Page 85 of Wicked Mafia Beast
Both men size each other up across the distance, measuring damage and reach. I can tell from the way they settle into their stances that this only ends when one of them stops breathing.
Brennan grins, showing teeth, and rolls his thick neck until it cracks. "There's the Russian beast." He spits again, a wet splat on the concrete between them. "I was starting to think you'd send the girl down and save yourself the trouble."
"I'm going to break both your arms." Kon says it the way he'd announce what he's cooking for dinner. Flat. Certain. A solid fact one can take to the bank. "Then I'm going to ask you where Seamus is hiding. You'll tell me. Everyone always talks for me just before they die."
I work my throat past the suddenly dry lump forming there. The implications of his words send shivers through my body. I mean, I know he’s a mafia man and has put bodies in the ground. It’s something entirely different to hear him talk about it.
"Big talk from a man defending a Malone whore."
Kon moves.
The collision shakes the floor beneath my feet. Two hundred and forty pounds of Bratva-trained muscle crashes into two hundred and fifty pounds of Irish enforcer and the impact sends a shelf of books cascading to the concrete, spines splitting, pages scattering.
Kon drives his fist into Brennan's ribs, a punch that connects with a sound that reverberates through my own chest, and Brennan absorbs it with a grunt and fires back, his elbow catching Kon across the jaw hard enough to snap his head sideways.
My feet won't move and I can't look away.
They grapple through the main floor, crashing through furniture, each man fighting for position. Kon lands a combination to Brennan's face that opens a cut across his cheekbone, blood streaming down his jaw. Brennan retaliates with a knee to Kon's midsection that doubles him for half a second before Kon straightens and drives his forehead into Brennan's nose.
The crack of cartilage is audible from the top of the stairs.
But I don't have time to watch because two of Brennan's men are coming up the stairs toward me.
I plant my feet on the top landing and wrap both hands around the gun the way Kon showed me, left hand supporting, right hand on the grip, arms extended. My stance is wrong and I know it's wrong, my feet too close together, my shoulders too tense, but there's no time to adjust because the first man is rounding the stairwell corner.
My entire mindset about life always being black and white gets a real dose of reality. I never saw myself wanting to kill another person. I am not my father or uncle. But I am a fighter.
Brennan’s flunky spots me, raises his weapon.
At my head.
Fuck that and fuck him.
I squeeze the trigger.
The recoil jolts up my arms and the shot goes low, punching into the man's kneecap. He screams and crumples, his gun clattering down the concrete steps. Pure luck. I was aiming for his chest.
Ohmygodwhatthehellisgoingonis all my brain is screaming as blood sprays across Kon's floor. But that is all the thinking time I get before a second man sends bullets flying in my direction before he dives behind the stairwell wall .
I fire again, the bullet sparking off the exposed brick, and the sound of the gun in this enclosed space is so loud my ears ring and my eyes water.
"She's got a gun!" The man shouts to his partners on the main floor. “She’s got a fucking gun, man!”
"And bad aim," I mutter, adjusting my grip with sweat-slicked palms. "But I've got plenty of bullets."
Except I don't know if that's true. I have no idea how many rounds are in this magazine. Kon showed me how to check but my hands are shaking too hard to attempt it.
The fight spreads through The Foundry and I move with it, abandoning the stairwell when a third man flanks from thehallway. I fire once, miss, fire again, and the bullet catches the edge of his shoulder.
“Bingo, bitches.”
He stumbles and I seize the opening to sprint through the kitchen, my bare feet slapping against cold concrete littered with broken glass from the shattered entrance.
A shard bites into my heel and I grit my teeth and keep running because stopping means dying and that is not in the cards for today.
A man rounds the corner from the training room and I don't have a clear shot. I grab the cast-iron skillet from the stove with my free hand, the same pan Kon uses to make eggs every morning, and I swing it with every fiber in my jacked up being. Thank you, adrenaline rush!
The heavy iron connects with the back of his skull with a dull, wet thud that vibrates up my arm and into my shoulder. He drops face-first onto the concrete and doesn't move.
