Chapter 12 #2
Water rolled off my shoulders and dripped from my hair as I leaned over him while he slapped and grappled against my forearm with both hands.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
He slapped my arm again, his tongue bulging out from between his lips. I was loosening my grip so he could answer when the distinct cock of a gun filled the air. The flash of metal barely registered as the muzzle of a pistol came close.
I acted on instinct, releasing the man I’d been choking to throw my arm out and wrap my hand around the gun.
The man brandishing it sneered. “You think I won’t pull the trigger? Bullet will go right through your hand and into your face.”
I yanked, and his feet slid out from under him. Flailing, he let go of the gun and landed on his back, all the air whooshing out of him.
Using the gun they’d brought to the party, I rose to my full height and turned it around on them. “Who are you?” I repeated, barely out of breath.
A body leaped over the tile wall from the stall on the other side, dropping on top of me.
We both went down in a tangle of limbs, water spraying everywhere.
I hit with a grunt, the wet, unforgiving tile a jolt to my sore muscles.
The gun lost to the floor, I scrambled up as the third man swung his fist. I ducked just before it landed and caught him around the waist, bulldozing him backward into the tile.
We grappled for a few minutes, the water making it hard to get a good grip or solid punch.
“Get off your assess, morons!” he hollered when my knuckles grazed his nose.
His friends jumped to their feet, and I grabbed the third by the front of his jacket and swung him around, using him like a battering ram to knock them back.
All three men landed in a groaning pile on the floor. Keeping my eyes on them, I squatted and picked up the gun.
I wouldn’t shoot them. We were in a public gym, for fuck’s sake. But they didn’t know my limits.
“Who are you?” I spat, shifting from one foot to the other.
The guy with a ring of bruises around his neck moaned and lifted his head, eyes going straight to my exposed dick. “Put your fucking dick away.”
“Jealous?” I said, not bothered in the slightest that it was hanging out.
His face turned scarlet, and he leaped up, rage twisting his face. “You son of a—ahhh!” he screamed when I slammed my foot into his knee, crippling him instantly. He dropped to the floor, pulling his dislocated kneecap into his chest while whimpering with pain. “You broke my fucking knee!”
One of the other guys lunged, and I swung the pistol, clocking him in the temple.
“Fuck this,” he spat from where he landed beside his busted friend. “This was supposed to be easy.”
I raised a brow. He thought this was hard?
The lone man still left standing yanked a gun from his jacket and leveled it at me.
“Better shoot to kill,” I said, calm. “Because if I’m not dead, you will be.”
His gun wavered slightly, the confidence in his ability for a kill shot clearly lacking. I waited him out. It took about three seconds.
The gun dropped to the side of his leg. “Answer your goddamned phone the next time it rings.”
That’s what this was about? Incredulous, I stalked forward, feet splashing through the water. The gun came back up, and I slapped it away. “You’re holding a gun on me for a few missed calls?” I barked.
“No one ignores the boss,” one of the men on the floor said.
I cocked my head to the side and studied him. His temple was bleeding. “Who’s your boss?”
The one with the ring of bruises around his throat shifted, and I tensed. He held up his hands in surrender. “I’m getting my phone.”
I nodded once, and he quickly pulled it out and pushed it against his ear. Whoever he called answered on the first ring.
“I have him,” he said into the line. A moment later, he held the phone out. “He wants to talk to you.”
I didn’t move.
He shook the phone at me impatiently.
I pursed my lips. “Put it on speaker.”
His brows pinched. “Why?”
I shrugged. “You want me to talk, put it on speaker.”
“Do it,” a muffled voice said on the line.
“Mr. Vaughn.” My name came through the speaker loud and clear.
I didn’t like that he knew my name, and I didn’t know his, so I didn’t speak.
A long, silent moment stretched. If this guy was waiting for me to break first, he was in for a disappointment.
He cleared his throat. “I have a job for you.”
“I’m not interested.”
“Ten million up front. Cash.”
“No.”
The three men in front of me gaped.
“You don’t like money?” the voice on the line questioned.
“I don’t like being accosted in the shower and offered a job from a man whose name I don’t even know.”
More silence. Then, “This is Nicholas Grimaldi.”
Surprise shot through me. Nicholas Grimaldi was the second-in-command to the most powerful mafia in Buffalo.
Then, as if his name would somehow sway me, he said, “About the job—”
“I said no.”
“It wasn’t a yes or no question.”
I was curious. “Don’t you have people in house to do your jobs?”
“This job requires the best. Which is you.”
He was right. I was the best. But so far, I’d managed not to get tangled up with the modern mob of Buffalo. “I don’t shit where I sleep,” I told him.
“You’ll make an exception.”
Like hell I would. Once you got tangled with Matteo Salvatore, you never got free.
“I said no. I meant it. If you send more men after me, they’ll come back in body bags.”
“I’ll send you an address. You have forty-eight hours.” The call disconnected.
“I’m not doing it,” I told Grimaldi’s men as they started to retreat.
“It’s your funeral,” the one I’d pistol-whipped retorted.
Did they think that would scare me? It didn’t. I admit Matteo Salvatore’s power over Buffalo and even parts of Canada was impressive. No one fucked with him.
But he was about to find out no one fucked with me either.