That was fucking nothing.
I was just getting started.
Like I’d sworn to myself a long time ago, I’d bring hell to his door and make him experience my brutality up close.
It was time.
I’d end him.
For Natasha. For our kid. For the club. For me.
I slugged him hard in the gut, making him double over. Then I delivered a nasty uppercut to his chin, forcing his head to snap back, and a grunt to escape him.
He thrust his knee up, but I reacted swiftly, batting it away with my hand.
Another blow came my way, but I brought my arm down in an arc, deflecting it with ease.
“Dumb fucking kid,” he growled. “Think you can strike me with no fallout? You’re a dead man.”
“Yeah,” I seethed, punching him in the gut again. “I do.”
He grabbed wildly at the wall, trying to hold himself up.
I went in for another hit, but he dodged it, then darted around me, came up on my side and wrapped his arm around my neck, trying to choke me out.
“She weren’t in that cage, was she?” he asked. “No way Slade woulda let you be here for that, knowing how you feel about her.”
Human instinct when having someone or something exerting pressure around your windpipe was to grab at the offending object. But trying to break a strong grip like that was majorly unlikely, unless there was a crazy-ass strength disparity. Nah, you had to be smart and resist your natural instinct.
Fortunately, as a trained fighter, that was what I was all about.
Going for the weak spots.
I thrust my elbow back, driving into his diaphragm. The instant choking effect had him loosening his grip just enough to give me time to hook the back of his knee with my motorcycle boot, destabilizing him. That was all I needed to shift the balance and, with a sudden twist of my body, I spun us, slamming his back into the wall. Over and over, until it weakened his hold enough for me to rip his arm from around my neck. I spun out, away from him, raising my fists and shifting to a ready-for-anything fighting stance.
I took in his wearied, disheveled state.
I knew then. I knew I could take him.
I was stronger, faster, better trained.
Commotion from my left threatened to distract me.
In the ring, my focus was always entirely on my opponent. Any break in that was a recipe for defeat. But this situation was different. It wasn’t just a one-on-one battle. There were a load of players involved, a shitload of untamable variables flying about all over the place. It meant, I had to split my focus between Nik and the rest of the battlefield.
Fortunately, Nik was distracted too and as he looked over there, I took the opportunity to do the same.
I saw Rick a few feet behind me still trying to hold Slade back, mostly trying to use diplomacy. Just like the tactic he’d tried to use with me a few weeks back at that diner lot. Damn him for not being as fucked-up as the rest of the Strikers. He’d already demonstrated several times that he actually cared about Tasha, that he actually had more than just a shred of humanity left in him despite his time in Nik’s employ. The son of a bitch was redeemable.
And that complicated things for me.
Things weren’t so cut and dry when it came to him.
I couldn’t just let him suffer the same fate as all the other assholes surrounding him.
Fuck.
“Been a long time coming,” Nik told me, as he pushed off the wall and readied himself. “Shoulda never taken my woman, cuz punishment’s coming now, boy.”
“She was never yours,” I spat. “You’re a deluded madman. The only way to stop crazy is to put it to fucking ground. She’s never gonna have to look over her shoulder again. No more endless running. She’s gonna be free.”
He sneered. “My girls never get away. Just ask Slade.”
The threat in his words stabbed deep, hitting that place where I fought every day to keep my destructive rage buried. I sucked in a breath, clenching my fists tighter in a white-hot grip to try to hold it at bay. If I let it out I’d lose my ability for rational thought. I’d become a fucking rage monster whose only focus was dealing out pain, blood and death. Just like what’d happened with Mikhail.
I’d thought I’d moved past that fucked-up, out-of-control version of me.
But maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe it’d always be a part of me. Maybe it was just the case of hitting the right trigger and I’d fucking well lose it, lose myself.
Nah, I couldn’t accept that.
I couldn’t be that as a father, as a husband.
I had to do better.
And I had to start now.
“Nice try,” I told Nik, who was watching me closely, obviously hoping his words would’ve fucked with my head. He’d been keeping an eye on me, researching me for a long fucking time, ever since I’d gotten together with Tasha. He knew me well.
The old me.
A roar of fury tore from his throat and he lost it instead, unable to handle his failure to regain the upper hand by setting me off. He came at me hard and fast, his blows much harder to block than last time.
“She’s mine!” he bellowed. “You shit! Mine!”
I managed to hold him off despite the wild thing he’d become, ducking and weaving, blocking.
Then I came up after a deep crouch to evade a hit to the jaw and swung an uppercut at his. He grunted, his head snapping back. Then he stumbled.
I had my in to finish it.
Lunging at him, I tackled him to the ground.
I managed to gain the dominant position quickly, straddling him, pinning his legs to the ground with mine. Before I could incapacitate him completely, his hand shot forward so fast I didn’t see what he was
