“Why don’t you take a second, Mr. Mayfair?” he says, flashing his teeth at me. “Think this through a little. Can’t take back rash decisions, you know.”
I’m done with talking to this guy. I’m done wasting breath telling him the same thing over and over again. I take a step to the right. The guy follows me with his gun, a hard light glinting in his eyes, as if he’s seen the resolve in mine and recognized it for what it is—my absolute desire to cause him pain. He’s watching my right hand, waiting for me to try and knock his weapon out of his hand with my left, so I can bring my fist crashing down into his face, but that’s not what’s about to happen.
I lunge, stepping in to him, raising my arm so that his wrist is between my ribcage and my bicep. Further. I step in further, and I bring my arm down, trapping him at the elbow between my arm and my chest.
“Motherfucker,” he snarls, trying to spin the gun so he can shoot me with it, but he can’t. He’s locked at the joint, straining, trying to pull himself free of me. I can see in his eyes that he knows just how futile that course of action will be. His cigarette’s dropped from his mouth, and it’s now burning merrily between his body and mine, singeing a hole in my t-shirt, biting at the skin of my stomach. I’m sure it’s burning him, too, but neither one of us move to angle our bodies away from one another. This is what they teach you when handling livestock: get too close for the animal to kick. If either of us twists our torsos away, we’re giving the other the chance to strike at full force.
“You’re dead,” the Italian snaps. “You’re just one man. You think you can defy the entire east coast mafia? You’re a fucking lunatic.”
I’ve never been one for shrugging. It’s always seemed like such a half measure. I like to be decisive in my body language as well as in my words. Right now, a shrug seems to convey how little I fucking care about the east coast mafia, though. I hitch one shoulder, inching my face closer to the Italian’s. “I defy anyone who tries to bend me to their will, asshole. I say to all comers, Fuck. You. I say try and kill me if you fucking dare.”
My head comes crashing down on his. Even before I opened a fight gym and spent ninety percent of my day perfecting my MMA techniques, I knew how to deliver the perfect head butt. The flat of my forehead connects with his face, just above the bridge of his nose, right between the eyes, and blood explodes everywhere.
“Jesus!” The move takes him by surprise. A loud, ear-splitting crack tears the air in two behind me; he’s fired the gun. Across the street, a dog starts howling. The Italian shuffles his feet, trying to plant one behind me so he can pitch me over his hip in a judo throw, but like I said…ain’t my first time at the rodeo. While he’s trying to shimmy one leg past mine, struggling against me, I finally do hit him. I tighten my hand into a fist, raise it back as far as I can, maybe only five or six inches, and then I slam it down. I don’t go for the face. The human skull, despite looking kind of fragile when stripped back, is actually really fucking strong. Its armor is designed to protect the brain, the most vital organ in the entire body, so of course it’s going to be able to take a bit of a beating. The neck, on the other hand…
I land my fist straight into the Italian’s trachea. I feel gristle and cartilage twist and crunch underneath my knuckles as I grind them into his neck. The Italian sags to the side, eyes bulging out of his head as he tries to get away, but I have a good hold on him now and I sure as shit ain’t letting go. The gun goes off for a second time. I feel the bullet buzz my back, and I realize I’ve given my opponent a little too much room to maneuver in the scuffle. Time to fix that.
While he’s choking, making unpleasant gurgling sounds, desperately trying to pull a meager breath of air through his crushed wind pipe, I release him, side step to the right, twist his arm before he can re-aim his weapon, and then I bring it down over my knee as hard as I can. I don’t ease the intensity of the downward pressure I’m applying until I feel bone snap.
“Arrrggghhhh!” A string of expletives pours from the guy’s mouth in Italian. His arm has broken with such force that I can see the jagged edge of his radius poking though the thin material of his shirt.
A dark satisfaction fills me from the tips of my toes to the roots of my hair. No way that’s ever going to heal right. I didn’t hear the Italian’s gun clatter to the floor in amongst all of his screaming, but there it lays on the side walk, half kicked underneath the Denali, only the butt of the handle visible from where I’m standing. I reach down and scoop it up, while the man in front of me clutches at his arm with his good hand. His face is white with shock, aside from his nose and his mouth, which are covered in a river of blood.