The Almighty Dominance novel Chapter 840

Before the girl could answer, a sharp-faced young man came down the stone steps two at a time.

"Nina. Step back from him."

Hector stopped in front of Alex and looked him up and down: the borrowed jacket, the scuffed shoes, the fish-market dust on the hems. Then he laughed.

"Ten times superior? A dock rat with salt still drying on his boots wants to lecture the Wolfe family?"

He leaned in until his face was a hand from Alex's. "Exactly who do you think you are? A fool like you needs to be shown just how high the heavens really stretch."

"Hector, leave it," said Nina. "He's nobody."

"Nobody insults the Wolfe art in front of you. Not while I'm alive."

Alex glanced past him at the old man. "He's in love with her, isn't he?"

Hector went red to the ears. "Shut your mouth! I am Mr. Wolfe's senior disciple. No one is allowed to look down on our art! Let me teach you the first lesson, rat. You should always—"

Hector struck in the middle of his own sentence: a fist low for the ribs, the other already flying for the jaw.

It had dropped bigger men than Alex before they knew the talking had stopped.

Both fists hit empty air.

He spun and came again. Knee. Elbow. A stiff hand for the throat. Every blow landed where Alex had been a breath before.

"Is that the lesson?" said Alex. "Hit the air very hard? I think I've got it."

"Stand still!"

"Why? You're doing so well."

"Grandpa," Nina whispered. "He cannot touch him. Hector cannot touch him."

Hector heard her. His face twisted.

"Hit me!" he roared. "If you've got anything at all, hit me!"

"Are you sure?"

"HIT ME!"

Alex threw one punch. No wind-up. No shout. It came at a walking pace, the plainest punch a child could throw.

Hector crossed his forearms and took it full on the block. He did not even rock back. He laughed in Alex's face and threw a look at Nina.

"Ha! That's it? Just a little weak punch! Is that the art that's ten times—"

Then he looked down.

His left wrist hung at an angle that wrists do not hang at. The colour was draining out of his hand.

"Sorry," said Alex. "I held back. See a doctor about that arm."

Hector stared at it. Then his face broke, and what came out was not pain. It was murder.

"I'll kill you!"

His good hand whipped a knife from his belt, and he lunged with it straight for Alex's throat.

"Hector, no!" Nina screamed.

Alex caught the blade between two fingers.

It stopped dead in the air. Hector drove at it with all his weight, and it did not move a hair.

"Let go!" he spat.

"You first."

Alex turned his wrist once, and the knife was in his own hand.

"Nice knife," he said, and dropped it over the harbour wall into the sea.

Hector's good hand went straight under his jacket, to the gun.

"HECTOR." The old man's voice cracked like a whip. "Take your hand off that. Now."

"Sir, he broke my—"

"He could have put that fist through your heart. He chose your wrist. You are a guard of this family, not a street thug. Go and stand by the car, and if you touch that gun again, you are finished in my house."

Hector stood there shaking, grey with pain and hatred, and looked at Nina.

She was not looking at him. She was looking at Alex. That went into him deeper than the broken wrist.

"This isn't over, rat," Hector said through his teeth.

"It's been over since your elbow," said Alex. "Mind the steps."

Hector went up to the black car on the road and stood beside it, his ruined wrist against his chest, his eyes never leaving Alex.

Nina walked onto the stones.

She was tall, almost Alex's height, with that hard ponytail and a face that had never learned to smile.

She had been her grandfather's only pupil since she was six.

"You made a bet," she said coldly. "One hit, and you teach me your art. Or was that only a dock rat's big mouth?"

"It's still true. One hit."

"Then I'll take it myself."

"Nina," her grandfather warned.

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