Page 135 of Wild Card
He grabbed a handful of my hair and used it to slam my head into the floor. Stars burst behind my eyelids, and I bit my tongue hard enough to draw blood.
“Take it outside!” Leo bellowed from behind the bar.
Shit, Leo was going to end up banning me. It’d been less than three months since the throwdown here with Dallas.
I jabbed Jett in the ribs and rolled. I just needed to get the upper hand long enough to put an end to this. But I couldn’t dislodge the fucker from my hair. He yanked hard with one hand and got another around my throat.
We struggled and rolled into more tables, throwing fists and elbows and whatever else we could until the whoop-whoop of a siren sounded outside.
Son of a bitch!I didn’t want Dalton to see me like this. I punched Jett in the dick, making him howl like a wounded cat and drop the death grip on my hair.
I rolled away from him, but it was too late.
Feet pounded toward us.
“Stop and put your hands where I can see them!”
Not Dalton’s voice. I shoved the hair out of my face and looked up.
An Asian deputy with silvering hair stood over us, cuffs already in his hands. “Just take it easy, boys. Fight’s over.”
“Fuck that,” Jett murmured, jumping to his feet.
The deputy in front of us was sixty years old if he was a day. As Jett charged him, I swiped out an arm to trip him. I couldn’t let that poor deputy take a beating just because I’d pissed off a crazy asshole.
Jett crashed to the ground hard with a curse, and the deputy moved to kneel on his back. He yanked his wrists behind him,snapping a cuff around one wrist and then the other while he recited the Miranda rights.
Jett cursed up a storm the whole time. “You’re dead to me, Axel! I better never see you again, you fucker, or we’re finishing what we started here.”
“We can add death threats to the charge,” the deputy said in a hard voice. “Is that what we need to do?”
“No, man, I was just pissed,” Jett said, deflating like a kicked puppy. “This was just a friendly tussle, right, Ax?”
“Right,” I said. “We got carried away. That’s all. No need to waste resources taking us in.”
The deputy glanced toward the bartender, then shook his head.
“Come on, Leo,” Jett called. “Tell this cop that it’s no big deal! We’ll leave. No harm, no foul.”
“I’m sick of this shit you’re always pulling,” Leo growled. “I let you get away with it, and everyone will be trashing my bar.” He turned to the deputy. “Take out the trash. Please.”
My heart went into free fall.Trash. That’s what I was. Dalton was preparing to run for election, and I’d let myself be egged into a fucking bar fight. Because that’s who I was. A fuckup who would only drag him down.
The deputy got up and tugged my wrists behind my back.
“I was supposed to meet Dalton for dinner,” I said through numb lips. “He’ll be wondering where I am.”
Jett laughed beside me. “You get special treatment for sucking cop dick? Now it all makes sense. Too bad I’m not into dudes, or I could suck off the deputy and walk free.”
“Shut your mouth before you get charged with soliciting an officer of the law,” the deputy snapped.
“What the fuck?” Jett growled. “I wasn’t?—”
“Shut up, Jett,” I gritted. “You’ll only make it worse on yourself.”
He snapped his jaw shut, but his eyes spoke volumes. If he was a free man right now, he’d have both hands around my neck, and he’d be strangling me. Maybe I’d feel the same way in his shoes. I’d put him off, strung him along, when I should have told him I was out weeks ago. I’d beat around the bush when guys like Jett only respected blunt force.
The deputy nudged us into a walk toward the door. “Don’t worry, Axel. I’ll call Dalton and tell him where you are.”
