Free Savannah Past Midnight by Christine Edwards Page B

inches on me and at least
eighty pounds of honed muscle. I know that there’s only one thing I
can do to fire myself up enough to beat him and I dread going
there.
    As he stalks toward me, knowing that he’s already put
me through the fucking ringer, I force my mind to go back to that
night, the night she died, the night he blamed me for it, for
everything.
    A red wall of rage rises up as I attack, launching
myself hard at my opponent.
    “Holy shit! Fuck yeah! Lay into him, Brennan!”
    Alex’s booming voice is like a distant echo as I go
completely crazy, finding the strength I was looking for to
savagely beat the man, imagining that he’s my piece of shit father.
Using my last reserves of energy, I let my fists go into overdrive,
slamming into him over and over without a scrap of mercy. His
sporadic hits that come between mine hardly register; I’m too far
gone for that. I haven’t a clue how I got him down to the ground
and beneath me, but at this point his face is quickly beginning to
resemble a large package of hamburger meat.
    I have no regrets; he knows the game and would’ve
done the same or worse to me, given the chance. He nearly did. He
stops resisting and I’m hauled away, still swinging. It’s over, and
even though I’ve won, I feel sick. I push viciously past the
onlookers to get outside of the warehouse, needing air because I’m
about to puke.
    The boxing tape hangs in bloody shreds off my
swollen, clenched fists held against my filthy Adidas track pants.
I’m shaking from the aftershock of the adrenaline spike as I pull
out my mouth guard, spitting out saliva and blood in the process.
With my tongue, I check my mouth to see if the gigantic bastard
knocked loose any teeth.
    A hand slaps down on my sweaty back, and I twist my
head to see Alex standing there sporting a just-got-a-blowjob grin.
“Damn, son! That was fuckin’ epic.” He hikes a thumb over his
shoulder. “His pissed-off buddies are still tryin’ to haul him up
in there. Scary as shit to see you like that though—possessed
psycho motherfucker. I don’t know where you found that rage, my
man, but it sure won you the fight of the year, not to mention
paying out big time for your best buddy, who always bets double on
your crazy ass to win. Hey, you all right, man? You don’t look so
good.”
    No fucking shit. I was just about annihilated by a
freak of nature.
    Bent forward and still struggling to breathe
normally, I look up at Alex. “You know how to find people, right?”
His brow furrows. “There’s a girl I need you to find for me,” I
explain. “Tried without any luck for two weeks now.”
    “I can try, what do you know about her?”
    “Remember that night, down near your bar when the
cycle pulled up?”
    “Yeah, the one that about gave you a hard on.”
    I clutch my throbbing side and grit out through
clenched teeth, “Yeah, well it actually was the rider that got me
hard, not the bike, smartass.”
    “You’re shitting me. That was a chick on that
Ducati?”
    “Yup.”
    “Fuck. That’s so hot. What do you know about her,
aside from her expensive taste in exotic cycles?”
    I’m only willing to share the basics, not that he
would believe the rest of it if his life depended on it.
    “Name’s Cosette. No last name that I know of. Cycle’s
rare, like I thought, a 1299 Panigale S. I’d be shocked if there
were more than five of ’em in the entire state of Georgia. Lives
alone, apparently. No address or place of work known.”
    “Got a cousin, Josh, works over at the DMV. He might
be able to pull somethin’ up on the owner of the bike as a favor.
That and I can ask around. Savannah’s not a big enough place to
hide in for long, especially not when someone’s looking hard.”
    “Appreciate it, man.”
    “I’ll let you know. Hey, lemme give you a lift home.
You’re in no condition to get on that chopper.”
    “Good call. Need to settle up with Mace first.”
    “Go get your cash from the little bastard.