“Evening, gentlemen.”
The big one sets down his pool cue. “The fuck are you?”
“Someone who wants to talk.” I keep my hands visible, voice calm. “You boys did some work in Ravenwood last week. I want to know who paid for it.”
Laughter. The kind that's meant to intimidate.
“You lost, pretty boy?” Neck Tattoo steps closer. “This ain't the part of town for guys in nice jackets.”
“I'm exactly where I need to be. And I'm offering you an easy way out of this conversation.” I meet his eyes. “Tell me who hired you, and we walk away. No trouble.”
He looks past me at Maddox, Logan, and Ethan. Sizes them up. Makes the wrong calculation.
“Get the fuck out of my clubhouse.”
I sigh. “Wrong answer.”
He swings first.
I slip his haymaker and drive my fist into his solar plexus. He doubles over, gasping. I bring my knee up into his face. Cartilage crunches. Blood sprays.
He doesn't go down. The big ones never do.
He barrels into me, shoulder catching me square in the chest. We crash into the pool table. The edge bites into my lower back. I twist, throw an elbow that connects with his temple, but he's already swinging again. His fist clips my shoulder, sends pain shooting down my arm. I block the next one, barely. His ring tears a line across my forearm.
To my left, glass shatters. Ethan has Ponytail by the throat, lifting him off his feet before slamming him through the bar top. Wood splinters. Ponytail doesn't get up. Ethan turns toward the young one scrambling for the door, catches him with a single punch to the kidney. The kid crumples.
Maddox moves like water. Scarface pulls a knife. Maddox sidesteps, catches his wrist, twists. The knife clatters to the floor. A strike to the throat, another to the knee. Scarface is down, gasping, Maddox's karambit at his jugular.
Logan intercepts a bottle aimed at my head. Grins at Ponytail's friend trying to rise from the broken glass. “Stay down, mate.” A boot to the chest settles the argument.
I grab a pool ball and crack it against Neck Tattoo's skull. This time, he goes down.
I straighten, breathing hard, take stock. Maddox has Scarface pinned against the wall, blade at his throat, looking like he could hold that position all night. Logan wipes blood from a split lip. Ethan stands over two bodies, chest heaving, taped knuckles dark with blood that isn't his.
“Which ones were at the school?” I ask Maddox.
He tilts his head toward Neck Tattoo, then Scarface. “Those two.”
I walk over to Neck Tattoo, clutching his broken nose, blood streaming through his fingers. My knuckles throb. The cut on my forearm is bleeding. My shoulder is screaming.
I crouch to his level.
“Let's try again. Who hired you for Ravenwood?”
“Fuck you.”
I grab his hand and bend his index finger back until he screams. The joint pops, not quite breaking. Not yet.
“I asked you a question.”
“I don't—“ He gasps as I apply more pressure. “I don't know his name!”
“Then tell me what you do know.”
Maddox releases Scarface, who crumples to the floor. He walks over, crouches beside me, knife resting on his knee.
“The thing about pain,” Maddox says, voice almost conversational, “is that most people don't understand how much the body can take before it breaks. I do.”
