My Best Friend's Dad - Flora Ferrari Page 0,42
tilts his head at me appraisingly. “Now hang on a sec, it seems we’ve struck gold here. You haven’t got a crush on the big ugly bastard in there, have you?”
“Ugly?” I snap. “Have you looked in the mirror lately?”
It’s not the world’s best insult, but it’s all I can come up with as fear forces me to back step toward the diner. But the men see what I’m doing and surround me like hyenas, converging in a great mass of intimidation until they’ve got me covered on all sides.
“Nowhere to run, you fucking b—”
“Lay one hand on my woman,” Saul’s voice snarls, “and I’ll take your goddamn head off, Jett.”
The bald man – Jett – smiles broadly and turns to Saul, who stands at the edge of the group with his fists clenched and his eyes narrowed.
“Now it’s a party,” he grins. “So you and this thing, you’re an item, eh?”
“You insult her again and you’ll be picking your teeth up off the concrete,” he growls.
Saul, I want to cry, there are too many of them.
But my throat feels as though it’s closed up with panic, my heartbeat thumping inexorably.
“Like to see you try,” Jett laughs grimly, his hyenas cackling along with him.
“Get away from her,” Saul snaps, stalking closer now, closer.
“Or what?”
“Men like you,” Saul spits. “So brave when you’re in a group. You think numbers are going to keep you safe? I’d die before I let you touch her.”
Jett turns fully now, all the men, aiming their rage at him. Jett reaches into his jacket and comes out with a gleaming blade.
“That ain’t so tough a task,” he snaps. “I’ve cut men for less than what you did to me.”
“What about what you did to those dogs?” Saul snarls. “That’s my lady there, that’s my fucking woman. A little letter opener like that doesn’t change a goddamn thing.”
“No? What about these? Boys.”
All the men draw their knives now, looking like seven glinting shards of ice in the snowy landscape.
Something within me freezes when I spot Fiona walking up behind her dad, her mouth hanging open.
She heard it all.
Saul called me his woman.
Fiona knows.
I came out here to run away from telling her and now she knows and now something terrible might happen.
“Please,” I say, making my voice loud. “Just stop this now. It’s so senseless.”
“Shut up, cunt,” Jett roars, wheeling on me with the knife.
I step back with a cry.
But Saul throws himself into the middle of the men with no regard for his own safety.
They fall on him with their knives, but Saul moves like a shadow, insanely fast and fluid for a man his size. He ducks sideways and then comes up with an uppercut that snaps Jett’s head back, causing him to slip on the ice and land with a bony crack.
Saul spins away, fists raised, judging his timing as three men bulrush him.
He faints to one side, causing one of the men to bring his knife up.
And then he ducks low and slams him in the ribs so hard I’m sure I hear bone crack.
Whish-whish, the knives hiss in the air, just shy of Saul’s face as he ducks backward in a boxing stance.
“Tsk, tsk,” Saul grunts, letting out short puffs of air with each devastating strike.
Each man is big and strong looking, some of them just as tall as Saul, and yet he dances around them like a savage whirl of violence.
He grabs one man’s wrist and snaps it upward.
The knife drops and Saul catches it—only to toss it away, skidding metallically on the concrete.
I back up until I’m standing with Fiona.
She must have walked around the fight to get to me, and now we grip onto each other, too frozen to do anything.
“The cops,” I gasp. “We need to call the cops.”
“Right,” Fiona says, snapping from her daze and taking out her cellphone.
I can’t help but wonder if her daze comes from the fight or from what she just overheard.
She knows, she knows.
Saul has disarmed all the men now, impossibly, his chest rising and falling as he stands over them, fists clenched, face a picture of rage-filled concentration.
“Are we done?” he snarls, staring the men down.
Jett is the first one on his feet, clutching at his face. “Brokemyfuckingjaw,” he whines.
“I’ll do worse if you don’t apologize to my woman,” he snarls.
Even as his words make my chest flutter, I can’t help but feel Fiona tense up beside me.
This isn’t how I wanted you to find out.
Jett laughs, but then Saul takes