to get a chance to get his knife back, and as soon as he did, he was gutting this bastard.
Backed up against the wall, King was bearing down with the syringe, his muscles bulging, sweat breaking out on his brow. He pressed his arm closer, bringing his hand nearer and nearer Con’s neck, pushing hard, forcing the needle toward Con’s skin. The guy was bulldozer strong, like a freaking machine.
Fuck.
Con kneed him, threw an elbow strike, blocked an incoming uppercut … and kept holding the syringe at bay, twisting King’s wrist and forcing the needle in another direction.
He took a blow to the body, and then another. Mustering his strength, he slammed King even harder into the wall, but King Banner wasn’t one of those CIA spooks he’d been outrunning and outfighting all these years. The man was a warrior, and his blows came fast and hard, one after the other, each one a pile driver. The bastard caught him up the side of his head, and pain shot through Con like a whip crack. Then another strike came at him, sharp and fast and deep.
Fuck.
He knocked King’s next blow away and twisted under the man’s other arm, bringing it over his shoulder and jerking it down hard, leveraging it against King’s elbow and having the satisfaction of feeling the joint give way.
King let out a deep, surprised groan.
Yeah, Con understood. The guy was built like a steel brick. Nobody was supposed to be able to break him.
The syringe fell to the ground from King’s suddenly nerveless fingers.
Pendejo, Con swore to himself. Asshole.
But he wasn’t out of it yet.
As King slumped against the wall, his good arm snaked around Con’s torso, holding on tight, squeezing him hard and dragging him down into the open doorway where Rock was struggling back to a sitting position, pulling himself up against the door, his eyes glazed with pain.
Shit.
That was the bad thing about Bangkok boys. They didn’t know when they were down.
Rock lunged forward, one hand reaching out and grabbing hold of the black syringe.
This was going to get messy.
King was rolling over the top of him, and Rock was coming down on top of King, the black syringe in his hand. For a moment, their combined weight was going to be an insurmountable advantage, and a moment was all it was going to take for Rock to stick him.
Sonuvabitch.
He tried to twist clear, heaving his body up and out from under, but he was bucking over four hundred pounds of scrap and grapple, and wherever the goddamn needle was, he could smell it locking in on him like a tractor beam, and so it would have …
Except there was another shot.
From where he was, scrunched up tight and scrambling for a hold and trying to protect his flank, he heard a gun go off, loud and cracking, an explosion of sound. He felt Rock’s body jerk hard and then slump on top of him, felt the fierce kinetic energy of King’s whole being still reaching for him, still in the fight despite his broken elbow joint, and then he felt King collapse, all the fight and energy draining out of him in an instant.
He dragged himself out from under the two limp bodies and immediately saw King’s problem—the syringe hanging out of his arm. Rock must have gotten him when he fell. Poor bastard.
Rock’s problem was just as obvious, but standing five feet away—Jane, her Bersa Thunder .380 smoking in her hand.
Good girl.
Behind him, he heard Rock come back from the initial shock of getting shot, gasping in agony. The bastard cursed and groaned, his breath harsh and raspy, and when Con looked, it was easy to see why. Jane had shot him in the left knee he no longer had. That thing had been shattered.
“Good shot,” he said, glancing back at her. Her dress had been torn straight up the seam from the hem, probably by King, during the brief intense scuffle they’d all had at the door, and she had a lot of leg showing. Her hair was wild from the fall she’d taken, her knee was bleeding again, and her face was deathly pale, but she was still on target, ready to shoot again if necessary.
He was impressed, with her steadiness and her shot placement. Rock had stretched his leg out behind him, using it for leverage. It was about the only place she could have shot him without possibly shooting Con, too. He was damned grateful she’d figured