Unconventional

by Krista Wolf

  “It’s not so much what I want as what I can do for you,” he said pleasantly. “In fact—”

  “Spit it out,” I snapped. “One sentence. That’s all you get.”

  The man on the other side of my door straightened his collar. “Alright,” he said, trying and failing to sound a bit hurt. “I want to buy your property.”

  “What property?”

  “Why, this property,” he said, suppressing a chuckle. “Westgate Castle. I want to buy it.”

  “It’s not for sale.”

  The man tilted his head. “Well, ultimately everything’s for sale,” he said glibly. “Right?”

  “Wrong.”

  “Ms. Lockhart, might I remind you you don’t actually own the property. At least not at the moment.” He paused dramatically. “And you most likely won’t own it, the way things are going.”

  Anger wasn’t strong enough to describe my mood. It was closer to rage.

  “And where’d you hear all this?”

  “A little bird told me.”

  “A little bird can go fuck itself,” I snarled.

  “Let’s just say I have friends at various county offices,” the man said calmly. “I know you’ll never meet the renovation deadlines. The property is on the verge of defaulting, at which point we both know it goes back to auction.”

  I stiffened visibly in the doorway, but did my best to remain in control. If I let go of the door, my arms would shake. My whole body, even.

  “But please,” the man continued, “hear me out. I’m prepared to pay you a good deal more than Travis Lockhart initially paid for this property. Twenty-percent over that price, plus the cost of all renovations you’ve already done.”

  “So you’d pay more than this place is worth?”

  “Basically, yes.”

  I fought back a bitter laugh. “And why would you do that?” I challenged. “If what you’re saying is true, why not just wait for it to go back to auction? Get it for a much lower price?”

  The man chuckled glibly. “The truth? I’m an impatient man. I want things when I want them, and I don’t like to wait.”

  I had to admit, the offer was crazy! The entire purchase price of the property, plus twenty percent. A full reimbursement of reno costs, too.

  You could pay back the guys.

  It was my first thought. My best thought.

  You could pay them five times what you owe them, if you really wanted to...

  I turned my chin up again, not even realizing I’d looked down. Slowly I shook my head back and forth.

  “Well I don’t know what makes you think I’d sell,” I said, “but I’m already in the home stretch. I’m a few weeks out from final inspections, then I’ll be all done.”

  ‘Jonathan’ looked left and right, from one side of the bailey to the other. He actually made a tsk-tsk sound, somewhere deep in his throat.

  “You’re not going to make your final inspections, are you?”

  I wanted to punch him in the jaw. I even made a fist.

  “Pardon my bluntness, but it’s just a simple fact. You’re working with a skeleton crew. You have tasks above and beyond what needs to get done, and a very short amount of time to do it all.”

  I stared back at the sharply-dressed stranger who seemed quite pleased with himself. By this point, he practically had one foot in my foyer.

  “Eat shit, Jonathan,” I declared, then swung the door closed with a satisfying ‘thunk’.

  I was already freaked out that the guys weren’t here. It felt so strange coming back to an empty house, when in reality I’d been doing just that for over a year now.

  You’re getting attached.

  I was, of course. I knew that in my heart. With it came the inevitable probability of being hurt, but that was down the line. Maybe.

  “Guys?”

  I called out for them anyway, knowing they weren’t there. It made me feel better. Less alone.

  The cat was on the table as I crossed into kitchen, thumping its tail silently across a single piece of paper. I scratched it behind the ears, then slid out the note. My stomach fluttered with worry as I read it:

  Went to take care of something. Be back later.

  - Us

  Fifty-Two

  NOAH

  I counted five of them. Three seated around a table, one at the end of the bar. And of course, the bouncer, Grant. He was as big as he was dumb, and even worse, he knew it. Somehow he was proud of it, too.

  FIVE I texted to Chase. BUT NO KILLIAN.

  Though I couldn’t see him, I had little doubt the asshole was there. He owned the bar, but hardly worked it anymore. More likely he was in the back, doing something nefariously stupid. ‘Interviewing’ a new girl. Counting out money to impress her, as Chase had seen him do a dozen times before.

  I scanned the bar left to right, before melting into the nearest chair. The bartender was a woman named Ruth. A little rugged and spent, but not a bad person. She knew me though, unfortunately. So as far as that part of the plan went, the element of surprise was pretty much gone.

  “Pint of the dark stuff,” I told her.

  She approached me skeptically, and for a good five or ten seconds she did absolutely nothing. Then, after staring me in the eyes with her perma-frown, she grabbed one of the dirty glasses and began pouring.

  “Is he here?” I asked.

  “He expecting you?” she countered.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Then no.”

  She shoved the pint my way, just hard enough to spill the foam over my hand. Before I could say anything else she’d already turned and walked off. I watched her go, tilting my beer back far enough that I could keep my eyes still on her.

  This is crazy.

  It was, sort of. But it was one of those times where it was even crazier to do nothing.

  The bar was three-quarters full. Enough people to keep Ruth running around, but not so many that I couldn’t keep everyone in my peripheral vision. The guy at the end of the bar stood up, and I took note of it. The three at the table were still talking amongst themselves, but I noticed they’d stopped drinking.

  Ruth poured another four or five drinks. She hit the cash register, made change for someone, then pretended to need bills or something. I saw her turn back and give an almost imperceptible half-nod. Then she pushed through the curtain and disappeared into the back rooms.

  Here we go…

  I took end-of-the-bar guy first. He’d pulled something that might’ve been a knife, might’ve been a club. Whatever it was, he swung it in the same predictable overhead arc that I’d seen a million times during lockup: the standard bad-guy move. Almost like they taught these assholes the same universal method of attack, before graduating them from Hoodlum University.

  Either way, it was a bad idea.

  I kicked him hard, right in the solar plexus. So hard he flew backward, pinwheeling into a stack of chairs and dropping whatever he was holding.

  I turned away too quick though, and that was my mistake. Because that’s when the second guy — the one two seats down from him — hit me in the side of the head with a punch.

  He must’ve been new because I didn’t know him at all.

  OW, FUCK!

  The good news is it was one of those random ear punches — the ones thrown in haste or panic that never really did any damage. The bad news was it hurt like HELL. For several seconds the only sound in the bar was the high-pitched ringing that invaded my brain, as all the cilia in my ear-canal danced at once. It hurt and stung and drowned out the sounds of struggle at the other end of the bar, but right now there wasn’t much I could do about that.

  “GET HIM! GET—”

  I grabbed the ear-puncher by his ponytail — what guy wears a fucking ponytail anymore, anyway? — and yanked hard. If there was anything you learned through years of fighting, it was that wherever the head goes… the body always follows.

  In this case I pulled him face-first into the bar. It was an old b
ar. A sturdy bar, with plenty of great Scottish history I’m sure. The last thing it deserved was this fuckwad’s face-print, but that’s exactly what it got. That, plus a tooth sticking straight out of the wood… pulp and nerves and all.

  Gross.

  I whirled, and the three guys at the table were totally gone. Two of them were down already, sprawled across the beer-soaked floor. The third had been flipped straight through a window, next to a trio of college-aged kids holding billiard cues and wearing almost comical expression of shock and surprise.

  That left Grant, who should’ve stayed outside. The big, square-shouldered asshole who should’ve probably just disappeared into the summer night, but instead came roaring back inside with his two ham-hock fists clenched.

  Poor Grant. He was capped at the knees before he even knew what hit him.

  At this point half the bar was scrambling for cover, and the other half was cheering. A few people left. Some of the locals rushed forward to help some of the downed combatants, but they moved slowly and carefully while looking over both shoulders.

  I hopped the bar and rushed straight through the curtain. No one stopped me. The last thing I heard was the high-pitched screech of Grant, screaming like a schoolgirl.

  Fifty-Three

  JULIAN

  I’d been at the Normandy Inn for the better part of an hour before Noah walked in. It gave me time to assess. To figure out which people weren’t involved with this place, and which would require an ass-kicking.

  And I was more than ready for a good ass-kicking.

  It was easy, picking out the right table. Separating the locals from the live-ins, the ones who actually ran business for this place, and for their boss. It angered me, that the guy could be this arrogant. That he’d burn down a trailer over a couple thousand pound debt, and risk the lives of whoever might’ve been inside.

  In short, he was a psycho. Which meant the guys who followed him were probably worse…

  I drank two pints while sitting at the bar. If anything it would loosen me up. The bartender had brought drinks to the table I’d picked out at least four times, which was another big tell. She hadn’t brought anything out to anyone else.

  I pegged the leader as the tough-looking guy with the big shoulders. He presided over the table, the way a king did over his court. The other two were smaller, and more wiry. I wouldn’t underestimate them, though. They had that scrappy, no holds barred look to them.

  All three of them pegged Noah immediately, as soon as he entered. The bartender’s expression changed too. She was headed for the back room before he called her over, and ordered a beer. That’s when I noticed the other two guys at the far end of the bar, whispered to each other while keeping their eyes glued to him.

  I only hoped he noticed them too.

  Someone gave a signal. The bartender nodded. She went to the cash register, then ducked into the back. Right around the same time the other two got up…

  Everything went down fast after that. It always did.

  I saw Noah kick his first attacker hard enough — and in just the right place — to instantly end the man’s fight. He’d be struggling to breathe for the next two minutes at least. I couldn’t tell if he noticed the ‘friend’, but by then I had my own concerns. The three men at the table stood up quickly, and so did I.

  “What the—”

  There was a bone-jarring crack as my fist connected with the big guy’s jaw. He rolled with it. I was processing the pain in my knuckles when he came back right away with a snarl of betrayal and punch of his own. I ducked. Barely.

  Shit.

  In retrospect, I should’ve gone for the stomach. His head looked hard enough to split a rock, or at least dislocate some of my fingers. His friends converged on me, and that’s when they were taken down. The two guys on either side of me — who hadn’t said a word the entire time we’d been there — jumped the other table-sitters before they even had the chance to do anything.

  The fight was over in seconds. Kyle had his man in a choke-hold, and was putting him to sleep. Fraser had his on the floor already, and was kicking him repeatedly with his steel-tipped boots. I heard the crack of ribs. The cries of surprise as these two complete strangers who’d sprung from their seats were suddenly whipping the shit out of Killian’s ‘crew.’

  It was good to have friends.

  “FUCKERS!”

  The big-shouldered guy swung again, only this time I had all my balance. I weaved left, came in with a right cross, and followed that up with an uppercut to his exposed belly. He doubled over, just in time for his jaw to meet my knee. The force of the blow exploded his face with the sickening crunch of teeth.

  My man dropped like the sack of shit he was, to the sound of shattered glass. Either awake or asleep, Kyle had shoved his guy through the nearest window, so hard that he disappeared entirely. He had a crazed look on his face; one of triumph and elation and something else entirely. Kyle was fucking crazy. It was the only reason I’d brought him.

  “Look out!”

  I whirled just in time to see the bouncer rush in — all two-hundred twenty pounds of him. It didn’t matter. Fraser kneecapped him mid-stride, with something that looked like a billiard cue. It was hard to tell really, because the weapon shattered into a thousand pieces… right along with the bouncer’s kneecap.

  “ARRRGGHHHH!”

  I turned back, ready to make my way over to Noah. Thankfully he was already done. His first attacker was still in the fetal position, trying to inflate his own lungs. The other was lying under the bar, his entire face a bloody mess.

  I had to admit, I was a little impressed.

  “AYYEEEEEEEE!!!”

  The bouncer was screaming now, high-pitched enough that it grated my nerves. He didn’t sound like a man anymore. More like a dying animal, clutching his knee. Crying on the floor of the bar, while Kyle and Fraser made their way over to me, their faces all flushed with blood and adrenaline.

  Together we flew over the bar, and through the curtain. Down a ratty hallway and past the kitchen, to where Noah had already shouldered his way through a very cheap door.

  The man on the other side had copper hair and sharp red sideburns. He was caught barefoot, wearing long boxers and a sleeveless white T-shirt that showed off his freckled arms. He had a tough look and an even tougher snarl fixed on his face as he glowered back at us over his shoulder.

  But his eyes were scared.

  In that single moment, all charisma and bravado was gone. There was a base fear beneath the shell of hostility he kept around him, and I could see his hands trembling as he reached for the push-bar on a hidden back door.

  The door opened. Killian flew halfway through it, still looking back, still watching as the four of us hurtled into his office, shoving chairs and table aside as we all rushed him together.

  Then a fist connected with his face, and he went down like a sack of bricks.

  When he looked up again, Chase was towering over him. Shaking the pain out of the hand that he’d just used to punch him out.

  “Hello Killian.”

  Fifty-Four

  CHASE

  He looked very small and insignificant, lying there in his underwear. Curled in a semi-fetal position, holding his face with both hands.

  “Hello Killian.”

  God, it was so fucking satisfying. To finally have him like this, alone. The coward who’d been hiding behind his whole pack of assholes, dealing out beatings by order. Burning our home down. Having others do his dirty work.

  “Now GET UP.”

  Julian reached down at the same time I did, and together we hoisted him to his feet. Killian didn’t struggle. He was more limp than anything, and shaking with fear.

  “What’s that smell?” asked Noah.

  “He’s pissed himself.”

  I looked down, and it was true. It both disgusted and satisfied me at the same time.

  Killian said nothing as we dumped him into the nearest couch. His nose was definitely croo
ked, maybe shattered. He was bleeding all over the place.

  “Here.”

  Julian tossed him something that looked like a towel, but turned out to be Killian’s shirt. He used it anyway, bunching it up and bringing it to his nose.

  “It’s about time we had a talk,” I said, squatting before him. I brought myself to his level. Got right up in his face, so he’d understand.

  “This?” I said, pointing a finger between him, me, and Noah. “This is over. It’s done. No more.”

  I saw him snarl beneath the bunched up shirt, but that’s all he did. Noah made a quick move toward him on purpose, just to watch him flinch.

  “This man owed you some money,” said Julian. “And you could’ve gotten paid. You could’ve waited it out, or given him a break, or any of those things.” The huge mason shifted, clenching two big fists. “Instead, you went on the attack. You beat on him when he came to talk to you. You burned his home to the ground in the dead of night, like a gutless fucking coward.”

  Killian was sitting silently, his eyes darting everywhere. They kept going to the door, hoping someone would show up. Hoping one or more of his men would come rushing through, to help him out of this nightmare.

  The only thing he saw were Julian’s two big friends, guarding the door.

  “You’re a psycho,” Noah chimed in. “Only a fucking psycho does shit like that, over nothing more than a gambling debt.”

  Killian finally opened his mouth, as if to say something. One hard look from the three of us caused him to wisely shut it.

  “Do you know who I am?” asked Julian.

  Killian sat there in silence, dabbing at his face. Eventually, he shook his head.

  “Good,” declared Julian. “But I know who you are. We all do. And those guys over there…” he nodded toward the doorway. “They’ve got friends and brothers and cousins. People you would never want to meet, especially under these circumstances.”