“Easy money,” Trent announced to the room, raising his taped hands. He bounced from foot to foot, his breathing hissing through his teeth in sharp, rhythmic bursts.
Rusty chopped his hand down.
Trent closed the distance instantly. He didn’t respect Big Eli, which meant he didn’t bother with a feeler jab. He threw a heavy looping overhand right, aiming to end it in three seconds. Big Eli didn’t slip with the graceful fluidity of a boxer. He simply hunched his massive shoulders and tucked his chin, a brutal, pragmatic movement.
Trent’s fist crashed into Big Eli’s forehead, the thickest, hardest bone in the human skull. A sickening crack echoed.
Trent winced, stumbling back a half step, shaking his right hand. He had aimed for the jaw and hit solid bone.
Big Eli felt a flash of white light behind his eyes. A dull, sickening wave of nausea rolled through his stomach. It hurt. It hurt badly. He wasn’t invincible. He was sixty-four years old. His knees ached from the damp, and his lower back was a constant knot of pain. He tasted the sharp, metallic tang of blood where he had bitten the inside of his cheek.
“Stay small.” A cold, dead voice whispered in his mind. The voice he hadn’t heard since the jungles and rice paddies of Vietnam. “Let him work. Watch his hips.”
Trent, angered by his own mistake, unleashed a flurry. A jab snapped Big Eli’s head back. A vicious low kick slammed into Big Eli’s left thigh. The sound of flesh on flesh, a wet, heavy thwack, made a woman in the front row gasp. Big Eli stumbled, his leg buckling slightly.
“Come on, old man,” Trent spat, smelling blood. He threw a high roundhouse kick, aiming for Big Eli’s temple.