Chapter Twenty-Three

Eli

“Mikey tells me you’re quite the proficient fighter now,” JP announced as the door swung slowly open. “Take a punch much better than you used to, I guess.” How arrogant and petty could this man possibly be? Sauntering into this apartment like he owned it—though he did—and complimenting me on my skill in combat? Referencing the golden years, when he could easily beat someone half his size? He hadn’t changed by one inch in the past thirteen years. Not one inch.

But I had.

I wasn’t fifteen anymore, only half-formed into a man and full of so much aimless, spraying frustrations and aggressions. I was older now. I had matured. I had been trained. Beaten into stone at boxing gyms. Meditated for perfect situational awareness at the dojo. I had been waiting for this moment. And I was ready.

I crouched on the kitchen counter running alongside the foyer, boots silent on the chic red counter tiles, as if I weighed nothing at all. I watched the door open with my heart pounding slow and hard at the same time, thighs coiled for the pounce. Everything seemed slow.

Like the first time I caught him in the lens of my camera. Everything was frozen.

Except me.

I launched easily into the air.

“How did Marv escape from you? I—”

I cocked my hard fist and came down as the corner of JP’s face came into view. My fist smashed into his jaw with my full weight and the momentum of a leap behind the knuckles. I crashed across his face and landed on two feet, springing into a posture of readiness immediately. My knuckles sang with the impact. That’s how I knew it was a good hit. It even hurt me.

JP went flying. My heart soared at the sight. I had never witnessed anyone hit JP and knock him clear off his feet before. It was the sweetest moment of my life, if I didn’t consider a few of the more intense kisses with Nina.

His shoulder slammed into the parallel wall, but his reflexes were sharp, and he had a strategic mind, like I did. He gripped a white vase and whipped it at me without a single beat between the crash and the throw. It was like fighting a ballerina, his movement was so fluid, and I blocked with my forearm, but the vase burst on impact and tore into my jacket sleeve.

That distraction was all it took, and JP had already crossed the space between us, raining into me with tight, furious fists. His shin cracked up into my abdomen. He was giving me all he had. He panted, hair flew in his face, and blood coursed down his chin. He was fucking scared. Finally, JP was scared of something.

But I had been sculpting my body and my mind, getting used to combat pain ever since Mom died. My muscles absorbed the shock of every slight like memory foam. He could never hurt me again. I had made sure of it.

JP staggered back and stared at me. Beads of sweat stood out brightly on his forehead. His pupils shrank into pinpricks as he realized what was happening. He was losing.

I settled back on my heel and launched, wrapping my arms around JP in a bear hug that sent us both crashing into the floor and rolling across the den. Furniture bumped against us and distantly, there was the sound of breaking glass, but my mind was in a zone beyond sensation. My knuckles went numb as I reared back and punched JP again and again and again. I lost track.

JP surprised me then, wedging his long, slim legs between our bodies and heaving his weight into me with all his strength—and his desperation. It broke my grip on him, and I staggered into a standing position.

JP moved up from flat on his back, staggering to his feet. He panted and glowered at me. His arm flicked hard to the side, and I dove for the crook of his elbow immediately, binding my hand around his wrist. I recognized that gesture.

He was calling a switchblade from its holster.

I roared as we went flying again, crashing through a coffee table. I could barely feel the sting. JP’s blade pointed toward me, but the position of my arms restrained his stab from advancing.

It was angled directly over my fucking neck. Sweat ran freely down both our faces. I rolled on top of him, but that didn’t stop his blade from quivering between us, angled at me. JP’s eyes were insane. He flipped on top of me. His hand shook. He meant to kill me here and now, in this apartment. He wasn’t trying to scare me. His muscles quivered with every ounce of strength they had, trying to drive the switchblade through my jugular.

I could break his grip on the thing if I could stun him, but there was nothing on the floor with us. I let him roll me over, and I rolled over him, sending us slamming hard and fast into a wall.

I took the opportunity to lift my knee and drive his wrist into the wall with all my strength. The pain stunned his hand and forced the switchblade to drop to the floor.

I snatched it up and leaned on his crossed forearms now, angling for his jugular. The old goat strained hard. Even his throat was pounding.

“How does it feel now, Jon-Pierre?” I asked him through gritted teeth. I forgot about the investigation and the Freaks. This went much deeper than fraud or gambling. This went all the way back to the first time he ever hit me. “How do you feel, now that you’re the weak one?”

“Oh my god, no!” a familiar female voice rang out from farther down the hall.

I didn’t need to look up to know who it was, and JP’s eyes gleamed with recognition, too. He knew she would save him.

I couldn’t risk looking away from the conniving old man, but Nina’s high heels clicked slowly across the foyer.

“Please don’t,” she whispered tremulously. “You promised, Eli. You promised you wouldn’t hurt him.”

I couldn’t remember if I had promised that or not. Everything was a blur right now. I vaguely remembered promising her that I would give her anything she wanted, even though that sounded nothing like me.

I had the old man right here, under the blade, poised to pay for all his sins and end this molestation of our beautiful city, but I knew I couldn’t do it. Not with Nina’s trembling voice right over my shoulder, begging me to show her father mercy.

“I’ll testify in court against him,” her watery voice went on. “I’ll do anything, Eli. Please.”

I hauled myself up onto my heels and released him completely. I still held the switchblade, but I made no offensive moves with it.

JP staggered to his feet and glowered in total exhaustion, his beady blue eyes moving from mine to his daughter and back again. He thought he hated me when I was an insolent kid. I bet he never knew how much he could hate me until now.

I swallowed and nodded to Nina. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” I told her. “I did promise you to give you whatever you needed to be happy. I promised you that.”

JP’s eyes rolled between us, sickened by the realization that we were together. He staggered backward and into the hallway without saying a word. He twisted and limped and didn’t even acknowledge his daughter, who had saved his fucking life.

“Oh my god,” Nina whispered, dropping her face into her hands and beginning to cry. “That happened. Oh my god. Oh my god.”

I strode over her ruined coffee table and wrapped my arms around her tightly. “Shh,” I soothed her, rocking our bodies from side to side. “It could have been worse.”

Nina laughed and then dissolved, crying in earnest on my shoulder. “What are we going to do?” she asked after a deep sniff. “Why didn’t you stop him from leaving?”

“I still don’t have any evidence, baby,” I reminded her. “All I did was commit assault and damage the hell out of a swanky apartment.”

Nina nodded and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I ruined your investigation.”

“You don’t have to be sorry for not wanting me to kill a man,” I replied, and my eyes met hers, grave and earnest. “Thank you, Nina.”

“I did ruin your investigation, though,” she guessed, her shiny, swollen eyes focused on me.

I scraped her golden curls out of her face and smiled down at her. “Probably.” We both laughed a little, and it felt good, after all this drama. I bundled her pea coat tighter around her shoulders and nodded toward the corridor. We had to get out of here, and fast. I pulled her from the apartment, which she quickly locked. There was a trail of blood leading to the elevator doors. Where would that trail lead us?

Nina ran to catch up with me at the elevators, panting and obviously disturbed by the blood trail. “I’m sure he’s headed for Redman Corporation now, and he’s going to destroy or move any evidence that might be there,” I told her. “He thought he still had some chance of retaining you. It was obvious when he knocked at the door. But now that he’s seen me here, he must know that this runs deeper than he realized.” I looked at her and a strange, tender feeling gripped me. “We run deeper than he realized.”

Nina’s eyes twinkled at me as she smiled. The elevator dinged, and the doors coasted open. We followed the blood trail into the elevator.

“If he anticipates us going, what are we going to do?” Nina asked.

We descended the twelve floors rapidly.

“Get there first.”

“How?”

“Wits.”

The elevator doors coasted open. There was no blood trail in the lobby. He had returned to his own penthouse to tidy himself up before venturing out. It was both a smart and a dumb move. It bought us at least ten minutes.

We passed through the revolving glass doors and out into a cold blast of air and gray sidewalk.

I pulled out my cell phone and called 9-1-1, immediately being routed to the dispatcher. “Hello, I’m calling to report a crime taking place on Masters Park,” I said, giving the name of the road that would connect Masters Heights to Redman Corporation. “There are men in a scuffle over what I overheard to be a briefcase of one hundred thousand dollars in cash. They’re using guns I’ve never seen before—I think you call that one an Uzi? Oh my god, one of the trees is on fire. I think one of the men might be dead.” When we reached the U-Haul parked on the side of the street, I opened the door, throwing it closed again and again. “Please, send an ambulance!” I cried. “Can you hear it? I think they dumped that briefcase full of cash into the dumpster. Hurry!”

“But that’s going to gum up the roads for everyone,” Nina warned me as I slid the cell phone back into my pocket. I scoffed at her lack of faith.

“Not for us,” I told her. “We’re going on foot.” I strolled to the back of the U-Haul and threw the bright orange door open, gesturing toward the towers of boxes all crammed with her possessions. “Grab your sneakers. They’re in the box marked SHOES THAT AREN’T HIGH HEELS. There’s a trash bag with your clothes in it. Grab something black and do it fast. Make it something you can run in, bright eyes.”