But Vince didn’t back off. Instead, he pushed Cyril’s shoulder. “You stepped over the line, boss. You took risks that could get us all killed. It was bad enough to strike out like Indiana Jones, worrying the Soviets would steal the treasure. But killing one of the Demons and burying the body?!”
Cyril stood and threw his glass across the room, but Vince stood his ground. “That’s just inviting them to line us up and assassinate us. I might as well put a bullseye on your chest!”
Cyril gave Vince a two-handed shove to the chest. “I didn’t see you doing anything to protect our investment, Larson. You’ve been too busy moping around, caught up in your own little world for months now to be the least bit effective.”
Vince stood chest to chest and nose to nose with Cyril. “I’ve done more to protect the investment and the club in the last twenty-four hours than you’ve done in the last five years!”
Cyril took one step back and threw a right hook, but Vince caught his wrist and head-butted Cyril in the face. Cyril’s head snapped back, but he didn’t go down. He wrenched his arm from Vince’s grasp and went for Vince’s stomach with his left hand. Vince took the punch, which was weak from Cyril’s dizziness, and countered by rushing Cyril. He knocked him into a barstool that collapsed and landed on top of him on the floor.
Cyril fought dirty. He grabbed Vince’s hair and yanked his head back so he could swing at Vince’s nose. Vince turned his head, taking the blow to the back of his jaw instead, and grabbed Cyril by his jacket, lifted his torso, and slammed his head against the floor. Cyril raised a knee, getting Vince right where the road burn still stung and ached, and Vince grunted in pain.
But he wasn’t done, and with a growl, he sat up to straddle Cyril, pounding on his face. Cyril took several punches before he managed to get his legs up and his feet locked over Vince’s shoulders. He rolled so Vince’s back hit the floor, his legs bent and out of commission momentarily. It knocked the wind out of Vince and gave Cyril a chance to get up, but as soon as Cyril was on his feet, Vince straightened out his legs and threw a kick that landed on Cyril’s knee. He hit hard enough to take Cyril down again.
Vince rolled to his hands and knees with a growl and dove at Cyril, but unseen hands on his arms pulled him back. “Let go of me!” he screamed. He lunged and kicked, but he was held too tightly to get away.
“Enough, Larson.” Pound’s voice in his ear brought Vince back to reality and cleared his vision. As he gazed down at Cyril, he saw the damage he’d done. The man’s nose was broken and bleeding, and he would have a shiner the next day; his lip was swollen and cut, and as he sat up, he grabbed his head in pain and nearly fell over again.
Pound had one of Vince’s arms, and he turned to see Dustin holding the other. He shook them both off. “I’m fine. I’m done.” They let go but stayed close, and Vince brushed off his jacket. His adrenaline ebbed and sensation came back to his body. He hadn’t exactly come out smelling like roses. His jaw hurt and would bruise badly, and his leg injury throbbed so hard that it made him want to collapse. He took a seat on a still-standing barstool to save some dignity.
Taking the weight off his leg made other parts of his body scream, and he stared at his hands in disgust. They were a mess of blood, and from the looks of his knuckles, it wasn’t all Cyril’s blood. Pea pushed a shot of something foul at him, and Vince took it. He felt the burn all the way down through his chest.
Pea laughed and hiccupped. “You feel better now?”
Vince smiled, and it pulled at his sore jaw. He rubbed it and nodded. “Surprisingly, I feel much better.”
There was a stir, and Vince saw three guys holding Cyril, who apparently thought he was going to get a few more chances to smash Vince on the ground. “We’ve got to get your head checked, bro,” he heard Scat tell him. Vince hadn’t even noticed the man come in.
He motioned to Pea for one more shot. This one didn’t go down any easier, but he certainly felt a little calmer as he reached for a cigarette in his pocket. He lit up and offered one to Pound, who stared at him in amusement and took it. Vince scowled. “What?”
Shaking his head, Pound lit his smoke and grinned. “I’ve never had so much trouble pulling a guy your size off someone else. I can’t believe I had to get help. But I tried three times, and you weren’t going anywhere.”
Everything was foggy in Vince’s mind, and he didn’t remember anyone touching him until he actually came off Cyril. “It doesn’t take a genius to know the Demons won’t stop hunting us until we pay a two-for-one price on Mendez. I have half a mind to point to Scat as the gunman and hand him over.”
“I wish it was that easy.” Pound sat down on the empty stool beside him. “Maybe we should all split up and get out of town for a while.”
“I’d be surprised if Mendez didn’t crawl up out of that grave and already get to Gordo and Cortez,” Vince scoffed. “It’s hard to kill that kind of evil. We’d never get out of town in time. I’m surprised they aren’t here yet.”
Kentucky must have overheard them as he stepped up beside them. “I went to try to contain things. I was closing up the truck when Scat went after Mendez, and I couldn’t catch up in time. I almost killed him in the back of the truck on the way home.”
“Are you sure he’s the only one that saw you?” Vince asked.
Kentucky nodded grimly. “Cyril wanted to deliver the body with trumpets and flair. I told him we couldn’t do that if we wanted to make it home with the money and keep breathing. I’m sorry things went this way.”
Vince shrugged. “Too late now. At least we shouldn’t expect the Demons here tonight. They won’t go asking questions until tomorrow when Mendez doesn’t check in. Right now, they’ll just think he’s shacked up with some whore he paid to stay the night.”
But it was going to come down, and when it did, Vince had to make sure he didn’t have any connection to Ariana that the Demons could find. They’d use her against him, and he didn’t know how he’d handle it if anything happened to her.