The kid glared at me. And then he made an enormous mistake.
He punched me.
He punched me in the gut…and it barely felt like anything. I’d gotten hurt harder stumbling into the edge of a kitchen table than I had from this kid’s punch.
But he had made the first move. He had, by all accounts, given me a free reign to bloody this little fuckhead. And judging by how wide his eyes went and how heavy his breathing became, he knew full well that he’d fucked up.
I grabbed him by the collar with one hand and pulled him to me. He clawed at my wrist, trying to free himself, but he was a scrawny little shit, probably couldn’t even bench press a hundred pounds.
“No, no!” he shouted. “Let me go! Let me go!”
I cocked back my fist.
“Connor!”
I pursed my lips. I hated that Katie had said my name out loud. Hopefully, little Marco here had so much fear going through him, he wouldn’t remember a damn thing about this moment.
“Take him outside. Get him the fuck off my property. Don’t bloody him here.”
I bit my lip, nodded, and looked back at the kid. I stomped on his phone with one of my boots, dragged him screaming outside of the store, took him behind the store, and literally threw him about five feet back.
“You’re lucky, kid,” I said. “You act like an asshole, don’t be surprised when people try and fuck you right back.”
“You’re the asshole!”
I rolled my eyes. I didn’t have time to deal with this.
“Come back into the store, and I knock you out next time,” I said. “And don’t test me.”
I spat on the ground just in front of him. I walked back to the store, barely remembering that I’d come here in the first place just to get some fucking gas.
“My brother will kill you!”
Fuck. He is Damian’s little shithead of a brother.
I paused, turned, and glared at little Marco. His brother was a Bandit. His brother was one of the three to rape Rachel. His brother had caused us so much trouble and drama.
“Not if I kill him first.”
The kid had no comeback for that. I walked into the store, standing guard until I saw the kid get on the bike, flip me off, and then drive away.
“What a shithead,” Katie said.
I nodded. It might have been the last time Katie would have to deal with him. He probably would move to the next store, causing as much bullshit there as he had here.
But if he was going to invoke Damian, then this was definitely not the last I had seen of him. In some respects, I suppose it didn’t matter since the Bandits and the Black Reapers already hated each other. But making it personal had a way of making it that much more bloody and violent.
“You fine?” I said.
“I could have handled him myself,” Katie said. “I deal with shoplifters and assholes all the time.”
“You don’t deal with the brother of one of the most dangerous Bandits on a regular basis.”
“Who is his brother?”
“Damian.”
Katie tilted her head to the side as if amused at my line of reasoning.
