The Almighty Dominance (by Sunshine) novel Chapter 841

They came at him from three sides at once.

The old man in the middle like a wall. Nina high and fast from the left. Hector low from the right, one good hand, his face white with hate.

"Now!" roared Mr. Wolfe.

None of them could touch him.

A brush of fingers under Nina's elbow sent her flying past her grandfather. The old man's great palm came, and Alex was not there. He was behind them, on the stone where Nina had started, with both hands back in his pockets.

"Again?" he asked.

"Again!" Nina screamed.

They came again. And again. And Hector stopped fighting like a disciple of anything. He went for Alex's eyes with his thumb. He stamped for the back of his knee.

When that missed, he tried to drive his cast into Alex's throat.

On the fourth time, Alex caught him by the collar.

"You're a guard of this family," he said. "Fight like one."

He turned once and let go. Hector flew past Nina and landed face down in the rain puddle between the roots of the old tree, so hard the water splashed her shoes.

Nina stopped. She looked down at him.

Hector pushed himself up on his good hand. Mud ran down his face. He looked up, and the first thing he saw was Nina's face, and on it, for one second, before she could hide it, pity.

He made a sound that was not a word at all.

"Grandpa, he's not even sweating," Nina gasped. "How is he not even sweating?"

"That's enough," said Alex. "I'm hungry. Let me end it."

He bent and picked up a fallen yellow leaf from under the old tree.

He flicked it.

The leaf blurred into a black line in the air. It went past Nina's face so close that its wind lifted her hair and hit the trunk of the old tree with a crack like a gunshot.

The whole tree shuddered. Leaves rained down on all three of them.

Nina stood frozen.

She turned. The leaf was buried in the trunk to half its length. She pulled at it with both hands, and it came out like a nail out of oak.

"It's a leaf," she whispered. "Grandpa. It's just a leaf."

Mr. Wolfe lowered his hands. For a long moment he could not speak.

"You have to admit defeat when you know it," he said at last, "and there's no shame in admitting you're not as good as your opponent."

He put his old heels together and bowed from the waist, slowly, all the way down. "It is an honour to meet you, Grandmaster."

"Sir!" Hector was on his feet, mud on his face. "Sir, don't! Not to him!"

"Be quiet, Hector."

"He's a dock rat! He's nobody! You've never bowed to anyone in your life!"

"I said be quiet."

Hector shut his mouth. His eyes went from the old man's bent back to the leaf in Nina's hand, and then, slowly, to the gun under his own jacket.

Hector grabbed a firearm, aiming right at Alex's face. "Prove you're a grandmaster! Take a bullet for me right now, and maybe I'll buy your act."

"Hector, no!" Nina gasped.

Refusing to accept it, Hector slammed his finger down on the trigger. The gunshot echoed thunderously across the courtyard.

But when the smoke cleared, everybody gasped. Alex was still standing right there—holding the live round pinched between two fingers as if he'd just plucked a fly out of the air.

With a subtle wrist-flick, he shot the bullet right back into the muzzle. The weapon blew apart in a violent blast, shattering Hector's fingers to pieces.

Nina stood frozen in absolute disbelief, while Hector dropped to his knees, clutching his mangled hand and groaning in agonizing pain.

The old man began to laugh, the deep, wild laugh of a man who has found something he had stopped believing in.

Then the laugh broke in the middle.

He folded in half. The cough tore out of him, deep and wet and terrible, and would not stop. Nina caught him before he hit the stones.

"Grandpa! Grandpa, breathe!"

He coughed into his handkerchief, again and again. When he took it away, it was soaked bright red.

"Old wounds," he managed. "Just some old wounds that never healed."

"Don't you dare say it's nothing!" Nina's voice cracked. "You promised the doctors! You promised me! Hector, the car! The hospital, now!"

"The hospital can't help him," said Alex. "It never could."

They all stared at him.

"Those three flaws," said Alex. "Every morning for seventy years he's forced his breath through them, and it's eaten his lungs. One more fight like that, and it kills him."

The old man looked up at him with red lips. "Then I'm a dead man," he said, "and I've known it for years."

"No." Nina was on her knees on the wet stones, holding her grandfather against her, her cut cheek wet with blood and tears together. She looked up at Alex, and every scrap of pride had gone out of her face. "Please. You saw everything. Can you save him?"

"Nina!" Hector's voice cracked. "Get up! Don't you kneel to that animal!"

She did not even turn her head.

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