Better when He's Bold

I was on the back deck, the same back deck I had dragged Brysen across what felt like a lifetime ago. The back door had been fixed, but these college kids obviously hadn’t gotten any smarter. The one I picked to shake down was friends with the frat guy who had pulled the gun on me and subsequently ended up with a broken neck. When I hauled his drunken, struggling ass through the party crowd to somewhere that was more secluded, he had made a big production of calling me names, telling me he didn’t owe me shit, and trying to posture like he was some kind of big shot. The moron had already seen what happened when I got a gun pulled on me, and like his friend, he was too young and arrogant to have any kind of redeeming qualities as far as I could tell. When he took a sloppy swing at me, my paper-thin patience shredded.

Now I had the frat guy on his back with my knee firmly planted in the center of his chest. I had my forearm braced across his throat while he clawed at me with frantic fingers. His cheeks were billowing in and out as he struggled for air, but I refused to lessen my choke hold. His eyes were bugged out in his face and his skin was turning a sickly shade of blue, but I had no intention of letting him up.

“If he passes out he won’t be able to tell you anything.”

Bax sounded bored but he was right, so I lifted up my arm and balled up a fist. I cranked the college guy in the mouth with a sickening thud that immediately had his lips splitting in half and rivers of bright red blood coating his teeth and his chin. I made sure my knee ground as hard as it could into his breastbone as I climbed to my feet. The guy grunted and spit out a mouthful of blood.

“What do you want, Hartman? I don’t owe you any fucking money.”

He hoisted himself up on his elbows and glared at me from his prone position. I looked over at Bax, when his phone started to ring. He pulled it out of the pocket of his hoodie and lifted a dark eyebrow.

“Titus.”

I nodded as he took a few steps away to answer the call from his brother.

I crossed my arms over my chest and glowered down at my prey.

“You know Brysen Carter?”

Another mouthful of blood got coughed up and spit out. “Sure. She’s a babe, but she doesn’t party much and doesn’t come across as very friendly, so no one really messes around with her.”

“Someone shoved her down the stairs while she was going to class a few days ago. Who would want to do that to her?”

He groaned and levered himself up into a sitting position. “Fuck if I know. Like I said, she keeps to herself, she comes across as kind of a bitch, in all honesty. Maybe she pissed the wrong guy off.”

I narrowed my eyes even further. “What guy?”

“What’s it matter to you anyway? You screwing her?”

Seriously, this guy must have had a giant bowl of stupid for breakfast. I didn’t even think, I just leaned down a little and clocked him as hard as I could on the left side of his face. I felt my middle knuckle split open and the force of the blow had him yelling in surprise and listing off to the side. I shook my hand as I straightened back up and asked him again, “What guy?”

He lifted his hands up in surrender and gripped his head in his hands.

“She hangs around this guy named Drew Donner. He follows her around like a puppy. It’s pretty obvious he wants out of the friend zone, but Brysen isn’t budging. The guy is kind of intense and a little off. He transferred here a year ago and hasn’t made any attempt to hang out or party. All he does is tag along after Brysen. There was even a rumor going around for a while that he had some kind of breakdown when he couldn’t get himself into all of the same classes she was enrolled in because he didn’t have the right prerequisites. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t get all worked up over some chick that doesn’t put out.”

I just stared at him for a minute, trying to weigh the validity of his statements against everything I already knew. Brysen hadn’t mentioned this Drew guy at all.

I was going to ask the frat guy where I could find Drew when Bax’s hand landed on my shoulder. When I turned to look at him, my heart sank because his dark eyes were even blacker than normal. That meant bad news—really bad news.

“We have to go. Now.” His tone left no room for argument.

I dipped my chin down to indicate that I understood his unspoken urgency. I pointed at the college kid still sprawled at my feet.

“If you notice anything off, anything out of the ordinary with this Drew kid, you call me and let me know.” I turned on my heel and followed Bax back through the throng of drunken partygoers.

When we got to the Hemi, Bax looked at me over the roof of the car as we both pulled the doors open.

“That was Nassir. He’s been trying to call you for an hour.”

I bit off a string of dirty words. “Fight night was last night. He’s probably waiting for the payout. I had other things on my mind.”

“No. That’s not what he wants.” Bax arched an eyebrow until it almost reached his hairline. “The Pit exploded.”

I just stared at him like he was speaking a foreign language. “What?”

“Nassir said the entire place just went up in flames. The cops are on the scene and so is fire and emergency. He said the place was packed since it’s Saturday night.” He sighed and shook his head. “They’re pulling bodies out.”

Holy shit! That was majorly stepping up the game to show Nassir and myself that we didn’t have control of anything. That was making a point in a deadly and drastic way that couldn’t be ignored.

“How did someone get by all the security Nassir has surrounding that place?”