bottle of Fat Tire and waited, phone on the table by my beer, pepper spray in my back pocket.
At three seventeen, I was getting antsy.
It was then the front door opened and they came in.
I knew it was them right away. I knew this not because they looked like their mug shots (they didn’t), but because there were two of them and one was slight, wiry and looked as whiney and weasely as he sounded on the phone.
But the other one was big, brawny and I knew instantly he was not only the muscle, he was the brains.
And he was not to be messed with.
I also felt it. The prickle at the back of my neck and the charge of my adrenaline flowing.
They were not here to negotiate. I had no idea what they had planned but they offered deference in an attempt to outfox me and get my ass right where it was. This meant, regardless of any connections I had that they’d put together, they did not take me seriously.
It also meant they had something up their sleeve.
And last, it meant it was highly unlikely I had five to ten minutes to give to Lee.
I turned to face their way on my stool at the same time I casually ran my hand through my hair from top to back then let my hand fall to the table. I wrapped the fingers of my other hand around the beer bottle which, if broken against the side of the table, could be used as a weapon.
And I didn’t take my eyes off them.
They no sooner got their asses on their stools than I felt a presence at my back, close, and something that couldn’t be mistaken pressed hard to my ribs.
They had a soldier inside, and he wasted no time moving on me and jamming the barrel of a gun into my flesh.
Not.
Good.
I gave no headspace to what this might mean—this soldier free to make his move—if Brian or Tex didn’t clock him or if they did and they had some plan.
I needed to remain clearheaded and calm.
I also needed to remain alive so I could have my red and black Pope-approved nuptials then give Ren babies.
In my head I whittled the length of Ren and my fuck-a-thon down to two years prior to making babies and whispered to the men at my table, “You don’t waste any time.”
“No woman fucks with me,” the big-guy-brains-of-the-crew growled at me.
“Uh, just saying, I didn’t fuck with you. You fucked with me,” I pointed out.
“Okay then, I don’t waste time fuckin’ around with women unless I’m actually fuckin’ them,” he amended.
Well, he’d proved that.
“Now, you’re gonna come easy. Leave your phone,” Whiney Guy ordered.
“And if you’re thinkin’ your backup is gonna see to things,” Brawny Guy added. “The black dude with the tattoo outside is outta commission.”
Fuck.
Fuck!
That was Ike, one of Lee’s men. And I did not like to think with the cold dead I saw in Brawny Guys’ eyes what his definition of “outta commission” could be.
Fuck.
I let go of my beer and slid off my stool.
The presence behind me moved with me.
Calmly, I cleared the table and headed to the door as Whiney Guy and Brawny Guy flanked me.
Suddenly the presence behind me disappeared. I took this as what I hoped it would be, Tex or Brian instigating their plan, and I flew into action.
As Tex pounded a fist in the face of the guy who had been behind me and he went flying into a table, losing purchase on his gun, I turned to the primary threat, Brawny Guy. I got my hand around his package. Once there, I twisted and squeezed and I did this with no mercy.
He made a high-pitched noise that made the backs of my teeth ache before his knees buckled and he went down hard. I bent with him, let him go then came up, at the same time jerking up my knee and catching him hard under his jaw.
He flew back and I roundhouse kicked him in the cheekbone with my boot. It was then he flew to the side, and I knew by the way his face hit floor without him trying to break his fall he was out.
Before I could turn my attention to him, Whiney Guy caught me by my hair. It hurt like a mother but I yanked it loose, turned on him, and aimed a hard punch at his throat.
