Page 74 of The Professor
Cillian passed Finn a gun.
“Is that…?” Finn said.
“Bikers.” Phil frowned at the screen.
“They don’t look like they’re here to fuck. They look mad as hell.” Mitch glared at the screen which was a mass of Harleys and black leather. “The Beasts. They’ve been hanging around Oxford for a few days now.”
“The Beasts?” Chelsea’s eyes widened. “What? No.”
I spun to her. “You know them?”
She gulped. “One of them.”
I didn’t have time to ask her anything else because the front door was being thumped in a way that suggested it was about to be knocked down. I rushed out the back door with the guys, Chelsea in tow, though I didn’t really want her around rough bikers.
“Hey, you!” A huge guy with a gray beard shouted at Dalton as he rounded the corner. “Who’s in charge of this whorehouse?”
“What’s it to you?” Dalton slammed his hands on his hips and tipped his chin.
“We got business with him.”
I came to a halt and surveyed the thirty or so bikes filling the front of the property. Hot exhaust fumes swirled in the air, and the tension was crackling. “You can speak to me if you havea problem.” I stepped forward. Maybe one of the girls had been seeing one of them and it had turned sour. That was my best guess.
Chelsea came to a halt behind me, her chest on the back of my arm.
“Fuck! It’s true. You’re living here!” A big guy with pale hair in a super-short cut stepped forward. His cheeks were red and his eyes flashing with fury. “You are here.”
“Vince?”
I spun to Chelsea. “You know this guy?”
“It’s…he’s my brother.” Her eyes were wide. She was clearly as surprised as I was that he’d turned up.
“You.” Vince stepped forward, shoulders hunched, fists clenched. “You think it’s okay to whore my sister out in this place?”
“What? I…urgh…” The bastard had got a good shot at my chin, sending my neck snapping back and jarring my teeth together.
Fury flooded me. I retaliated with a swift left hook that hit home and then a kidney punch.
He doubled over, but only for a split second, then came back with a lethal temple punch that I just managed to dodge so it sliced off my flesh. But that seemed to infuriate him further and he lunged at me, fists and knees and boots flying.
I took several hard shots, and so did he. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. My heart was going like the clappers, and the sound of the chanting bikers filled my ears.
“Stop! Stop! What are you doing?” Chelsea’s little hand was tugging at my t-shirt. “Stop it. This is crazy. I’m not living here. What are you doing, Vince? This is my boyfriend.”
Suddenly my attacker backed off, spat on the ground, and wiped his forearm over his sweating forehead.
He was breathing hard, so was I.
Chelsea was between us, arms outstretched as if to keep us apart.
“Vince, are you crazy? What are you doing?”
“I heard from Ness that you’d hooked up with an old dude and—”
“Less of the fucking old,” I snapped.
He glared at me. “And a bit of digging soon told me that you were hanging out here. At a whorehouse.” He pointed up at it.
