Page 15 of Justified (Ruthless Vigilante #1)

Well, I supposed I’d wasted enough time on this rooftop, time to do what I needed to do.

I jumped off the five story building, landing relatively quietly on the pavement.

I waited until he was done making his illegal transaction, then I advanced on him.

Because of my super strength, I could run a bit faster than your average human.

In no way did I have super speed, which would have been awesome, but I wasn’t slacking, either.

When he saw me coming at him, he attempted to run, but only got a few paces before I caught up with him.

I shoved him against the wall and he yelped in pain and fear.

“What the fuck, man?!” he cried out.

“What the fuck, indeed,” I said. “What this city doesn’t need is a piece of shit like you out here making things worse by selling that bullshit.”

“I’m just trying to make a living. It’s not like I’m forcing people to buy it. If they aren’t buying it from me, they’re going to buy it from someone else,” he replied.

Well, he was right about that… It was one of the reasons I had been sitting on that rooftop so long, contemplating whether or not I’d be wasting my time bothering with the guy. How could you save people who didn’t want to be saved?

I released him and he took that opportunity to reach into his pocket, but I grabbed his wrist, stopping him from pulling whatever was in his pocket out.

“Let me go, motherfucker!” he growled, but I ignored him and looked inside his pocket. He had his hand wrapped around the grip of a nine millimeter.

“You were going to try to shoot me?” I asked him.

“Let me go,” he snapped.

“I might have before you tried to pull this bullshit. Now, I’m not.

” I squeezed his wrist, making sure to shatter his bones, and he cried out.

Normally, I might have covered his mouth, but I thought it was best to send a message.

Why not let the neighborhood hear his pitiful wails?

I grabbed his gun, taking it for myself.

He tried to punch me with his free hand, but I dodged his weak blow and kneed him in his balls.

“Ahhh shit!” he groaned as he went down to one knee.

He didn’t know what to cradle first, his broken wrist or his no doubt swollen nuts.

His good hand went for his nuts, cupping them.

I guess they hurt the most. I mean, I really gave those bad boys a good whack.

He gagged and I moved out of his way just in time to avoid him puking his dinner on my boots.

Yeah, a good, swift blow to the gonads could do that.

I, of course, had no problem hitting a man where it hurts.

I never understood movies where two men were fighting but they always seemed to try to avoid the nutcracker.

Like going for a man’s balls was taking the fight too far?

Fuck that shit, I was looking to make a statement.

“You—you son of a bitch!” the man groaned as he still held onto his balls.

“Yeah, I’m not done with your bitch ass yet,” I sneered, then stepped behind him.

I slapped my hands against his ears hard enough to shatter his ear drums but not crush his skull.

He screamed and fell down in the puddle of his own vomit as he rolled around in agony.

I wasn’t going to kill him, but I did want to leave him something to remember me by. The gift of deafness was a nice touch.

As he rolled around, I reached into all of his pockets, taking both the money and drugs he had on him.

When I heard the sound of people approaching, I took that as my cue to get the hell out of dodge.

I ran down the alley until I came to a fire escape ladder.

I leaped up and grabbed it, then climbed my way to the rooftop.

Now that I was clear of being seen, I peeked over the edge to see who had come to the dealer’s aid.

Two men approached the dealer as he lay there crying and holding one of his ears, which was still bleeding.

One of the men searched the dealer’s pockets while the other kept a lookout.

Well, what could I say, this was a dog-eat-dog world.

I looked down at the drugs I held, there were at least twenty small plastic packages of crystal meth.

Yeah, I would be flushing that shit down the toilet, preferably after I’d taken a literal shit on top of it.

Why couldn’t people just be satisfied with smoking weed when they wanted to get high?

Shit, Jordan still puffs from time to time.

I would do it more often if I could still enjoy it, but with my metabolism, the high didn’t stick around.

By the time I got a good buzz going, five minutes later, I was sober.

I might have gotten some amazing abilities, but there was always a price to pay.

I slipped the drugs back into a pouch on my belt and pulled out the wad of cash, then started counting.

Pretty good hustle if I may say so, twelve hundred dollars.

This would be added to the rest of the money I’d been collecting since becoming a vigilante.

I didn’t rob from the poor, but what I did take, I kept for myself.

Shit, I was out here risking—okay, I’d admit—very little, but still, I was putting in real hard work here.

I deserved compensation. Besides, I was only taking from motherfuckers who deserved to be robbed, so my conscious was clear.

Also, with the money I’d accumulated, I made sure to put some of it aside for Jordan’s education.

Now, instead of working, he was going back to college and finishing his degree.

One of us should have a bright future. Plus, with the new shit he was learning regarding computers, he could help me out even more.

I checked the time on my cell phone, I’d been out there two hours already and had only taken down one drug dealer.

Either it was a slow night or I was being lazy stalking the streets.

I needed to make the most of the time before I turned in.

I rolled the money up and put it back into one of my pouches.

One addition I’d added to my sexy costume was a utility belt, and that damn thing was really coming in handy.

I now had places to keep my garrote, flashlight, lock-picking tools, mace, and extra ammunition clips.

I truly felt and looked the part of a vigilante these days and I liked the feeling of being one.

I leaped onto another rooftop, and then another one, until I was a mile away from where I’d taken out the drug dealer.

I ended up in another shady area of the city where a lot of crimes seemed to happen.

I made myself comfortable and kept my eyes and ears open for anything going down.

I reached into one of my pouches and pulled out a stick of gum.

I was thirsty but I didn’t have anything to drink, so gum would have to do.

I watched as people went about their day, and I couldn’t help but wonder just what kind of day they had.

Were they happy? Pissed? Homicidal? Yeah, I was the curious sort.

I sat on the rooftop for another forty minutes and, just when I rose to stretch my legs and possibly leave, I saw something suspicious.

A guy was being followed by another shorter male and he was completely unaware he was being tailed because of his headphones and texting.

I kept my eyes on them and watched as the man following began to quicken his pace, closing the distance between the two.

And just when the other man reached the alley by the building next to mine, he shoved him into it.

I leaped onto the next building so I could get a better look at what was going on.

My immediate thought was to jump down there and save the dumbass right away, but maybe this bit of fear he was experiencing was good for him.

It would teach him to be more aware of his surroundings in the future.

“Give me your fucking money and that damn iphone, bitch!” his assailant demanded at gun point.

“Please, oh god, please don’t kill me. You can have whatever you want,” the guy whimpered as he handed over his phone with trembling hands.

“Yeah, up those Jordans, too, motherfucker,” the robber demanded with his greedy ass.

“Aww, come on, man, don’t take my fucking Jordans,” the victim pleaded.

Okay, I had to intervene. If Jordan ever found out I let an innocent person actually be robbed of the latest additions of the extremely popular sneaker, I’d never hear the end of it.

As the guy was stepping out of his brand new Jordan shoes, I jumped down, striking the robber directly on his shoulder, which made him drop his gun.

“Oh shit!” the victim shouted and jumped back against the wall.

The robber fell to the ground, moaning as he was holding his sore arm.

I reached down, grabbing him by the collar of his hoodie, and snatched his mask off, revealing an African American youth.

The boy looked to be no more than sixteen years old; and by the look of his wide-eyed gaze, he was worried.

What the fuck? He should be at home doing homework, not out at one in the fucking morning robbing people.

Maybe I could scare him straight. I pulled out my very impressive Beretta, pointing it at his head to see if he liked the feeling.

“I normally kill people I see fucking with innocent people,” I told him.

He was the one trembling then as he looked up at me. “Please don’t kill me,” he begged in a shaky voice.

“Give me a reason not to,” I told him, then cocked my gun.

That was when I saw a dark spot on his baggy blue jeans appear at his crotch, and then a puddle forming between his legs.

“You’re just a little punk playing at being bad.

Robbing people when you should be asleep, because don’t you have school in a few hours, or did you already drop out to pursue your illustrious life of crime? ”

“No… I—I got school,” he said. He was shaking really hard now.