Vasquez turned and marched back across the bar, heading for the back door and the conclusion of the deal. Sykes pushed himself from the table, massaging his wrist. He looked down at Sam who was slowly pushing himself to his knees, while Edinson waited, like a lion ready to claim its kill.

With Vasquez yanking open the door, Sykes followed, scolding himself for his rash judgment and for now following Vasquez’s lead. He’d wanted to shed the skin of a subordinate but had quickly stumbled into the role.

Sam heard the door slam shut, wiped the blood from his split lip, and pushed himself to his feet.

Edinson stood, his face expressionless, but his eyes conveying the reality of the situation.

The bar was eerily silent.

His gun was somewhere in the room.

Sam took a breath, cracked his neck, and then clenched his fist.

Chapter Twenty-Six

There would come a time in Sam’s life when he would look back on the path he took and the people he’d crossed. Every trigger he pulled and every life he’d ended. For each and every criminal he did battle with, he would try his best to work back from their death to the moment of justification to his cause.

That he was killing them out of necessity, not out of his own enjoyment.

As he stood ten feet from Edinson and shook the cobwebs from the clubbing blow that had signalled the behemoth’s arrival, Sam knew he would have no such trouble if he survived.

Edinson was the only thing standing between him and Alex, and for her, he was willing to destroy a cathedral of blessings. He would gladly drill through the ground and choke the eternal life from Satan himself if he meant he removed her from the danger she was in.

Edinson’s sturdy, stubble covered jaw twisted into a cruel smirk. The first emotion Sam had seen from the big man. With a body comparable to a granite wall, and ink covering every inch of his forearm, Sam knew his opponent was forged in a lawless prison, where only the strongest walk out with their heads high.

Whatever Edinson had done to be sent to such a place would have been beastly.

What he would have done to walk out would have been much worse.

Sam scanned the ground for his gun, but the scattered tables and chairs that polluted the bar made it impossible to locate. There was no way other than to raise his fists and do what he did best.

Survive.

Not wanting to stand on ceremony anymore, Edinson stomped towards Sam, his bulging arms by his side and Sam threw up his fists and swung. With shocking agility, Edinson ducked down, the fist colliding with his shoulder.

Sam’s hand shook on impact.