People living in New York and Los Angeles don’t bother with polite pleasantries when they’re angry.
A New Yorker will tell you to move your ass before you finish breathing, because time is money.
In Los Angeles, people size you up first—checking your clothes, your watch, and whether the keys in your hand belong to something expensive—to see if you’re worth knowing.
Once they realize you’re nobody, the contempt hits you like a bucket of ice water.
Alex Shawn was at the absolute bottom of the L.A.
food chain: a broke, unknown nineteen-year-old musician with dirty boots and a frayed jacket.
Under normal circumstances, a streetwise kid would have stepped aside.
But with a violent hangover, two lifetimes colliding in his skull, and the street-honed instincts of a professional Hollywood stuntman, Alex wasn’t in the mood to yield.
He stood his ground, staring cold-eyed at the three men blocking the exit.
“You’ve got a mouth on you, kid,” the biggest guy muttered, stepping forward with a sneer.
He lunged out, thick hands reaching out to grab Alex by the collar to slam him against the doorframe.
The other two guys stepped back, chuckling like they were about to watch a stray dog get put down.
They expected a helpless, half-drunken British musician to panic.
They didn’t expect to hit a brick wall.
Before the big man’s hands could clamp down on his leather jacket, Alex’s arm shot up, intercepting the wrist with a sharp, heavy block.
The man’s thick arm flexed, veins bulging as he tried to shove through, but Alex’s stance didn’t budge an inch.
“What the hell, Nick?
Grab him!” one of his buddies barked.
Nick gritted his teeth, his eyes wide with genuine confusion.
This kid’s arm feels like solid iron.
It wasn’t just a mental shift; the violent merging of memories seemed to have unlocked an adrenaline-fueled physical sharpness.
Levi Vance had spent twelve years on movie sets learning joint locks, close-quarters combat, and practical stunt fighting.
Wrapped in Alex Shawn’s young, athletic frame, those instincts reacted before he even consciously processed the move.
Alex’s eyes narrowed.
As Nick hesitated, Alex grabbed the man’s wrist, twisted his hips, and drove his weight downward in a clean, brutal wrist-lock.
SNAP-CRACK.
“AAAAAGH!”
Nick’s massive frame collapsed forward, his arm wrenched behind his spine at a sickening angle as his knees slammed into the dirty pavement outside the entrance.
The scream shattered the noise of the alleyway.
Patrons near the front glass started turning around, drinks held halfway to their mouths.
In West Hollywood, a dive bar fight wasn’t news—but watching a slender blonde kid drop a two-hundred-pound bouncer-type with one hand was enough to draw a crowd.
“You dead-ass motherfucker!”
The other two guys dumped the limp, half-conscious woman they were holding against the wall and charged.
“I’m gonna break your neck!” one roared, swinging a wide, telegraphed right hook aimed straight for Alex’s jaw.
Alex didn’t retreat.
He dropped his center of gravity, slipping inside the arc of the punch.
As the fist whistled past his ear, Alex drove his lead elbow directly into the guy’s solar plexus.
THUD.
The air exploded out of the attacker’s lungs with a wet gasp.
Before he could double over, Alex grabbed his shoulder, drove a sharp knee into his midsection, and shoved him hard against the brick wall.
The guy slid down the red brick, groaning on the concrete.
The last guy panicked, swinging a wild kick toward Alex’s ribs.
Alex stepped inside the kick, catching the heel under his armpit, and planted a heavy side-kick straight into the standing knee joint.
CRACK.
A horrific pop echoed through the alley.
The guy let out a high-pitched shriek, collapsing onto his ruined leg and rolling in the dirt, clutching his knee in agony.
Silence fell over the alley.
The whole encounter had taken less than ten seconds.
Alex stood in the center of the pavement, breathing through his nose, his hair falling messily over his eyes.
His posture was relaxed, but his bloodshot blue eyes were ice-cold as he looked down at the three men groaning on the floor.
The surrounding crowd stared in stunned silence.
“Jesus Christ,” someone whispered from the back.
“Is that guy a martial artist or something?”
Inside the doorway, Carl Massimo—the owner of The Poison Tongue—watched the scene with a pale face, subconsciously touching his own jaw.
He felt a sudden stroke of luck that he hadn’t laid a hand on Alex inside the bar.
Still, as the bar owner, he had an image to maintain.
“You’re fired, kid,” Carl snapped, stepping out onto the sidewalk surrounded by two bulky bouncers.
“And you’re paying for the broken glass in the foyer, or I’m calling the LAPD.”
A round of boos erupted from the onlookers.
Alex’s sharp look and brutal efficiency had clearly earned him the crowd’s sympathy.
Carl sneered, ignoring the crowd.
“You think you’re tough, Shawn?
Those guys hanging out near the alley run with the local crews.
You just beat three of them into the pavement.
They’ll be back with friends.”
The crowd fell quiet.
Everyone on the Sunset Strip knew how fast a bad night could turn fatal if the local street gangs got involved.
Carl gestured to his bouncers, blocking Alex’s path.
“Now, give me three hundred bucks for the mess, or you wait here for the cops.”
Before Alex could answer or throw another fist, a husky, feminine voice cut through the noise from the shadow of the doorway.
“I’ll cover it.”
Alex turned his head.
The blonde woman who had been leaning against the alley wall—the one the three guys had been dragging along—stepped under the yellow streetlight.
She pushed a pair of oversized dark sunglasses up onto her head, revealing striking, sharp eyes and a recognizable face.
“I’ll pay for the damage,” she repeated, her voice dripping with cool authority.
“How much, Carl?”
Carl’s eyes blinked in surprise, his aggressive tone instantly softening.
“Well…
five hundred dollars ought to cover the trouble, ma’am.”
It was a blatant rip-off, but the woman didn’t argue.
She reached into a small leather handbag, pulled out a thick roll of hundred-dollar bills, peeled off five, and slapped them against Carl’s greasy palm.
Then she turned to Alex, eyeing him up and down with a mixture of amusement and exhaustion.
“You ruined my exit, kid, and you just cost me five hundred bucks,” she said, wrapping her jacket around her shoulders and tossing him a pair of car keys.
“You’re driving.
Let’s go before the cops actually show up.”
Alex caught the keys on instinct, momentarily thrown off by the sudden turn of events.
Before he could ask a single question, she grabbed him by the sleeve of his jacket and pulled him toward a slick black convertible parked across the street.
As the car roared to life and pulled away from the curb, one of the onlookers near the bar entrance gasped, pointing at the receding taillights.
“Holy shit…
was that Meg Ryan?”