Julian Sterling stood twenty paces away, framed by two heavily armed mercenaries clad in vests.
He took a slow, deliberate drag from his cigarette, letting the ash fall onto the floor.
The tension that had choked him in his office had evaporated completely.
Standing behind two dozen men carrying shotguns, submachine guns, and reinforced batons, he felt the familiar power of a man who owned the entire room.
He didn’t notice Eleanor.
She pressed her spine flat against the icy face of a thick concrete pillar fifty yards to the left, tucked deep in the pitch-black shadow cast by a stack of rusted steel drums.
Her heart hammered wildly against her ribs, her knuckles white where she gripped her sweater.
Her gaze darted from the line of raised gun barrels to Damon standing completely alone in the center of the hall.
Damon didn’t look back at her.
Julian removed the cigarette from his lips.
“I don’t know who put you up to this, kid,” he said, his voice echoing off the high iron girders.
“And frankly, I don’t care anymore.
You broke my security team, you took my distribution releases, and you thought you could summon me to a warehouse like a dog.
Now, drop to your knees.”
Damon didn’t move.
His coat hung loosely over his shoulders, his arms relaxed at his sides.
Julian’s eyes narrowed slightly at the lack of reaction.
He flicked his cigarette butt onto the ground and lifted a hand.
“Break his legs.
Leave his mouth intact – he’s going to answer every question I have before the sun comes up.”
“Move in!” the mercenary captain barked.
Four men from the front line stepped forward in unison, spreading out into a tight formation.
Two held heavy batons; the other two kept shotguns leveled directly at his chest, closing the distance to six feet.
Damon didn’t rush them.
He simply watched them come.
Four men.
Two batons.
Two guns.
His lips curled slightly.
“Come on.”
“Down on the floor!” the closest mercenary yelled, stepping into range and swinging his heavy baton in a horizontal arc aimed straight for Damon’s jaw.
Damon didn’t duck.
He stepped directly into the attack.
He drove his left forearm upward, catching the guard’s wrist mid-swing.
CRACK.
The man’s wrist broke in Damon’s hand.
“AAAGH!”
Damon yanked him forward.
Before the sound could fully echo, Damon grabbed the man by his vest, pulled him forward, and slammed his own forehead directly into the guard’s nose.
CRACK.
Blood sprayed .
He swung the dazed guard around, using his heavy body as a human shield just as the second guard fired his shotgun.
BOOM!
BOOM!
Buckshot tore into the guard’s vest.
Damon didn’t wait for the shooter to rack another shell.
He shoved the bleeding guard forward into the shooter, driving both men crashing onto the hard concrete.
As the second shooter panicked, attempting to point his short-barreled submachine gun, Damon stepped over the fallen bodies, grabbed the gun barrel with his bare hand, and violently twisted it upward.
Metal screeched under raw force.
Damon slammed his boot directly into the shooter’s kneecap.
SNAP.
The knee bent backward .
Ahhhh
The mercenary screamed, collapsing to the floor, clutching his ruined leg as his weapon clattered uselessly away.
From her hiding spot behind the pillar,
Eleanor’s hands tightened over her mouth.
She couldn’t look away.
Damon wasn’t fighting like a man trying to survive.
He was walking through them.
Julian’s confident expression flickered.
His hand tightened into a fist at his side.
“What are you idiots doing?
Shoot him!”
“Hold your fire!
Crossfire!” the captain roared, waving his hand frantically as six more men rushed forward with drawn batons and heavy blades, afraid to shoot into the cluster of their own fallen comrades.
Damon ducked under a knife slash, drove a elbow into a guard’s neck, and spun around to catch a descending steel pipe with his palm.
Pain flared through his hand, skin splitting over his knuckles, but he barely felt it.
The pain barely registered.
Damon looked at the blood running across his knuckles.
Then he laughed.
“Hehehe…”
His shoulders shook once.
“That’s more like it.”
A figure suddenly crashed through the line of mercenaries.
Viktor.
Blood still covered his mouth.
The hatchet in his hand flashed under the warehouse lights.
“You wanted a fight?”
He swung.
Damon didn’t retreat.
He leaned back just enough for the sharp steel to shave a layer of fabric from his collar, then drove his right palm hard into Viktor’s ribs.
THUMP.
Viktor grunted, the impact rattling his ribcage, but the large man didn’t back down.
He hooked his foot behind Damon’s leg, driving his shoulder into Damon’s chest to take him to the ground.
Damon twisted mid-fall, wrapping his arm around Viktor’s thick neck, both of them slamming onto the hard floor in a cloud of dust.
They hit the floor hard.
Viktor’s weight came down on him immediately.
Damon took an elbow to the ribs.
He answered with a punch to Viktor’s jaw.
Viktor grabbed his throat.
Damon grinned.
“Still not enough.”
Viktor spat blood onto the floor.
“You’re strong.”
His grip tightened.
“Let’s see how long that lasts.”
Damon shoved Viktor off with a sudden burst of strength, rolling back up onto his feet.
He wiped a streak of blood from his cheek where a stray metal fragment had grazed him during the struggle.
Around them, the warehouse floor was already littered with six groaning, unconscious guards, two of them bleeding heavily from broken limbs.
Julian stood near the loading dock, his slicked-back hair slightly unkempt, his face losing its colour.
The control he had held two minutes ago was crumbling before his eyes.
“Get in there!” Julian screamed, his composure finally snapping into ugly panic.
“I pay you to clear trash!
Kill him if you have to!
Just kill him!”
Damon slowly looked around.
Twelve men.
Guns.
Batons.
Blood dripping from his chin.
His smile disappeared.
Then his eyes turned completely black.
The air around him seemed to change.
Damon rolled his shoulders once.
Crack.
“Finally.”
Until now, he had been fighting like a human.
He was done pretending.