Page 3 of Creed

Not by a long shot.

I grabbed my keys from my pocket, and I was almost to my truck when I heard it.

A strange scuffle from the back of the lot.

Before I had a chance to turn, I heard a woman’s voice screeching,“No, stop. Get off me!”

It wasthekind of scream that sliced through the darkness of night and grabbed you by the spine. I whipped around and spotted two guys and some chick I’d never seen before. It was too dark to get a good look at the guys’ faces, but I could see well enough to tell that they were up to no good.

One of them had his hands under a girl’s arm, trying to shove her in the back seat of some rundown Lexus while the other kept a look out. Asshole was dumb enough to think that there was no one around to stop them.

He was about to find out how wrong he was.

Rage washed over me as I charged towards them.

As I got closer, I could see that the girl was young, barely old enough to be in the damn club, and it looked like she’d been partying hard. Her heel was broken, her makeup smeared, and she looked to be struggling to stand without wobbling.

She was either drunk out of her gourd or high as a fucking kite, but that didn’t stop her from fighting them off. No. She was giving them all kinds of hell. Nails clawing, feet kicking, and she was screaming at the top of her lungs. “Stop! Help! Someone help me!”

These assholes were actually trying to kidnap her. No way in hell I was going to let that happen. When the guy holding her caught me coming towards them, he paused and sneered, “Move along, old man. She’s my girl.”

“Then, you won’t mind if she tells me that herself.”

The girl looked up at me, and even in the dark, I could see that her pupils were blown wide. Her lips were trembling as she shook her head weakly.“No.”

Wrong answer, fuckface.

I grabbed the first one by the back of his collar and yanked him off her. He barely had time to blink before my fist met his jaw with a blow that echoed off the brick wall. And just like that, he went down like dead weight. Fucking pussy.

He’d barely hit the ground when the second asshole lunged at me, pulling some weak swing like he thought he was going to actually land on me. Not a chance. I caught his wrist midair and twisted it behind him until he screamed like a little girl. I brought my elbow down into his nose, and I felt it break with the hit. Heard it, too.

They tried to scramble and get away, but I wasn’t finished.

Not even close.

I grabbed the first one from the ground and started laying into him. Punch after punch, and then, I moved to his buddy. I beat the hell out of them. Both of them.

This wasn’t just some brawl in the parking lot. I was sending them both a fucking message. I broke ribs, cracked lips, and busted knees. I made sure every blow counted—not just for her but for every other girl they’d ever laid hands on.

When they finally stopped twitching, I opened their car door and reached inside, popping the trunk. I tossed one in, and I was about to go for the next when I heard Skid coming up behind me. “What the fuck?”

“They were trying to take the girl.”

Skid rushed over and knelt beside the girl as she was still pretty out of it. “They drug her or something?”

“No idea.”

I grabbed the second guy and tossed him inside the trunk with his buddy. I made sure their arms and legs were tucked in and slammed it shut. I leaned back on the taillight and lit a smoke. My hands were still shaking with fury when I pulled my burner from my cut and dialed Smitty’s number.

“Got a gift for Grim,” I said. “Two of ’em. They’re over at the back lot of the Vault. In the trunk of a silver Lexus. Come get ‘em. And tell Grim they tried to take a girl.”

“Got it. On our way.”

I hung up and turned my attention to Skid. He was trying his best to get her to come around but wasn’t having much luck. “Hey, hey. Stay with me now.”

“They were…”

“Hey, you’re okay. Creed got ‘em for ya.”