“Fuck that. I need to make sure you’re holding up your end of the bargain.” I gesture for him to keep going.
He grunts and walks into the front yard, ignores the door, and goes around the side. The gate unlatches and swings open quietly, and we approach the RV together. I hang back watching as he circles the vehicle, a small model barely big enough for one person. He finally knocks on the door and waits.
Predictably, there’s no response. I can’t imagine Jaxson’s the kind of guy to be up by eight in the morning. Nolan knocks again, pounds this time, until someone shouts for him to shut the fuck up and the place shakes and groans as a body comes stomping over to answer.
The door swings open and Jaxson’s standing there, bleary-eyed, shirtless, covered in bad tattoos and muscles. He’s blond, blue eyes, square jaw, almost attractive if he didn’t have that shitty chin-strap beard.
“Who the fuck—”
Nolan reaches out, grabs Jaxson by the neck, yanks him forward, and slams his forehead into Jaxson’s nose.
It breaks with an audible crunch. My hands cover my mouth and I stare in total shock at the suddenly and intense brutality.
“Oh, fuck,” Jaxson says as Nolan throws him down to the grass and kicks him three times. Jaxson shouts in pain and tries to tell Nolan to stop, but there’s something dead in Nolan’s eyes, and he kicks Jaxson again, and again, and again.
Finally, he steps back, breathing hard. Jaxson’s curled up around himself, groaning, half-dead, bleeding from cuts on his torso and his face, nose gushing down his mouth and chin. Jaxson spits, or tries to.
I can’t move. It’s one thing to know violence like this happens, to know a person’s capable of hurting someone so viciously and so suddenly, but it’s another to see it unfold. I’m both terrified and excited, and I don’t know what that says about me, but I can’t move from where I’m standing over near the fence.
Nolan crouches down beside Jaxson.
“You’ve been bothering Kady Stone.”
“Kady? The fuck? Kady? Who the fuck are you? I’m going to kill you, mother—”
Nolan grabs Jaxson by the hair. He pulls tight and Jaxson sucks in a sharp, painful breath, teeth clenched together.
“Kady Stone. Your former girlfriend. Tell me you understand.”
Jaxson groans. “I understand.”
“Good. You made a movie with her.”
“I don’t—”
Nolan pulls his hair tighter and kneels on his chest. “You made a movie with her.”
“I did, fuck, yeah, I did.”
“You’re going to get rid of it. You’re going to leave her alone.”
“Who the fuck are you?”
Before Nolan can answer, the back door slams open, and a big guy with a thick beard wearing nothing but a pair of Confederate flag boxers comes storming out with a big shotgun clutched in both hands.
“You motherfucker better get the fuck—”
Nolan pulls a gun and shoves the barrel into Jaxson’s mouth, making him gag and sob.
Confederate boxers guy stands there, staring, teeth bared, breathing hard. He’s pointing the gun at Nolan and nobody moves or speaks for a beat and I’m panicking, barely keeping myself under control. This is so much worse than I thought, but I don’t know what I expected. Nolan’s not the civil conversation type, and he wasn’t going to ask nicely, but the amount of blood, the guns, the dead-eyed stare on his face—
“Put the weapon down before I kill this man.” Nolan stares at the cousin. Must be his cousin, couldn’t be anyone else. I can see the resemblance: same light-colored hair, same light-colored eyes, only the cousin’s significantly heavier than Jaxson.
“What the fuck are you doing? Who the fuck are you?” The cousin’s trembling. “Put your gun down, motherfucker, or I’ll blast your head off.”
“My name is Nolan Vandello, and if you don’t stop yelling like that, I’ll end your cousin’s life and end yours before you can pull that trigger. Now, shut the fuck up, and listen.”
The cousin stares. His eyes are wide, his mouth moving like he wants to respond, but nothing comes out. Every move makes me twitch like he’s about to pull the trigger, but Nolan seems extremely calm and collected, which helps to lower the temperature a little bit. If it weren’t for Nolan’s cool, I think we’d all be dead already.
“You’re the fucking mafia guy.” The cousin’s quieter now. He doesn’t lower his shotgun but at least he’s not threatening to blow Nolan’s head off. “The one with the clubs.”
“That’s right, I own a few clubs and bars around Marietta and down in Atlanta. You know who I am. You know I’m a part of this community. Your cousin here has been fucking with a friend of mine, and you know what happens when you fuck with my friends.”
“You can’t just—” The cousin’s face hardens. “We’re fucking ORB. You can’t just come in here and attack my cousin and think nothing’s going to happen.”