His body staggers and Tex is there. His fist is still following through from a right hook that caught Ron on the jaw and sent him stumbling into the bar stools.
Ron goes to one knee. He catches himself on a stool. He's dazed. The punch was a sledgehammer, delivered by a man with arms like bridge cables who has been waiting weeks for this exact moment, but he's not out.
Ron is tough. Ron has been in fights before. Ron is the kind of man who survives things because the cruelty in him has a survival instinct of its own.
He starts to rise.
Tex doesn't let him. He moves behind Ron with a speed that shouldn't be possible for a man his size. His arm goes across Ron's throat and his other arm pins Ron's arms to his sides. He locks his hands together and squeezes. Ron is trapped. Restrained. Held in place the way he held me in place for four years—unable to move, unable to fight, unable to do anything except take what someone else decides to give.
The irony is not lost on me.
Tex's eyes cut to me, sharp and quick. "This fucker's got a gun tucked in the back of his pants. Don't hit anywhere near it."
A gun.
He came here with a gun. What would have happened if Tex hadn't been here? If Ron had gotten me outside, into his truck, with a gun in his waistband and nobody watching. The scenario plays out in my head in half a second and then it's gone. Because Texishere. Ron isnotgetting me outside. And the gun is pinned against Tex's chest where it can't reach anyone.
"You piece of shit," Ron spits at Tex. His voice is strangled against Tex's forearm but the words come through, ragged and wet. "You don't know what he is. He's nothing. He's a fucking street rat I picked up out of the gutter. I made him. I fed him. I put clothes on his back and a roof over his head and he stole from me and ran like the ungrateful little—"
Tex tightens his arm. The words choke off. Then Tex loosens just enough to let Ron breathe, because Tex doesn't want him unconscious. Tex wants him awake. Tex wants him to see what's coming.
And then Tex looks at me and grins.
The big, wide, wild grin of a man who is having the best time of his life.
The grin of a man who loves chaos when the chaos is righteous and tonight the chaos is the most fuckingrighteousit's ever been.
"I've got him," Tex says. "Come here, baby, and take what is yours to take."
Take what is yours.
Suddenly I realize the real plan. This isn't Tex's revenge. It was never Tex's revenge. Every phone call, every plan, every piece on the board tonight—the bikers, Denny, the pink shirt, the sweatpants, all of it—was never about Tex beating Ron.
It was about this moment.
Tex holding Ron still so I could getmyrevenge.
So, I could be the one. So, the boy who never fought back could fight back.
My eyes burn. My throat closes. And then both of those things break open into rage. Pure, clean, fifteen years of rage that has been living in my body like a second skeleton, holding me up and weighing me down at the same time, and tonight the weight becomes fuel.
Behind me, I hear Sheila's massive purse hit the bar top and the clasp open.
"Hey, Stormy. Catch."
Something heavy and metal arcs through the air and I catch it one-handed without looking because my body is operating on a frequency that is beyond thought. My hand closes around it.Brass knuckles.Cold and heavy. The weight of them settles across my fingers like they were made for my hand.
"Make Mama Sheila proud, sugar," she says.
Then I hear her phone. The beep of a call connecting to 911. And Sheila's voice changes—higher, faster, panicked—the voice of a woman who is terrified and not performing. Except she is performing. She's performing the role of her life.
"Please, you have to send someone, a man just came into the bar and he's attacking my employee—he grabbed him, he has a gun, please hurry, Big Tex's Roadhouse on Front Beach Road—I've got to go, please just send someone!"
She hangs up. The call lasted eight seconds. The address is on record. The words attacking and gun are on record. That's all dispatch needs. That's all Mickey needs. The clock is ticking now. Twelve minutes. Maybe less. I've got to make every minute count.
I slide the brass knuckles onto my right hand and close my fist. The metal is cold against my knuckles, heavy. My fingers wrap the grip and my hand becomes something new. Not a fist. A weapon.
Ron is watching me. His eyes are above Tex's forearm, bloodshot, wild, the whiskey and the rage and the disbelief all churning together. He can't believe what he's seeing. He can't process that the boy he broke is standing in front of him with brass knuckles on his hand and fury in his eyes in a hot pink shirt. This does not compute. This is not how the story goes. The story is Ron takes. The boy says,yes sir. The boy does not hit back.
