Chapter 2

I sat quietly as Marten told me his plan. I sat quietly as the others made their introductions and told me abbreviated versions of their stories. The twins gave less abbreviated retellings, especially when they recounted some very creative ways they tortured the johns they killed. The highly descriptive nature of the retelling didn't disturb me, the way they laughed so hard they couldn't speak over one of the johns squealing and shitting himself while they dissected his cock and balls did.

Marten just kinda shrugged at me when I gave a look that clearly said "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!". He was way too excited about doing this and didn't seem like he cared if we all got caught in the process. When Marten handed me a Glock and said "Let's go!" I put my big ass foot down.

"Hell no!"

Marten looked stunned, Bic and Tim looked uncomfortable while Paul and the twins looked smug. Em looked pissed, but she'd looked like that since I met her an hour ago. It didn't take Marten long to get pissed, "No? What the fuck do you mean, no?!"

"I mean no, as in the opposite of yes!" I was trying to be as nonaggressive as possible, but Marten was starting to get red faced and practically gnashed his teeth together.

"You said you'd fucking help me, Jack!" he screamed.

"Yes I did, but I didn't think you were trying to get me killed or worse."

"You fucking coward!" he bellowed and his hand twitched toward the gun in the back of his pants. "I thought you were my fucking friend!"

I moved before he could finish deciding if he was gonna pull the gun on me. I was suddenly in his personal space with my hands wrapped in his tshirt. I saw the sudden fear on his face and he decided to go for the gun, so I lifted his 5' 9", 190lbs ass off the ground like a 5lbs sack of flour. Our noses were maybe an inch apart when I snarled in his face, "Pull that gun and I'll break your fucking neck then drag your body back to your wife and kid and tell them why I did it."

"You'll go back to jail." His voice was more a croak than anything else.

"No shit, Marten, but it's better than letting a friend kill me 'cause he didn't get his way." There was no doubt what I thought of Marten's friendship, not after I sneered the word at him. Guilt exploded across his face, so I dropped him. He stumbled back and I went to grab a beer and sit down at the table.

"Jack, I..."

"I don't care, Marten." There's this look I perfected in slam, it's the closest thing to dead I can get. All emotion and life just go away and leave me looking like a statue of a corpse. I gave that look to Marten and watched him pale. "I'm gonna guess our target for the evening is a certain apartment complex where only four things come out. Drugs, junkies, kiddie porn and your daughter. Am I right?"

Judging by the looks everyone was now giving Marten, he hadn't told them the significance of his chosen target. I could only shake my head and take a gulp of the beer. Em was sitting across the table giving me a look that wasn't pissed, it was more like sadness and maybe regret, but it was quickly gone.

"I'll go alone."

My hands spasmed closed with anger and the beer bottle exploded in my hand and Em jumped back so fast the chair fell over. I turned my head slowly and stared unblinking at Marten as beer and blood dripped off my hand onto the table. "You're an asshole and a fucking idiot."

"Fuck you, Jack!"

"I thought you were smarter than this." Marten looked like he was going to scream again but shut his mouth when my hand hit the table hard enough to bounce several beer bottles an inch off the table. "No, you shut the fuck up and listen!"

"That place is NOT a fucking apartment building, it's a bunker filled with guys that would stab and rape their own grandmothers for two dollars. The hallways are lined with junkies that'll stand in front of a bullet 'cause they think it'll get them another fix. I went in and checked it out after you told me about Sandy." The surprise on Marten's face would have been comical if the situation had been different.

"How did you know where to go?" Em asked in a nonpissed off tone.

"I asked my neighbor." My neighbor Kathleen is a nurse that lives in my shitty area thanks to child support that eat most of her checks. "It wasn't hard to find the place, since cops avoid the fucking army that lives there. From the shit I saw and heard you're lucky they let Sandy leave."

Kim sighed and sauntered around the table to drop into the chair to my left, where she could watch Marten, and grabbed one of the beers that hadn't rolled onto the floor. She chugged the remains and gave me a hard look. "Okay beefy, you got a plan?"

"Yeah, not dying from lead poisoning or torture."

"You know," she gave me a look that was less than friendly. "You ain't gonna enjoy Cam fucking you if I beat you unconscious first."

Cam giggled, which was my only warning before she landed on me. It broke the tension, and that's good because it was getting so thick I could barely move. Paul smirked, Tim and Bic chuckled, Em looked disgusted and Marten looked lost. Paul grabbed Em's vacated chair, flipped it around and straddled it. "Okay big guy, me and the twins agree a hundred percent that walking in cold is the worst of bad ideas."

Cam's head rubbed my chin as she nodded and Kim toasted me with a fresh beer, Bic and Tim shuffled over to lean against the counter behind Kim and Em grabbed the last chair and sat. Marten looked like he might throw a tantrum and my respect for him dropped a few more notches. I really did understand his need to get some payback for his daughter, but revenge isn't justice and that's what he had sold us on. I'm not an idiot, I know going and killing 'bad guys' isn't very justice like, but it can't hurt to remove some criminals.

"So what's your plan?" I had a feeling Paul and me were gonna be great friends. He was smart and seemed to have his eyes wide open.

"First thing we do is some training." My eyebrows hit my hairline. "Don't get me wrong, you're big and fucking fast and hard as a coffin nail, but you're a brawler and anyone with real skills would take you apart and you're a helluva lot better fighter than most of us."

Cam shook with silent laughter and Kim gave me the shark grin again and I suddenly never wanted to fight either of them. Kim must have seen the thought flit across my face because she nodded and mumbled, "Good call."

Paul gave me a meaningful look before continuing, "My dad was military and he always said the best way to not get dead was don't let them know you're there. Tim can show us stompers how to walk like thieves."

To demonstrate, Tim did a fast walk across the linoleum in his work boots and barely made a sound. I gave him my impressed look and he smiled before I turned my attention back to Paul. "What about Bic, Marten and Em?"

"Em will monitor police bands and keep an eye on where we all are, Bic'll handle the getaway and any disposal needs we may have and Marten," Paul turned a flinty look on my ex PO. "Will be lookout and backup. You, me and the twins are the fireteam, meaning we get to clear the place out while Tim provides support and gets us through any locks."

"Okay, where do we start?" I sometimes wish I hadn't asked that question.

An hour later I was bruised and battered, panting like a bellows and staring wearily at Kim across the ring from me. She had a trickle of blood from her left nostril, a split lip and was beaming like Christmas came early. We had MMA strike gloves, thick sparring head gear, sparring boots and it felt like she was hitting me with rebar. Thank the gods of manhood I was smart enough to wear the big padded cup or she would have already turned my cash and prizes into a bloody crime scene.

When Paul decided we all needed some hand to hand training, the twins told us about a great gym they liked to workout at. So after wrapping a rag around my bleeding hand we all loaded up and drove the 12.7 miles to the gym and strolled in.

"Hey girls," a very thin, very pale man that looked like he could be Keith Richards' much older brother greeted as we walked in. "I see you're bringing victims rather than picking on the poor idiots here."

The twins laughed and hugged the man, "Nah, these're our friends, Herby."

"Oh, well I'll get the sutures and bone saw instead of firing up the incinerator." He laughed, then gave us a look of sympathy. "I got all the blood off your gear and stowed it in your lockers, if your friends need temp gear you know where it's at."

"Thanks Herbert!" Cam said as she gave the old man a kiss on the cheek.

Kim turned to us and let loose with a full blown Evil Grin that would have made Hades shit himself. "Okay pussies, who's first?"

I tried to look at the guys and realized I was suddenly alone, I could just see Em taking a seat against the wall facing the nearest ring. "Fuck."

"That's later, first we fight!" Kim laughed, a bell like tinkling laugh that was both beautiful and terrifying. "Gear up, we'll be ready in a few!"

I was watching the twins walk off grinning and giggling merrily, I had the thought that I probably should have updated my Living Will today. A pair of spandex shorts hit me in the side of the head, braking my little daytime nightmare. I held them out and looked at them skeptically, "Shouldn't I have boxing trunks?"

Herby the old guy smirked and shook his head. "Only if you want them ripped right off. You really don't want any loose clothing flapping around they can get a grip on, it'll end badly."

Okay, looks like I'm wearing spandex! I was in the locker room changing when Herby brought a bunch of pads, I took one look at his encouraging smile and put every single piece on without question. I had been standing in the ring for a few minutes with some of the locals giving my scarred body the stink eye when the twins walked out of the locker room ready to throw down.

When I first met them I had been too surprised to give them a good look, but I was getting a serious eyeful now. They wore the same black spandex shorts that missed mid-thigh by at least two inches, the same black sports bra that let you know right away they had tits, not huge tits but at least high B cup. Maybe even a low C, but that was all secondary. Two things caught the eye and dared you to try looking away.

The twins were fucking cut! Muscle rippled in their thighs and arms, how I didn't see that before I'll never know, and their abdomens looked like they had been etched in wood then had the edges sanded down to give the illusion of softness. The second thing to slap you across the face and demand your full attention was the tattoo. It was a complicated twisting pattern of vines that snaked its way from beneath the right sparring boot, up the leg to disappear under the shorts only to reappear from the waistband.

From there it spread up the right side of their stomachs, wrapping around their sides to likely cover their backs before sliding under the sports bra, where I knew it squiggled around the right breast, spreading out to wrap completely around and down the right arm and down the back of the right hand and fingers. From the neck of the sports bra the ink snaked over the collarbone, up the neck to terminate just below the right ear.

"Holy shit." Tim breathed, the look on his face was equal parts lust and fear.

"Goddamn, that's scary!" Bic mumbled at the same time I said, less quietly than I wanted. "That's fucking hot!"

I knew they heard me the instant their eyes locked on me and identical grins spread across their faces. I think I tried to blush, but I'm not sure how successful the attempt was with most of my blood trying to skydive to my junk. Once they got to the ring, one of them slid between the ropes. "Okay, beefy, you and me are gonna have the most fun you can have without penetration while Cameron gives the others a crash course in Assbeatery 101."

"Okay, let's do thi..." I never got to finish my sentence because Kim was suddenly on me and pounding the shit out of my thighs and stomach. Her fists, knees, feet and elbows were fucking everywhere and felt like a sledgehammer each time they connected. They connected a lot and it made me glad no one in jail hit like this or I never would have survived. A hammer like blow to the cup doubled me over then I think a knee caught me in the face and I felt my eyebrow split and then I'm lying on my back trying to protect my face.

As soon as I was down Kim pounced, straddling my chest, raining blows down on my forearms as I tried desperately to keep from getting my face pummeled. She quickly switched to pounding on my ribs, making me grunt in pain, so I shoved my arms straight out and I think I caught her in the stomach because she sorta did a flying roll off of me. I rolled onto my stomach and scrambled to my knees before Kim was on me again, this time wrapped around my back like Cam had been.

Unlike Cam, Kim was punching me in the back of the neck and hammering my left thigh with her heel. I did the only thing I could, I grabbed her ankle and yanked as hard as I could. Her fingernails raked my neck and across my back as her body whipped around mine. I didn't try anything fancy, I just threw her, and watched her pull a good imitation of helicopter blades as she spun face down across the ring. She hit the mat hard enough to bounce, twice, then slid right under the bottom rope to drop the three feet to the padded concrete.