They marched down the driveway in a diamond formation. The leader, a man in his thirties with a thick neck and dead, cold eyes, didn't ask questions. He didn't issue a warning. He simply reached behind his back and produced a shortened aluminum baseball bat.
He swung it in a brutal, horizontal arc.
I tried to shift my weight, but age had slowed my reflexes. The bat connected with my left shin with the sound of a snapping branch. Blinding, white-hot agony shot up my leg. My knee buckled instantly, and I collapsed backward, hitting the sun-baked asphalt with a heavy thud.
Before I could drag myself up, the other three men were on me. One grabbed my left arm, wrenching it violently behind my back. Another pinned my right wrist. The leader stepped over me, dropping his heavy tactical knee squarely into the center of my spine. All the air rushed out of my lungs in a ragged gasp. I was pinned flat to the burning road, helpless.
The Range Rover door swung open. Evelyn stepped out, her stiletto heels clicking sharply against the pavement.
She walked over to where I lay. She looked down at me, her lips curled in disgust. Without a word, she raised her foot and drove the sharp point of her heel directly onto the back of my calloused right hand, grinding it into the asphalt.
“You think you can disrespect me?” she hissed. “You are nothing. Just the trash we have to clean up to make this neighborhood decent.”
She leaned down, grabbed the heavy leather collar of my old riding jacket, and pulled upward with all her manic strength. The worn stitching gave way. The jacket tore violently down the back, exposing my bare skin to the sun.
Evelyn pointed at my back and let out a mocking, theatrical laugh. “Look at this! Garbage ink for a bottom-feeding failure. You think a tattoo makes you tough, old man?”
I didn't scream. I just turned my head, grinding my cheek against the asphalt, and glared up at her.
But as Evelyn laughed, I looked past her to the Mercenary Leader pinning my spine. His eyes had dropped to the exposed skin between my shoulder blades. The massive black dragon wrapped tightly around a broken sword.
The leader didn't laugh. The color drained from his face. His jaw went slack, and he took a sudden, involuntary breath. Slowly, almost subconsciously, his right hand drifted down toward the concealed sidearm on his hip. He stared at the tattoo with genuine, unmistakable terror.
He knew what the symbol meant. And he knew Evelyn had just made a terrible mistake.
CHAPTER 2
The mercenaries didn't say a word. The leader abruptly pulled his knee off my spine, standing up with a rigid, unnatural stiffness. He signaled the others with two quick taps against his thigh. They released my arms and backed away, their eyes darting nervously toward my exposed back.
“Get her inside,” the leader muttered to his men.
Evelyn, oblivious to the sudden shift in the men she believed worked for her, adjusted her wide-brimmed hat. “Leave him in the dirt,” she ordered smugly. She turned on her heel and marched back into the glass mansion, her Range Rover still parked half on my property.
The guards followed her in silence. The heavy oak door clicked shut, leaving me alone on the blistering asphalt.
I lay there for a long time, focusing on the rhythm of my breathing. The pain in my shin throbbed in time with my heartbeat, a deep, sickening ache that warned of bone trauma. My spine felt as if a hot wire had been driven into the vertebrae. Every movement was a negotiation with agony.
Slowly, I rolled onto my side. I planted my uninjured right foot and pushed myself up, leaning heavily against the handlebars of my Cruiser. I dragged myself into my house, locking the deadbolt behind me.