Fierce Protector: Hard to Handle trilogy, Book 1 Read Online Free Page B

table.
    “You’s cheating,” he snarled. “You’s been moving the fuckin’ eight ball when I weren’t looking.”
    “Billy, I never,” she began. She was perhaps twenty-two, a slender brunette in skinny jeans and a thin, white blouse. Her aggravated pool opponent was a burly twenty-something in a plaid shirt and a dirty baseball cap. He hadn’t shaved in days and tottered unsteadily now that his pool cue could no longer hold him up.
    “What’d I say about lying to me, bitch? Huh?” Billy rounded the table, brandishing half of the cue. He had raised it just above his head when it was yanked from his hand with a suddenness he found worryingly inexplicable.
    “My mother always told me not to talk to girls like that,” came a voice behind him. “Didn’t your mom teach you that, too?”
    The plaid-shirted drunkard turned to find his eyes level with the chest of a looming six-foot four veteran. “Huh?” was all he managed.
    “You need to apologize to your lady here,” advised Zack. “She didn’t move the ball. I know, I saw.”
    “I was trying to tell ya’,” she began, tears in her eyes.
    “Bitch, you shut up if you don’t wanna . . .” Billy found himself physically lifted off the floor, his feet momentarily dangling, and then felt his legs swept aside and his knees crash down hard. As he toppled forward onto his side, the firm pressure of a knee in his back kept him going, while strong hands gathered his forearms behind his back and pressed upward, angling his elbows outward until his hands met between his shoulder blades. The pain in his upper arms was suddenly blinding.
    He tried to kick out but immediately felt a boot stamp down on his thigh, a deadening, numbing blow which knocked the remaining fight out of him. “What did I say about how we talk to ladies?” asked Zack, kneeling on the guy’s back and forcing his captive’s hands further up, until Mitch felt that an arm might actually break.
    “Zack, buddy . . . he ain’t a towel head, man. Take it easy.”
    “And what have I told you about racial slurs?” Zack yelled. Mitch gulped. “You want some of this, too?” His friend knew when Zack’s buttons had been pressed, and wisely muttered an apology.
    “Don’t hurt him, please.” This was the girl, sniffling with fear and confusion, her make-up smeared. “He don’t mean no harm.”
    CJ emerged from behind the bar carrying a loaded sawn-off shotgun “Zack, we’re done here,” he said. “I don’t take kindly disturbances. Let him up, OK?”
    Billy found himself hauled to his feet. He massaged sore wrists and leaned heavily against the pool table, the feeling in his right leg returning only slowly. “Sir, I’d say you’ve had enough for tonight. Make your way on home, you hear?” The drunkard was silent, humiliated, unsure how his evening had taken such an odd turn. “And if I see you go near your car out there, it won’t just be Zack dissuading you, it’ll be Mr. Remington,” he warned, patting the shotgun for clarity.
    Within minutes the place had settled, the pool-playing duo had a cab outside, and the dude had finished his steak and left, shaking his head in despair at the state of the world. “Most every time we’re in here, something like this happens,” Flynn reminded them. “I mean, he’s cussing at his lady but there weren’t no need to get involved like that, Zack.”
    Norcross pushed away the dregs of his beer and stood. “No, sure. I was wrong. I should’ve just watched that girl get beat up. We should all just let violence win, ’cos it’s easier. Right, Flynn?”
    Flynn’s hands were up in surrender. “He was out of line, I’m with ya there. But that’s why we have cops, Zack.”
    “Whatever,” he replied. “I’m going to get some air. You guys come out when you’re ready and I’ll drive you back into town.” Zack left, the air around him crackling with discontent and barely contained anger.
    Mitch finished his third beer and