Chapter 3 - Anatomy of Violence
Brock’s humiliation boiled instantly into murderous rage. "You dead bastard!"
The young fighter lunged forward, throwing a textbook, explosive overhand right—a punch designed to separate jawbones from skulls, packed with all two hundred and ten pounds of his athletic frame. It was fast. It was brutal.
It was entirely predictable.
Frank didn't backpedal. He stepped *inside* the arc of the punch, his left hand deflecting Brock’s forearm harmlessly past his ear. In the same fluid, unbroken motion, Frank drove the heel of his right palm directly into the bridge of Brock’s nose.
CRACK.
Cartilage shattered instantly. Blood sprayed across the canvas. Brock screamed in shock, his vision flashing white as his hands flew up to clutch his ruined face. But Frank was already moving. He pivoted on his back foot, caught Brock behind the neck with a brutal collar tie, and drove a steel-hard knee directly into the young man’s solar plexus.
Brock’s breath erupted from his lungs in a wet, choking gasp. He folded like an accordion.
"Get him!" Axel roared, panic finally cutting through his bravado. "Break his legs!"
Two heavyweight fighters—sparring partners weighing at least two hundred and forty pounds each—surged forward from the left and right. The first threw a vicious low roundhouse kick aimed at Frank’s knee. Frank didn't absorb it; he checked the kick with his shin, bone grinding against bone, then seized the fighter's extended foot and twisted violently. The fighter’s balance evaporated, and Frank drove a downward elbow directly into the man’s exposed hamstring. The fighter hit the mat, screaming, clutching a ruptured tendon.
The second attacker rushed in with a wild tackle, hoping to smother the veteran against the floor. Frank slipped to the side like smoke, using the man’s own momentum. He grabbed the fighter’s head, guiding it down with terrifying speed into the reinforced corner post of the training ring.
THUMP.
The impact vibrated through the floorboards. The heavyweight crumpled into an unconscious heap, knocking over a rack of fifty-pound chrome dumbbells that clattered loudly across the floor.
Water bottles rolled. Chalk dust hung suspended in the pale fluorescent light.
The entire gym froze. The fifty young fighters watching from the perimeter took an involuntary collective step backward. Their mouths hung open. In less than eight seconds, three professional athletes had been systematically disassembled by a man with gray hair and a department-store jacket.
Frank didn't have a scratch on him. His breathing was smooth.
He walked slowly over to Brock Vance, who was crawling on hands and knees across the mat, leaving a smear of dark arterial crimson behind him. Brock looked up, his face twisted in horror, his left eye already swelling shut beneath a shattered orbital bone.
Frank reached down, grabbed Brock by the hair, and hoisted him upright until the young man was forced to stand on his toes. Frank leaned in close, his slate-gray eyes boring into the coward’s soul.
"YOU PUT MY DAUGHTER IN THE HOSPITAL!" Frank’s roar shattered the silence, carrying the terrifying resonance of a battlefield commander. "You broke her bones because she couldn't hit back! Can you hit back now, boy?! CAN YOU?!"
Brock sobbed, blood and tears mixing on his lips. "Please... Axel... help me... Uncle Victor..."
Axel Vance backed away until his shoulders hit the reception desk. His face was devoid of color. He looked at his broken brother, then at the two unconscious hulks groaning on the floor. His hands shook as he fumbled into his track jacket, pulling out an encrypted gold-plated smartphone.
Axel swallowed hard, a desperate, malevolent grin twitching on his lips. "You... you think you're tough, old man? You just signed your own death certificate. You have no idea who you just messed with."
May you like
Axel hit speed dial and mashed the speakerphone button.
***
