Page 89 of Sins of Arrogance

So, he could write the an­swers I wanted.

I reach the branch cor­ri­dor just as the first in­truder, still cough­ing stum­bles into the laser net and gets lit up like a bug in a zap­per – non­lethal, but he won’t be walk­ing straight for a week. If he lives that long.

Chances are not good.

The other two fall back and try to turn but be­tween the gas they in­haled and the dis­ori­en­ta­tion lights, they have the grace of drunken seals.

An­other tap on my smart­watch and the laser net dis­ap­pears.

Then I wait.

I catch the first man as he rounds the cor­ner, arm raised, pis­tol swing­ing to­ward the mo­tion-ac­ti­vated light. Too slow.

I grab his arm and twist. The crack of bone is un­mis­tak­able. Clean. Sat­is­fy­ing.

He screams – but I’ve al­ready got him on his knees. A knee to his face and a blow to the back of the head and he’s out for the count.

The sec­ond man ap­proaches the same cor­ner with more cau­tion, his weapon raised. I put a bul­let in his foot as it slides into view. There’s a scream and a thud.

Round­ing the cor­ner, I kick the gun out of his hand and away from his body. I leave him for my men who should ar­rive in four…three…two…

“Got him boss.”

I’m al­ready sprint­ing af­ter the third man but raise my fist in ac­knowl­edge­ment.

He’s stum­ble-run­ning back to­ward the way they came in a fruit­less quest to get away.

He has no chance.

The ac­cess point is now be­hind a four-inch-thick steel wall.

I kick him in the back of the knee. His knee gives, but tougher than his co­horts, he doesn’t go down. He piv­ots to­ward me, gun raised. It’s wa­ver­ing though, his grip un­steady.

He gets a shot off. I don’t even flinch. It misses by a mile. He shoots again as I leap for­ward. Damn, that one was close enough for me to feel the air dis­place­ment as it passed by my head.

Grab­bing him by the front of his vest, I al­low our com­bined mo­men­tum to slam him into the wall hard enough to bounce his head off the con­crete. Blood splat­ters. Not enough.

But it’ll do for now.

“Who sent yiz?” I snarl, press­ing my fore­arm against his throat.

He tries to speak. I ease the pres­sure. Just enough.

“Fuck you,” he chokes out.

Well, now. Things just got in­ter­est­ing.

I smile. It’s not kind. “You’re not my type. Un­less you’re talk­ing about me fuck­ing you up.”

“Do your worst,” he snarls.

“You don’t know what you’re ask­ing for, boyo.” Conor comes up on my left. “The boss is deadly sav­age.”

“I didn’t ex­pect to find a knit­ting cir­cle down here.” There’s sar­casm, but no fear in my cap­tive’s voice.

“What did yiz ex­pect to find?” I de­mand. “And who told you about this place?”

The man just glares at me.