Page 38 of Dirty Pool

A street light.

That’s what caused the flood of brightness.

“Out you go, you feck.”

Michel barely heard the statement before one too many pairs of hands were on him. They grabbed hold of his legs, arms, and clothes before yanking him out of the trunk. He was dumped to the ground unceremoniously, followed by a bout of raucous laughter. He was so glad that his predicament was a source of humor for them.

Yeah.

“Ring the feckin’ doorbell, and leave him. They don’t need a message—he’ll tell ‘em.”

What?

Michel was still trying to not throw up. Now that he was out of the darkness, the world had stopped swaying around him, and he was on solid ground with a little bit of light to see, his head wouldn’t stop spinning. His gaze was fuzzy, and that ringing in his ears had picked up so much that he couldn’t really hear anything without it sounding funny. And why did the back of his head now feel like it was literally pulsing?

He couldn’t remember a time when he had gotten the shit beaten out of him so thoroughly. He had to give the Irish that, if nothing else. In the end, they might have let him go, but he heard their message to him loud and fucking clear.

Stay away.

That was not the hell he wanted.

Even as he thought that, Gabbie’s image filtered into his mind. Her sly little smile, those spattering of freckles, and the green of her eyes glittering as she looked his way over her shoulder. All memories of her that he didn’t realize his mind had grabbed onto until that moment, and he was struck silent from the weight of it.

Yeah, he should stay away.

This was a good reason why.

Who knew if he would, though?

A car revved somewhere near his head.

Too close.

Less than five seconds after tires squealed against the pavement, Michel heard another voice. A familiar one.

“Michel? Fuck, Michel!”

Footsteps pounded against cement.

He was rolled to his back.

Above him, he found Sal’s worried eyes looking down at him. A new pair of hands were touching him, now, checking him over. This time, though, the hands were a hell of a lot kinder than the ones that had beaten the hell out of him.

“Who did it, huh?” Sal asked.

His eyes had to be swelled badly.

He could only see a slit of Sal in front of him.

“Doesn’t matter,” Michel managed to say.

Sal scowled. “It does. I know who it was—the only ones that had any reason. The Irish, yeah?”

“I made a deal. We don’t answer.”

“Michel—”

“Don’t answer them for it.”