Star Crossed Read Free Page B

attack.
    The union guys had already made themselves scarce, but after a minute, possibly shamed by her example, the two older Spanish-speaking men waded in to subdue one biker.
    Her odds improved, A.J. used her own fighting boots. Though they weren’t steel-toed, she sent another outlaw into dreamland when her foot connected with his sternum and he cracked his head on the edge of a booth’s table. That left two mutts to take care of. Luke was groaning but struggled to get up. The British model rushed forward to help him.
    With more strength than her toothpick limbs suggested, she dragged Luke out of the line of fire.
    “Don’t,” he said. “She can’t fight two of them by herself.”
    A.J. could and would. Bearded Guy had dropped his pool cue on the sticky floor earlier. Channeling every ounce of frustration inspired by her day from hell, she grabbed it up and whirled. The cue stick’s end took Bearded Guy’s last ally upside his head. His eyes rolled back as he crumpled.
    “You’re crazy,” Bearded Guy accused, holding his broken arm and panting.
    A.J. made the pool cue whistle like a ninja weapon and backed him into a corner. She noticed she didn’t hear sirens yet.
    “Didn’t you call 911?” she demanded of Gina.
    “I . . . we’ve been having trouble with our license,” she said apologetically, nixing any chance A.J would switch teams for her. “I can’t afford to bring them here.”
    Bearded Guy grinned at her.
    New York’s finest weren’t the first folks A.J. wanted to see either. She wasn’t one of them anymore, nor did most have reason to believe she was anything but a traitor to the uniform. With her luck, they’d twist this fight around so she ended up seeming in the wrong. It was, after all, how they’d responded to her accusation that her sergeant skimmed money from drug busts.
    To them, she’d always be the hysterical female rookie who tried to grass her superior.
    “Screw it,” she said, lowering the pool cue. Bearded Guy tracked the motion with his eyes, same as most people would. This allowed her to pop him in the center of his forehead with her free fist. Her knuckles landed so squarely he went down like a feather.
    A.J. might be tough but she was human. Her adrenaline fury spent, her knees started shaking with reaction. Stiff legs took her to the models, where she shook out her stinging hand. The girls had missed her epic takedown. They were fluttering around Luke. He was hunched in a chair holding damp paper towels to his bloody nose.
    His friends seemed worried for him but otherwise useless.
    “This is so bad,” the Kewpie doll brunette moaned. “You look awful.”
    A.J. saw they could use direction. “One of you needs to take him to the ER. Those hits he took were substantial.”
    “We have a thing tonight,” the redhead objected. “It’s Michael Kors. We’ll get fired if we don’t show up.”
    Luke looked up at his fair-weather friend and gaped.
    “I’m sorry ,” she pleaded. “You know the agency’s rules about ditching assignments.”
    “I . . . do,” Luke said slowly.
    The Brit turned to A.J. “Couldn’t you take him? You seem capable.”
    “I’d . . . appreciate it,” Luke put in with the same hitch of dismay.
    Fuck , A.J. thought, realizing she couldn’t abandon him. It was that thing people said in books: save a man’s life and you’re responsible for him forever. Resigned but irritated, she thrust her palm toward the hopeful girls.
    “Cab fare,” she ordered. “Unless you’d rather I walk your friend to the hospital.”
    The girls scurried to supply it, thanking her with a breathlessness that increased her annoyance. When they were done, A.J. held six crisp hundreds within her fist.
    Must be nice , she told herself.
    Stuck in her Samaritan role, A.J. heaved Luke up with his long arm around her shoulder. He smelled good, despite dripping sweat and blood—just in case she needed proof Fate was kinder to some people.
    Her hands full, she