Page 66 of Retaliation

Instead, she stomped down the street, trying not to draw attention to herself. Two gunshots, followed by screeching tires, echoed through the night, and her heart tightened. Fuck, she did not miss this neighborhood. It was a miracle she had made it out of here alive.

In Netherlands Avenue, headlights rounded a corner, and she jumped the closest fence she could find. She didn’t want any sort of confrontation. She cleared the fence, but the bushes on the other side grabbed at her legs, and she nearly toppled over.

Straightening, a smile tugged at the corners of her lips as she viewed the park before her. As kids, they would play between the tress, and at night, shady deals and make-out sessions went down under the cover of darkness.

She wandered to a discarded plastic crate, her footsteps whispering in the unkept, wilting grass. Each step became more and more challenging to take as the whirlwind of emotions finally spilled out in streams down her cheeks. She sank onto the crate and buried her face in her hands.

Years of bottled-up emotions came crashing out in hot, salty tears without any sign that they would ever stop. Like the rise of the ocean’s tide, frustration soared inside her. It kept rising as if filling her with lead from her feet upward. The feeling kept growing until it reached her chest and started choking her.

She hated herself for allowing her emotions to have so much control over her. She hated the shady shit she had done in the past. She hated that Scorpion was the brother of one of her victims. She hated herself for being mad at how he reacted, which only angered her more because she had no right to blame him for any of this.

She leaped to her feet in a frenzy of anger, sending her fist colliding with the tree closest to her.

That did it.

All her anger, hate, and emotions escaped through her fist, leaving her a hollow shell. Resting her forehead against the coarse bark, she took deep, calming breaths, and for once, the voices were silent.

Everything around her was quiet—too quiet. Even the crickets had stopped their serenade. She strained her ears. For a moment, she thought it was the wind, but then she heard it. She could make out the falling thud of footsteps on loose gravel. The grinding noise sent chills through her entire body, raising the hair on the back of her neck. She spun around in the direction of the footsteps.

Fuck, she was stupid to be here. She was out of her territory with no one to back her up. Stiffening her spine, she forced her frozen limbs to move and crouched, ready to fight or flee.

“Who…” Her voice broke, and she cleared her throat. “Who’s there?” she ordered, forcing as much authority into her voice as possible.

The footsteps changed direction and moved from in front of her to her right, just behind the wildly tangled bushed. She turned to mimic the movement of the sound, remaining in her crouched position.

The bushes parted, opening up like the Red Sea before her. She recoiled a step back, startled by the sudden movement. Slowly, she started making out a silhouette against the light of a distant streetlamp.

TWENTY THREE

Poison only had a second to react as a fist flew by her face, missing her nose by an inch. Scorpion came charging at her like an angered bull, raining punches through the air.

It took a lot of speed and all of her concentration to prevent his fist from colliding with her jaw, but he was relentless. He kept striking, forcing her back step by step. Her mind raced, trying to make a plan to stop him. She had to do something, or he wasn’t going to stop until he killed her. The hatred in his eyes said as much.

“Scorpion,” she begged. “Please don’t!” She had to duck again, feeling the wind of his fist rush past her left ear.

“I don’t want to fight you!” Another left hooker flew past her cheek.

“I wish I could go back in time and change everything!” A fist missed her stomach, grazing her hip.

“Please!” Her cries turned into desperate pleas. “I didn’t know he was your brother!”

Scorpion halted, taking a deep breath. Flames of hatred danced in his eyes, the same devilish anger she saw the night they had met, but this time, it was directed solely at her.

“It’s too late now,” he growled, his voice coming out hoarse.

And his fists came flying through the air again, faster and more determined than before, pushing her to the ground in an attempt to avoid the onslaught.

Scorpion took a step forward, hovering over her, his fist raised. She braced herself and shut her eyes. It was futile to try and escape or fight back, so she waited for the pain to come. But it never did.

A hollow thud echoed through the night, and she opened her eyes just in time to see Scorpion sink to the ground like an empty bag. As he dropped, he revealed a figure standing behind him with a baseball bat raised over his shoulder.

Shock ran through her entire body as she scrambled and crawled to where Scorpion lay unconscious. Bewildered, her head snapped up at the stranger towering over them.

“What have you done?” she demanded as she tried to find Scorpion’s pulse.

Confusion swept over the stranger’s face as a frown creased between his eyes, wrinkling his nose.

His cheeks flushed a shade of pink, his eyes impossibly large as he raised his hands, dropping the bat to the ground.

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