Takedown Teague (Caged #1)(5)
A chilly breeze blew down the street, bringing some of the more glorious scents up into the air and cooling my skin. I tossed the cigarette butt through the holes in the fence and into the gutter with the rest of the trash and then went back to the door to retrieve my shirt from my gym bag.
The trip-trapping sound of women’s shoes on pavement caused me to look up, and I watched a young woman come into view as she passed the dumpsters at the back of the bar. She walked quickly with her head down and a purse with a lengthy strap over her shoulder. Her long, brown hair was tied up in a ponytail at the top of her head, and she wore a pair of short-shorts, which showed off her long legs, and a tight T-shirt with the name across her chest of the bar and grill a few blocks down. I figured she was maybe five-foot-four and a hundred and fifteen pounds because I tended to size people up that way. Nice build, nice tits. She didn’t look over at me at all, just kept up her quick pace down the street with her eyes on her feet.
My first thought was f*cking gorgeous.
My second thought was f*cking stupid.
Who walked around this area of town in the middle of the night by themselves? I mean, yeah—I did—but I wasn’t a very easy target. She might as well have had a sign on her back that said “mug me”. I shook my head and went back to rummaging around in my bag. When I looked up again, the sound of her shoes was beginning to fade, but that wasn’t what caught my attention.
The guys across the street who had been sitting and drinking had gone quiet and were now all standing up with their heads close to one another. The guy with greasy, shoulder length, black hair turned his head to look down the street in the direction the girl was walking and then nodded before he and a guy with a backwards baseball cap took off down the side alley that ran perpendicular to the street they were on.
I’d lived in that area a couple of years, and I knew that alley intersected with another alley, which then met up with a walkway between two of the abandoned warehouses, and dumped out onto this street a couple blocks down. The last two guys in the group were heavyset with unkempt dirty blond hair. They looked like they might have been brothers. They quickly abandoned the bottle-in-a-bag and started walking quietly but quickly in the same direction the girl was going, pulling the hoodies up over their heads as they walked.
Their intent was obvious.
“Fuck,” I mumbled. I grabbed my bag, ignoring the shirt that fell out of it and onto the ground and heaved at the heavy gate that enclosed the area behind Feet First. For once, the damn thing was padlocked. I growled before flinging my bag up and over the fence, grabbing onto the links with my fingers, and hauling myself over it, too. I had to move pretty quickly if I was going to catch up with the drunks and their would-be victim.
I was never one to play the hero, but some things you just didn’t let slide.
Chapter 2—Save the Girl
Stepping lightly but quickly, I moved down the quiet, empty street. There was a bend just a couple of blocks ahead of me, and both the girl and the guys pursuing her must have already passed it. I couldn’t see anyone else on the street at all though someone could certainly have been hiding in the shadows. More than half the streetlights were out here—no one ever seemed to bother replacing them—and you couldn’t see the moon or any stars. The light pollution from deeper in the city was the only thing keeping the streets from being completely dark.
I moved a little faster, making my way around the curve in the street.
I saw them then, and I was correct in my initial assessment of their plans. They had already caught up to her—two in the front, two in the back. The one with the baseball cap and the greasy one were behind her with their arms held out a little to keep her in place while the two brothers shifted back and forth in front of her. They had her surrounded and were moving slowly, herding her toward the walkway between two buildings.
“Hey, baby,” the blond brother with the darker colored hoodie purred. I was pretty sure it was the one who had shoved his buddy down in the street earlier. “Relax. We just want to have a little fun.”
“Yeah, you know,” the kid in the backwards baseball cap said, “invite you to our little par-tay.”
I couldn’t stand it when people talked like that. It didn’t make them sound cool; it made them sound like morons.
“Leave me alone!” The girl slung her bag off her shoulder and held it in both hands, as if she might try to use it as a weapon.
The group laughed and closed in on her. One of them reached out and grabbed the large bag, wrenching it from her hands and spilling the significant contents all over the street. The guy with greasy black hair reached for her then, grabbing her by the tops of both arms and pulling her backwards as she cried out.
As if anyone around here would even notice or care if they did hear her screaming.
The guy in the hoodie stepped forward and began to reach for her. I dropped my own bag, no longer concerned with a silent approach, and raced down the street. They were far too occupied with their captive to notice me anyway, and I managed to get right behind the one grabbing for her.
My hand grasped the top of his head, clenching the material of his sweatshirt and his hair as well. I yanked him backwards and off balance and then released him as he fell on his ass with a thud. Changing my stance, I leaned over and let my foot fly out, catching another one in the side. I heard a distinctive crack as my booted heel came into contact with his ribs.