The Frenchman's Revenge (15 page)

Alex flushed in anger
and
Bai’s
smile widened
.

“Tell
you
what
.
I’ll even avoid that pretty boy face of yours.
I wouldn’t want you to have any visible marks on you when you watch Elena marry
me
three days from now.”

Alex
tried to mimic Bai’s casual
, cutting
attitude
,
but his
hatred
was too intense
.
Gritting his
teeth together
,
he
spit out
his response.

“Speaking of pretty boy, I’m
sure as hell not going to avoid your f
ace.
Hell no! That’s the first thing I’m going for, old man. I
f
there is a wedding
,
you are going to look like shit.”

Poking at
Alex’s anger
, Bai’s eyes twinkled
. H
e
taunted him further.

“
Ah,
oui
.
I see you have a temper
,
just like your sister
does.
Well,
b
oy,
I’ve learned that
Elena
responds to discipline
. L
et’s see how you do
,” Bai said with a grin.

Alex shook with
rage
, his face
flushed with heat
, his fists clenched in tight knots at his side
s
.
He knew that
Bai
was intentionally trying to rile him
,
but
he was
unable to quiet his fury.

“
Damn you
!
Godd
amn
you
, Bai
.
I
f
I ever hear that you
h
urt my sister….”

He choked off the rest of the threat
,
trying desperately to control
his emotions
.

Bai was unruffled
, calm
. A
sardonic grin twist
ed
his lips.

“
Ah, I guess that depends on how you define
‘
hurt
.
’
Tell me,
b
oy, w
ould you consider
‘hurt’
turning her over my knee and
spanking
her bare ass
when she misbehaves?
Your sister doesn’t seem to mind.
In fact
,
she rather seems to enjoy it—at least once her bright red ass cools down.”

Alex sprang forward
,
both fists aimed at Bai’s
face
. H
is
guttural scream fill
ed
the room
.
Against every rule he had ever been taught about the danger of fighting from
anger,
Alex was unable to le
ash
his
fury. Rather
,
it flared to a level of rage he had never before experienced.
He
wanted to do one thing and one thing only
.
He
wanted to
kill Bai, beat him to death.

Preparing to follow up his fists with a
bone cracking
one, two kick to the groin, Alex dove for Bai. To his shock
,
he met nothing but air
. U
nable to stop his forward momentum
, he
crashed
against
the wall. He sprung back and whirled around to see Bai standing three feet away his hands relaxed at his sides
,
a contemptuous smile on his face.

Alex had been trained by the best in China, but he was unprepared for Bai.
It was as though he was fighting a shadow.
Bai twisted, turned,
flew
,
and slid, an elusive target
.
More
like a
flying
apparition
than a man
.
At one point
,
he literally
danced
six feet
up the wall his body at a right angle then flipped over backwards
. W
ith an audible crack,
he
drove
his knee
up hard
in Alex’s ribs.
Alex had heard of
ancient warriors the monks c
alled
“
ghost fighter
s
”
who fought like
flying
phantoms
. H
e
had never seen one
,
certain
they had died out long ago
. St
unned
, he
realized that
Bai was
one of them
.

B
ai’s elusive feints and parries made him virtually untouchable
. U
nlike Alex’s ineffectual kicks, punches
,
and strikes, every one of Bai’s
assaults
connected. He followed up his strike to Alex’s ribs with a devastating
knifelike
kick to his shoulder
joint
that paralyzed Alex’s arm, rendering it useless. When Alex backed away
,
trying to recover the use of his arm, Bai
rose from below and drove
a roundhouse kick to the small of his back
,
knocking Alex face first to the floor.
Unable to get to his feet,
Alex
rolled across the floor
,
his hands to his face
,
tr
ying to avoid the
flurry of kicks
Bai aimed at
his torso.
True to his word, Bai avoided his face
,
but there
wasn’t an inch of
Alex’s
body
from his ankles to his shoulders
that
escaped
the blistering
attack
.
Alex had never known
this level of
blinding, dizzying pain, so intense
that
he thought he might
faint. Christ, dying would be a blessing.
I
n
a few short
minutes,
to his
horror
,
he put his hands up signaling
“
enough
.
”

Bai nodded and stepped back
,
his fists curled lightly at his side
s
. He watched closely as Alex writhed on the floor
,
rolling from side to
side
,
blood pouring out of his nose and mouth.
Groaning and gasping for air, Alex
struggled to stand
,
but gagged and fell back down
to his hands and knees
,
vomiting a mix of bile and blood.

Bai left the room and returned a minute later with a wet towel and threw it to the traumatized man on the floor. He reached down
,
offering
his hand
to help him up
,
but Alex shook his head
,
knowing he couldn’t stand.

Alex
used the towel to
wipe off his
face
. W
ith a groan
, he
hung his head and vomited again, this time more blood than bile. He
refused to look at Bai
. C
ontinuing to spit out blood
,
he
retched again and again
, harsh heaves
wracking
his gut
with
a
paroxysm of
painful spasm
s
.
He held
the towel against his face
and
,
with a fierce
effort
,
m
anaged to
push himself up to a sitting position
.
He sat
with his back
against
the
wall
,
his breath coming
in
excruciating
wheezes
. He
didn’t try to hide the tears
on
his face.

Bai reached for his shirt and
his boots.
He
put
them
on
,
then took his cigarette case out of the
shirt
pocket, removed a cigarette
,
and took his time lighting it.
He smoked quietly
, his face impassive,
watching the man on the floor try to gain some semblance of control.

Finally
, his face wracked with pain,
Alex
looked up at Bai
and shook his head
with a mixture
of chagrin and disbelief.

“I thought ghost fighters died off five hundred years ago after Zhao Ming died
,
”
he muttered in a raspy voice.

Bai shrugged.
“I studied his journals.”

Alex stared at him.
He knew that the journals of the ancient
S
haolin monks were guarded like the
emperor’s
jewels
. M
oreover
,
they
were written in a classic Chinese dialect no one had spoken or written for centuries. He shook his head again
,
unable to grasp
what Bai was saying.
After several minutes
,
he began to get his breath back
. He glanced
up to see Bai watching him
,
as if judging the extent of his
injuries
.

Alex shrugged aside
the
concern in Bai’s eyes and groaned
,
looking down in amazement at the marks emerging on his body.

“
What the hell was that you were doing
to me
on the floor?
Christ
,
I have never seen anything like that in my life
.”

“
S
omething I learned as a kid in
the streets of Paris getting
the shit kicked out of me
.
It’s
called
savate
,
essentially
French kickboxing
.
After you’ve healed up
,
maybe I’ll give you a lesson or two
.”

Alex nodded
,
then gagged again
spitting
a fresh mouthful of blood in the towel.

Bai looked at him without speaking for a moment
,
then said, “
Alex
,
E
lena is your sister and she
loves you.
She
will always love you. But kid, she is my woman, soon to be my wife.
She belongs to me now.
She is mine. Elena loves me more than anything in the world
,
as I do her
. N
othing you can do or say will change that.
”

Alex flushed and looked down
,
refusing to
meet
Bai’s eyes.

Bai stepped closer
. W
ith the toe of his boot
,
he
raised Alex’s chin
,
forcing him to
meet his gaze.

“
Look at me
,
Alex
. Hear
me well
.
S
tay the hell out of my way.”