He allowed himself a moment to experience the oddness of the fight compared to his experience. The Zoo monsters displayed no fear—or, at least, nothing he was able to identify as fear. They simply threw themselves at him until they either killed the interloper or were driven off. Humans were different. He always knew that on some level, of course, but it was strange to see it in action.
His opponent threw a blind punch that connected with his jaw, but it made no impression. His senses registered it as barely a mosquito bite and something easily disregarded. The man reached the ropes and realized there was no more space for retreat. He threw another punch that went wide as Taylor ducked and hammered a left into his ribs.
"You boys owe me and my people an apology," he declared coldly and turned his attention away from the fighter who fell and clutched his ruined ribs. The second man’s eyebrow still poured blood and it covered half his face already. If this had been an actual fight with standard and approved rules, officials would already move to stop the fight, but there was no sign of any interference. Instead, the ref did his best to stay out of their way and simply watched and waited for the bell that would signal the end of the second round.
He hadn't even tried to stop Taylor from attacking the man on the ground. It seemed an odd choice as both men were about as disabled in the fight as they could be while still conscious.
Three minutes were left on the clock until the bell rang. His opponents faced another three minutes of his assaults before they were given a reprieve, enough time to show them exactly how bad an idea it was to get into the ring in the first place.
The man still on his feet displayed stark terror in his eyes, but he stood his ground. It was the courage he had seen so many times when someone chose to face a monster rather than run. He certainly seemed braver than Taylor felt while fighting humans.
Three strikes to the body made the bald man stumble, half-blinded by the blood that obscured his vision and made it difficult for him to see where the strikes were coming from, much less be able to block, dodge, or roll with them. Taylor exhaled with every strike as he’d been taught to, but it felt like he breathed fire. He punished his target with blows to the body with every strike but avoided the head and any part that would end the fight prematurely. On instinct, he delivered no blows to the liver, the kidneys, or the solar plexus.
The crack of bones and slaps against the softer parts continued and the man almost writhed while still on his feet. He barely breathed and attempted to keep himself covered until he could take no more and crumpled to curl into the fetal position.
The ref stepped in and motioned Taylor away, which was fine. He had another victim to torment.
The long-haired man had regained his feet and enraged, surged forward as he threw wild punches. A few of them connected. Taylor barely noticed and ducked to drive his elbow into his knee. The crunch of bone and cartilage breaking brought a cold smile of satisfaction. He delivered a sequence of strikes to the body and concentrated on the ribs he had weakened before to power his fist repeatedly into the vulnerable area until he could feel the bone breaking.
The man couldn't breathe and lowered his hands to the injured area as Taylor straightened, arced his body, and twisted his hips to launch a right hook that felled his adversary. He landed hard, unable to protect himself when his face hit the canvas.
The bell rang and he registered that it was too early. Only a minute and a half had passed, at most, but the fight was over.
Taylor dropped beside the man who was already regaining consciousness. "Are you sorry for disrespecting my people? Don't speak, just nod."
His opponent looked like he had trouble focusing, but he managed to nod slowly. Taylor stood and walked to where the ref tried to get the other fighter to uncurl from the fetal position.
"I think the other guy needs your attention," he told him and the referee nodded, happy to be out of the way as he dropped beside the man and yanked his head up to look at him. "Are you sorry for disrespecting my people?"
He nodded slowly and the one visible eye widened in terror as Taylor pushed him away and stood again. His job was done. That was all he wanted to hear from them.
There wasn't a hint of noise in the small arena other than the two men still on the ground, groaning in pain. Taylor ignored everything and climbed carefully out of the ring.
Niki was already there to greet him. "You're covered in blood."
"It's not mine."
Cheers penetrated his awareness. Those who were assembled, whether they had made or lost money, were all happy to have been present for what he assumed was a great display of entertainment for them. He didn't like it because he had been there to make a point. Their enjoyment felt like a hat on a hat to him.
Niki helped him but she didn't want to give him his clothes. He could tell that much, even though numbness began to set in.
"I'll take care of him," she said, about a hundred miles away.
"Someone will have to." The voice sounded familiar—maybe Maxwell's? "He's one crazy motherfucker."
"Yeah," she answered and guided him toward the elevators. "But he's my crazy motherfucker."
Niki could sense that something had changed in Taylor almost from the moment that they spoke. It was hard to describe it but she knew she was right.
He had deliberately kept Marino’s men in the fight. With Maxwell and Jansen, he had ended it as quickly as possible and had chosen his strikes to deal enough damage to put them on the ground and deter them from any attempt to get up. Not so with the two mobsters. Hard hits were aimed where they would be painful but not enough to disable them. There were times where it seemed he had physically kept the men on their feet until he was finished with them—like feeding the violence until it was sated.
Most people would see that and feel afraid. They would cut off all connections and keep their distance. Human instinct would be to push that monster as far away as they could, afraid it would turn on them next.
But Niki didn't feel that way. Taylor was the same. She knew he had this sadistic side to him and she had encouraged it. During the fight, she had seen it and felt something rise in herself—maybe a hint of empathy, she acknowledged.
She sat next to her bed at the Aria. When she’d brought him to the hotel, he had looked drained and somehow absent. After a quick shower to wash the blood away, he lay down and fell asleep while she wiped a new trickle of blood from his cheek. She had stayed with him and watched him sleep for a while longer.
Seeing the monster and then the man should have been difficult. But his survival instinct was what drove his darker nature and that was the most human thing about him.
He wasn't asleep for long. The adrenaline faded from his system and once the morning came, she heard him wake. She couldn't be with him the whole time. It felt wrong to be seated like she hovered over him, waiting for him to wake up, and she had finally slept on the couch in the living room of the suite. Fortunately, it was more comfortable than her bed at home and certainly more comfortable than his.
She pushed to her feet and immediately walked to the phone as she heard him head into the bathroom.
By the time he came out, a young man was at the door with her breakfast order.
Taylor wore only a towel wrapped around his waist. He inclined his head with evident interest in the sight of the heaping pile of breakfast foods that had been brought up.
"What happened last night?" he asked and ran his fingers through his beard. "Why am I at your hotel?"
Niki shrugged and set two plates with silverware, glasses, and mugs out for them on the small dining table on the far side of the room. It stood against the window and looked out into the city.
"I decided not to take you to your place. No offense, but it has a way of killing a lady's boner."
"So did we—"
"No. You were out of it."
He moved to the chair opposite her and sat. "Pity."
She smiled and started to serve some of the scrambled eggs and ba
con onto her plate. "I wouldn't worry about it if I were you. I can manage getting turned on again."
"Fights turn you on?"
"That wasn't a fight that happened last night. Maybe I was simply turned on by your raw, animal magnetism."
"Maybe it was the sound of your voice and your eyes telling me to finish it that was enough for me."
Niki couldn't help another smile as he started with the pancakes. He piled them onto his plate, covered them with butter and maple syrup, and filled his glass with orange juice. For some reason, he avoided the coffee for the moment.
"It’s not as good as Il Fornaio," he commented and took another mouthful. "But good enough."
With a small shrug, she finished her eggs and focused on the waffles. He was right. They were good.
"The guys are ready for more training," she commented when she finished her pancakes and moved on to the coffee and bacon. "I told Bungees to deal with them for the moment until I was sure that you were okay."
He grinned and winced when his attempt at movement triggered the pain from his injuries. "Those two were much worse than I thought, even in the moment. I didn't defend myself properly, and they landed a couple of hits that I didn't feel then but I do now. It was like fighting Bobby, except they had more of an 'I'm going to kill you' attitude about it."
"I think even those who lost felt everyone gave their best effort," Niki commented. She pushed out of her seat and walked around the table toward where he was seated. "But they underestimated what you were capable of. And many people lost from the sound of it."
She stopped when the phone buzzed on the table. When she picked it up, she saw an unknown number and assumed it was one Desk was fond of using. After a few seconds during which it continued to ring, she tossed it onto the sofa where she had spent the night.
"Who was it?" Taylor asked.
Niki made him push his seat out a little to make space to move between him and the table. She straddled him carefully and leaned forward to place a light kiss on his cheek.
"Do you honestly think this is a good idea?" he asked.
Her head tilted a little challengingly, she continued to move closer until she could almost feel the heat radiating from his skin. "Fuck yeah, I do. Maybe with you injured this way, I'll have the upper hand."
"I guess we'll see about that."
She nodded as she ran her fingers up his bare chest. A chill rushed through her body simply from that connection before she curled her fingers around his neck and lowered her head a little so she could press her lips to his.
Chapter Sixteen
Jack wasn't sure if this was the right decision but circumstances dictated that it had to be made. He had consulted the other two agencies involved, and while they had officially advised against it and said there was no way their agencies would risk committing any more assets to the fucking island, they had done so in a way that implied that if his agency was willing, they would back his play.
In fairness, it was a stupid plan. He reminded himself of that as he stepped into the helicopter that flew resources to the island. His superiors would chew his ass out for even suggesting it, but they had given him as much leeway as he needed. It had been a requirement for his hiring and something he insisted on. In the end, if it worked, no one would give him any trouble.
If it didn't, the chances were he would be a little too dead for anyone to chew his ass out.
He settled into the pilot's seat and strapped himself in as the co-pilot ran all the preflight procedures.
"It’s a standard flight," the man assured him. "We're taking crates and picking up crates. Nothing to it."
His response was simply to nod. The fact that his nervousness showed wasn't great, but if it didn’t arouse suspicion, there was nothing to worry about. Contacting the people involved and deciding on their exit strategy had been the biggest problem. In the end, the two men the CIA had sent in would put themselves in the most jeopardy. His role in getting them out was comparatively free of danger.
When the preflight checks were completed, he powered the rotors up and took off as smoothly as could be expected when they were this close to the Atlantic. It had been years since he had flown combat helicopters into battle, but he had kept his license and practice up to date in case someone on his team needed to be bailed out of a shitty situation.
Jack had felt stupid about maintaining it for all those years, and now that it was finally paying off, it still felt fucking stupid.
It was a relatively calm day. The winds didn’t work too hard against them, yet a sickening tension rose warningly in his stomach. It became worse when the island appeared in the distance. Although barely a blip on the radar at first, it grew steadily and the encroaching nausea did too.
He drew a deep breath and reminded himself that he wasn’t worried—the mantra he needed to tell himself repeatedly in the hope that it would prove true. It had been a bad idea to come on the operation, but the only other option he’d had was worse. He would have to bring another asset in, train them, and bring them up to date with the intel while he ran through the operation as he saw it. All that, plus the allowances they might need to make for someone who maybe didn't know how to pilot a helicopter would simply take too long and their people would be dead by then.
His hands remained firm, thank goodness, and suggested that he was calm and even a little serene as he brought the chopper in for a slow descent to the open area that had been cleared for arrivals.
"There’s no space for a plane to land on the island," the co-pilot commented as they descended. "It means that most of the deliveries would have to be by helicopter. Hell, all of them since I don't think a ship can dock here. There will be more flights coming in and out— almost daily from the look of the schedule—since they still need to bring food and parts in while the facility is being built. It’s considerable work for us and hell, I'll take that shit."
"From here, it looks like it’s already operational even though it’s still under construction," he commented and made sure everything was as it should be as the crew outside had already begun to move the crates he had delivered. "Why would anyone build something in a place like this anyway?"
"Hell, with the money they’re spending, I'm happy with the 'don't ask, don't tell' protocol they have set up, and you should be too."
Jack nodded. He was, in fact, happy that very few people asked any questions at this point. The security systems weren't fully in place yet and were still being installed and set up. It was all that would allow him to get the team out alive.
A couple of forklifts emerged from the central building on the island, carrying crates that were almost identical to those they had unloaded.
"There’s not much room for clutter here, I guess," the co-pilot commented as the loads were hoisted into the cargo bay. "They always send us away with a load to take back and usually, a team to take it away somewhere to refill or something. It means we're paid more for the return trip, you know?"
He nodded although he knew for a fact that the crates they removed were sent to an incinerator to stop the spread of anything from inside the base. If that worst-case possibility happened, it would pose a real problem for the operational success of the facility.
One of the drivers of the forklifts patted the side of the helicopter to indicate that they were clear to leave, and Jack repeated the preflight process. The instructions were for minimal radio chatter, which worked out perfectly for him.
They were airborne and on the way to the mainland minutes later. His heart beat quickly and way too loudly. He wondered if the man in the seat next to him would hear it, but he kept his hands steady and his gaze focused on the landmass growing on the horizon.
"Shit," the copilot muttered and tapped the sensors to make sure they were still working. "We're burning too much fuel."
"Are you sure?" he asked and checking the equipment himself like he didn't know exactly what was happening.
"Yeah. I think we're flying a little too heavy."
"But they loaded us. Why would they exceed the weight we are registered for?" Jack asked and trailed his gaze over the other sensors like he was making sure. "You might want to check that we don't have a leak on the tanks."
"Yeah," the copilot answered, turned in his seat, and tried to inspect the tanks visually.
He stiffened suddenly in his seat and his hand flailed as if to reach for something. It lasted for less than a second before his whole body went limp and sagged into the leather. Blood seeped from the single gunshot wound at the base of his skull. The helmet had made sure no exit wound would splatter blood, bone, and brains over the inside of the cockpit.
Jack tucked the Walther P99 into his flight suit. The weapon was a little cumbersome with the suppressor attached to the barrel. Over the droning of the rotors above him and the headset that he wore, the muted crack of the shot had gone almost completely unheard.
He hadn't wanted to do it and had hoped the guy wouldn't notice that they carried a little extra weight. It was made worse by the fact that he liked the guy. He had a little something extra to him.
The helicopter still had enough gas to get to the mainland, if only barely. He had made sure of that, but the tougher part of his role in the mission still lay ahead.
Trucks were already waiting for them when he brought the helicopter in for landing and he noted the two men who stood and watched him settle their aircraft in the demarcated area. The location was abandoned or simply left alone, which meant the owner was in the pocket of whoever owned the island.
It was a new avenue of investigation that he had already passed to his team of analysts in DC, but the focus had to be bringing the CIA's assets out alive and with all the intel they could smuggle out.
He climbed out of the cockpit, stretched his arms, and yawned as widely as he could. Hopefully, his casual movements would suggest that this was merely another flight for him as the two drivers advanced on the helicopter.
Monster In Me (Cryptid Assassin Book 8) Page 13
