The restaurant patrons were evacuating. Green had someone in a choke hold and another PT man on his back. I’d forgotten that VanZant had used to be a champion welterweight, and he was knocking the snot out of a PT man twice his size. The Haights seemed to be having a jolly time, until one of them got hit with a chair. Gregorius was wrestling a PT Hunter next to the soda machines. Ultimate Fighter had Cooper in an arm bar. Albert, despite the cane and leg brace, was a shockingly tenacious fighter, and he was facing two PT Hunters at once, which apparently Trip didn’t think was very sporting, because he slammed one of them through a corner booth. Even Holly had gotten into it. A PT man hesitated, not wanting to strike a girl, until she groin-kicked him like she was punting a football.

Turning back to the giant, I didn’t see that my opponent’s hands had landed on another serving tray, which he promptly swung and clipped me in the temple. That one rocked my world. I landed flat on my back. The giant came over to stomp me, but Nate body-checked him into the soft-serve ice-cream machine. Too bad the Shacklefords were from Alabama, because the kid showed a lot of promise as a hockey player.

The vanilla spigot had broken off, and soft serve came spooling out. “Got no problem with you,” the giant said through gritted teeth. “Just him. Get out of my way.”

“You mess with MHI, you mess with all of us!”

The giant cocked his misshapen head to one side. “What? MHI?”

Nate tried to punch him, and though he was fast and relatively skilled, the giant was simply out of his league. He effortlessly slapped Nate’s hands aside, grabbed my brother-in-law’s tie to hold him in place, then slugged him. One, two, three solid hits before Nate’s brain had even recorded the first impact. Nate went down, out cold.

That really pissed me off, and I came off the floor, ready to kick some ass.

Hotel security guards were pushing their way inside. Since the restaurant rotated on a platform, the whole place was shaking badly under the stampede. The other ice sculpture fell and broke, and somehow somebody had managed to throw something hard enough to break one of the chandeliers. There was some screaming as Green got pepper-sprayed, and more screaming as Lee shoved a rival Hunter into the chocolate fountain.