Brawl (16 page)

Looking between Angelo, who’s walking my way after cooling down from his training session with Gabbi, and Nate who’s standing next to me, I raise an eyebrow in question.

“Either of you know what that’s about?”

Identical blank stares and synchronized shrugs answer my question. They’re as confused as I am.

“It was her sister. Something’s happened at her house. That’s all I heard before she ran out of here.” Jep walks out of the locker room with concern etched on his face and answers my question. “It sounded bad—screaming in the background and shit.”

A panicked urgency grips me and I dash for my office. Yanking open my filing cabinet with enough force to pull the drawer off its rail, it clatters to the floor at my feet. Riffling through the files until I find Gabbi’s, I pull out the sheet with her home address on it.

“Nate, come with me.” I shout over my shoulder as I haul ass for my truck. “Angelo, lock up the gym for me.”

Slamming my door shut, I have the truck started and have thrown it into reverse before Nate climbs into the front passenger seat. A second door closes behind me in an echo of Nate’s and I glance in the rear-view mirror. Jep has got in the vehicle as well.

Arching an eyebrow at him, I get a sheepish shrug in return. I guess he has to start making amends for his fuck up somehow...right now seems like a pretty good fucking time.

With Nate shouting out directions to Gabbi’s house as he reads them on his phone, we make it to the other side of the city in record time. Pulling into a fancy looking Mac-Mansion, I park my truck behind Gabbi’s car. She’s got out of it in a rush, leaving her driver’s door and the front door to the house open.

“Stay behind me,” I caution the boys, handing Nate the tire iron I keep behind my driver’s seat and passing Jep my baseball bat. As for me? Well, my fists should probably be registered as a dangerous weapon in their own right, but I grab the axe handle that I pared down as a weapon out of my hiding spot under my seat, just in case.

Sydney’s known for having quite a few hot spots that you shouldn’t frequent without a weapon, and as a typical Type A personality, I believe in being prepared. Although, I’ll admit that our current location isn’t one of them. Gabbi lives in apparent comfort in one of the more exclusive areas of the city. A world away from the working class suburb where I built my gym. 

“Ready?” I don’t wait for their answer, heading into the house through the widen-open main entry. Silence meets me until I’m almost at the end of the long hallway that’s led us deep into the house.

“Put him down.
Please,
” Gabbi sounds determined but the slight wobble in her voice telegraphs her terror. “He’s only a little boy. I promise I’ll get you the money she owes you, I just can’t give it to you now.”

“Not fucking good enough. That whore let me spend my money on her for weeks, making promises that we’d be together. That I was the only one. Then I find her with some other cunt balls deep in her tonight—”

Picking up my pace due to the hostility in the man’s voice, I round the corner into a spacious kitchen and find a big, balding bloke holding a sobbing little boy who’s dressed in pajamas with cartoons on them. Gabbi and a tall blonde girl shoot anxious looks in our direction from their position opposite him, their fear thick enough to taste. I’m trying to work out why Gabbi’s rooted to the spot with her hands in fists, instead of putting this fucker on his back, like I know she’s more than capable of doing when the asshole notices their distraction.

“Big mistake, girlies. You’ve fucked up bringing someone else into this.” The man holding the boy hostage points a long serrated edged blade in my direction, before taking two steps away from me. The glint of the knife as he waves it around to scare me off answers my question about Gabbi’s inaction. Then, his odd wording alerts me to Jep and Nate’s absence at my back, which I verify with a quick, subtle look over my shoulder.
Where the fuck are they?

A slight movement behind the intruder alerts me to Nate and Jep’s position. They’ve found a different route into the house and have surrounded the fucker. Flicking my gaze in Gabbi’s direction, I widen my eyes then look at Nate. She catches on straight away, putting a step between herself and the blonde girl, straightening her posture ready to attack if I give the signal.

“Put the kid down and I won’t hurt you as much.” Using my don’t-fuck-with-me voice, I give the dickhead one chance to get out of this with his head still attached to his shoulders.

“Fuck off, cunt. Unless, you got my money, this has nothin’ to do with you.”

Shaking my head at his obstinate refusal to realize that that was his only opportunity, I incline my head so Nate and Jep know it’s going down now before launching myself across the space between us. Dropping my axe handle to the floor, I grab the wrist of the hand holding the knife and snap it with one efficient moment. He howls with pain and then drops to his knees. Grabbing the boy before he hits the floor, I shove him in Gabbi’s direction.

Nate and Jep contain the asshole while I check over the crying boy. He doesn’t appear hurt in any way, although he flinches away from me when I lift his head to have a look at him, burying it in Gabbi’s neck and snuggling as far into her as he can. She holds him tight and croons to him, soothing him with words and continuous back rubs.

The blonde girl comes out from behind the kitchen counter, where she must have crouched when the situation escalated. I spot red swelling that’s quickly turning into a bruise on her left cheek.

“He do that to you?” I point at her face.

“Yeah, he backhanded me when he forced his way through the front door.”

A red haze of fury filled with a primal need to inflict my wrath on her attacker overcomes me at her confession. I turn back to the asshole, who’s still bellowing from the pain of his broken wrist. Nate has one arm around his throat in a choke hold, hyperextending his torso as he holds his sagging form upright on his knees. Jep appears to have laid one on him, a split lip that wasn’t there when we arrived dripping blood down his chin. 

I don’t wait for him to register my attention on him, swinging my right leg out in a roundhouse kick that sends him flying face first onto the fancy white tiles of the floor. Grabbing as much of his hair as I can, I lift the fat fuck’s head from the floor and punch him repeatedly in the face. Each strike increases my anger, the red haze gaining intensity as I lose myself in the craving to kill him for daring to lay a hand on innocent kids.

“Hooligan!” Nate grabs my arm and tries to pull me away from the now-unconscious fucker. “Fucking hell, you’re gonna kill him.”

The shouted words are heard by my homicidal brain but they aren’t heeded. Wrenching my arm out of Nate’s grasp, I resume punching him again and again until a leg sweeps my feet out from underneath me, sending me to the floor. Instinct takes over and I grab my assailant, twisting my body and dragging them to the floor with me. Rolling in a shoulder roll that leaves them pinned under me, it takes me a few seconds to recognize that it’s Gabbi under me.

“What the fuck?”

Twisting her lips in a grim mockery of a smile, she squeezes out a wheezing protest. “Get off me. I can’t breathe.”

Jumping to my feet, I pull her upright in one swift motion. Patting her down, I check for any injuries. Finding none, my next move feels more natural than breathing. Seeing that she’s shaken as fuck with what went down, I pull her against my chest and wrap my arms around her. Moments later, I feel her arms slide around my waist, her fingers linking at the small of my back. I push her against me and she takes a step closer, her breast pillowing against me, her cheek resting on my left pectoral. I can’t begin to describe how good she feels in my arms.

With my chin resting on the top of her head, the tension in my shoulders relaxes and I search the room for clues as to what happened. The two kids that I’m assuming are her little brother and sister are huddled together, the blonde girl stroking the little boy’s brown hair and they’re both staring at their sister in my arms like they’re seeing a miracle.

“What money did he want?” Nobody seems to be forthcoming with details, the only sounds coming from the shallow, raspy breathing of the unconscious guy on the floor and the light mumbling of Jep and Nate as they talk between themselves.

“Our mom has a gambling problem.” The blonde girl speaks up. With a wry laugh, she puts her hands over her little brother’s ears and elaborates. “She sleeps with men so they’ll buy her drinks and put bets on for her. Obviously she picked the wrong guy this time.”

“O...kay,” I drag the word out, shocked at the easy way she presented the truth—like it’s normal or something. “Where’s your dad when all this is happening?”

Gabbi stiffens in my arms, warm air blowing over my chest when she groans.

“He’s with his new family,” her sister replies, shrugging.

Her response makes Gabbi let go of me and walk away toward her siblings. “Shut up, Zali. Nobody needs to know about our drama.”

Picking up her little brother, Gabbi pats his back, glaring at Zali with a look that tells her to keep her mouth shut. Holding her little brother to her with one arm under his backside, she sways from side-to-side. I get the impression that she’s pretty experienced at looking after him; he looks as at home in her arms as my son used to in mine, forcing me to reassess my original assessment that Gabbi is a little girl playing at being a woman of the world. At this point in time, she looks like she has her shit together better than some of the women I know who are my age.

Running my gaze over her little brother, comparing him to my own son makes thoughts of Gabe overwhelm me. Visions of his sweet, chubby face lighting up like I was his favorite sight in the whole world when he’d see me. The way he’d throw himself into my arms without warning, certain that I’d catch him. The boy in Gabbi’s arms looks to be about eight—the age that Gabe would be if he was still alive.

Grief. Heartache. Devastating fucking loneliness hits me right in the solar plexus, making my knees turn to jelly and my throat get that heavy feeling that grips you just before you cry. Coughing in an attempt to regain control of myself, I’m signaling Nate to come to me when Gabbi turns her attention back to us. Her expression is carefully blank; she’s impassive with only keep-your-nose-out-of-my-business vibes flowing from her.

“Thank you for your help but you can go now. I need to deal with this mess and it’s already late.”

I hear the calmly spoken words, her desire to get rid of us coming through loud and clear, but underneath it I can see a woman at her wits end. She reminds me so much of Mari when we were younger and shit went down between her parents. She’d run away from home to seek me out for comfort. Gabbi hasn’t a clue how to deal with this, that much is abundantly clear, the same helplessness that used to grip Mari in her expression.

And who could blame her?
A deranged man just broke into her home and attacked her brother and sister while she was half-way across town. Instead of calling the cops or her parents, she high-tailed it home to deal with it all by herself.

I can’t work out if she’s nuts or the bravest fucking woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.

There I go with that word again.
Woman.
Not sure when I decided she wasn’t a little girl but after today, I have a feeling I’m going to be eating humble pie soon.

“We’re not going any—”

My statement is cut off when a blonde woman runs into the kitchen and falls to her knees next to the asshole I put to sleep. She begins screaming—shrill, over-the-top, ear-splitting screams as she cradles his bleeding head in her lap.

“Karl. Karl. What have they done to you?”

“Jesus, today just gets better and better. I’m outta here.” Zali grabs a bag off the counter, pulls a phone out of it and puts it to her ear after she’s pressed the screen a couple of times. “Devon. I’m on my way babe. Do you want me to pick anything up for dinner?”

Without so much as a glance in Gabbi’s way, she leaves.

“Who did this to him?” The shrieking woman turns to us with accusation in her eyes. Letting the guy she called Karl’s head fall to the floor with a smack, she struggles to her feet and advances on Gabbi. “It was you, wasn’t it, you little whore?”

I’m dumbstruck. This woman—I’m assuming it’s their mother since she looks like Zali—is more worried about her lover than she is her kids. Standing with my mouth open as I watch her ridiculous performance, the last thing I expect is for her to haul off and slap Gabbi across the face. She’s pulling her hand back to take a second swing when I reach forward and grab her wrist, putting enough pressure on it to make her realize I’m serious when she struggles.

She turns big, round amber eyes in my direction, sizing me up for two seconds before her entire demeanor changes. “Why, I didn’t see you there. Are you a
friend
of my Karl? I’m Cathy, I’m sure he’s told you about me.”

The sensual purr in her voice gets my back up. When she takes a step toward me, I throw her arm away from me and step into Gabbi’s side, slinging an arm over her shoulder and pulling her into me. “No. I’m here because Karl held your son at knifepoint to get the money you conned out of him back from your kids. I’m the one who made him like that.”

Cathy blinks, the brief flash of shame that I spy in her expression telling me she knows I’m telling the truth. Shutting it down, she sneers as she turns her attention back to Gabbi. “Is that what you told him?”

Without waiting for a response, she tries to sidle up to me again. Running a long, painted fingernail down her exposed cleavage, she licks her lips and arches one elegant eyebrow my way. “My daughter is prone to exaggerating. I’m sure it was all a misunderstanding.”

“You’re fucking unbelievable,” Gabbi snaps out of wherever she floated off to mentally when her mother slapped her. “I’m out of here. It’s no longer safe for us, you’ve made sure of that.”

Hiking her brother up her hip, she turns her back on her mom and heads for the hallway that I entered through. “I’m taking Cooper with me.”