Her Enemy Protector (24 page)

He turned back to Rico. “Okay, Einstein. Let’s get this over with. Show me what you’ve got.”

Chapter 14

J
oe eyed Rico carefully. His opponent would most certainly underestimate him, but he wasn’t about to make the same mistake. Rico hesitated, seemingly unsure as to how to begin.

“C’mon, buddy,” Joe said conversationally. “Let’s get this show on the road. I don’t want to fight in front of Cari, and she’ll be back soon with the med kit. Drop your knife out of that wrist sheath and bring it already.”

Rico’s eyes narrowed. Without further ado, he jumped forward. A wink of metal flashed in his right palm. All right, then. The show was on. The thug held the knife reversed, the blade lying back along his forearm with the tip pointing toward his elbow. Ol’Rico had a little experience fighting with a knife, did he? Joe wrapped the towel around his left forearm, casually tucking the two ends of it in tightly. The fluffy terry cloth made a great impromptu gauntlet.

“Let’s dance, shall we?” Joe invited lightly. He circled to his right, forcing Rico to follow him in an arc to bring the knife into play.

Normally, he wouldn’t talk much in a fight. The necessary breathing rhythms of speaking telegraphed too much to an experienced fighter. But today wasn’t only about taking Rico down; it was also about minimizing the desire of anyone else in the Ferrare household to tangle with him. Hence, a certain amount of verbal psychological warfare was necessary.

He had no doubt that all of Eduardo’s office windows were open and that the light breeze was carrying every word he said to the ears of the avid crowd that were practically pressing their noses against the giant glass wall.

Rico growled, “You think you’re going talk your way out of this, pretty boy?”

Joe shrugged. “I’d rather not have to go through with this stupidity, but it was your call. And I gave you ample opportunity to reconsider. But now you’ve ticked me off and I
am
going to kick your ass.”

“Hah.”

“Already out of brilliant repartee, are you?” Joe taunted gently. “Maybe you should stick to fighting, then. Speaking of which, you can give it your best shot any day now. I’m getting bored.” Joe’s message was clear. He wasn’t going to start this fight, but he was damn well going to finish it.

Rico finally leaped forward, swinging viciously with his right arm. Joe ducked the wild blow easily, coming up with a hard fist to the guy’s solar plexus before he danced back lightly on the balls of his feet.

Rico gasped for air, eyeing Joe in surprise. No more talk. Time to get to business. Now that Rico had taken the first shot, Joe went on the offensive, pursuing Rico aggressively. The thug eyed Joe’s right hand warily. Didn’t like that gut shot, eh? There was more of that where the first punch came from.

Joe waited until all of Rico’s weight was on his left foot and then swept his right leg forward, kicking the weight-bearing leg out from under Rico before the guy had any idea what hit him. The big man went down on the concrete with a heavy thud.

Joe took a step back and grinned down at his opponent. “Don’t go taking a nap on me, dude! Get up and get busy before you embarrass yourself.”

Rico climbed to his feet in a not-particularly-nimble fashion. His face was red now, his eyes slits of rage. He’d do something wild next, a big offensive move designed to overpower Joe since pure skill wasn’t looking promising against the American.

Joe balanced lightly, waiting for the big move. Sure enough, Rico lowered his right shoulder and made a charge worthy of a bull in a matador’s ring. Joe waited till the last moment and stepped out of the way, his movement blindingly fast and smooth as silk. As Rico barged past, Joe planted a hand in the middle of the big man’s back and gave him a solid shove. Down he went again, on his face this time.

Rico rolled onto his back—a colossally stupid move in a legitimate knife fight.

Joe commented, in his best instructor’s voice, “You shouldn’t roll over like that when you’re getting up. You’re exposing your vital organs to me while you’re down and defenseless. You’d be better off pushing up to your hands and knees and then jumping to your feet. That way, all you ever give me is your back. If I had a knife, I’d have a hard time killing you through all that backbone and muscle.”

Rico was already halfway to his feet but actually paused as if he might roll back over and get up the right way. But then he hitched back into motion and finished standing, scowling. He charged again. And again. And each time, Joe slipped out of the way, landing a punishing blow somewhere on Rico’s body as he slammed past.

By now, it had to be patently evident to even the most casual observer that Joe was toying with Rico and was a vastly more skilled fighter.

After one particularly ugly pass, Rico stood with his head hanging down, blood dripping from his split lip, panting hard.

“Give it up, Rico. Just walk away. I don’t want to hurt you anymore.”

“F— you,” Rico snarled. He charged again and, this time, Joe didn’t sidestep him. He stepped into Rico, slamming his fists into Rico’s sternum in a pair of powerful blows. The thug doubled over and slammed, chin first, into Joe’s fist. The guy’s teeth clacked together loud enough to be heard across the yard.

Joe followed up with a vicious blow to the guy’s nose and felt the bone give way with a grinding sensation beneath his knuckles.

Rico surprised him by reversing his grip on the knife and lunging at Joe, knife point first. In a reflex move honed over years of combat training, Joe crowded in fast and hard, grabbing Rico’s wrist and twisting it violently. The knife dropped out of useless fingers as both wrist bones gave way with an audible crack that sounded like a rib of celery snapping in two.

Joe bent to scoop up the knife. But desperation made Rico fast and the thug’s fist met his at the knife. Rico got his fingers around the handle and shoved up with all his remaining strength, which was formidable, and Joe had no choice. He had to deflect the blow into Rico’s gut. The blade buried itself in Rico’s abdomen with a sickening slide of slippery guts giving way before hard, cold steel.

Thankfully, the thug knew when to give up. He fell to his knees, his hands clutched around the hilt of the knife sticking out of his belly.

Joe stepped back and took a couple of deep breaths. He didn’t take his eyes off Rico, though. More than one good man had had a fight won, only to take his eyes off the downed opponent and die from a sneak attack from the ground.

“You finished?” Joe demanded.

“Yeah,” Rico grunted.

“You ready to let me treat that wound and keep you from dying?”

Rico glanced up in surprise. Blood was starting to seep between his fingers. A lot of it. The whole front of his shirt was turning red quickly. “For real?” he panted.

“Yes. Now lie down. The way you’re bleeding, I might’ve nicked an artery.”

“That ain’t good, is it?” Rico grunted.

“No, it isn’t,” Joe snapped. This idiot could bleed out in a matter of minutes if that artery wasn’t found and clamped off.

While Rico rolled clumsily onto his side and then his back, Joe glanced up, looking around for Cari and that med kit. There she was, standing over by the dining room door. Gunter was standing beside her and had her upper arm in a firm grip. Good man. The last thing he’d needed would have been Cari diving into the middle of the fight.

“Bring me the first aid kit,” Joe called sharply. “And call an ambulance if you have them in this godforsaken country.”

Gunter grabbed the heavy canvas pack from Cari and both of them hurried over to Joe. The German dropped the kit on the ground beside Joe. “What can I do?”

“Open that up and get out a scalpel and a big wad of gauze pads,” Joe answered. “And surgical gloves, if you’ve got any. I don’t trust this yahoo not to have AIDS.”

He glanced up at Cari. “Put on a pair of gloves, then place your hand here and press down as hard as you can.” He placed her gloved hand on the towel he’d unwrapped from his wrist and used as a makeshift pressure bandage.

She complied and he grabbed the gloves Gunter held out, snapping them over his wrists with the speed of long experience.

“Gunter, grab the knife and, when I tell you, pull it out. Lean it back against the unsharpened side. We don’t need to slice him up even more on the way out.”

Gunter nodded and put his hand on the protruding knife.

Joe pushed his fingers into the top of the wound on either side of the blade, preparatory to prying the wound open to have a look for that artery. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be buried deep. Rico groaned. No time to sedate the guy, assuming this kit even had the right drugs to knock him out.

“Do it,” Joe ordered.

Gunter eased the knife out and a gush of blood flowed over Joe’s fingers. Working by feel, he wedged his fingertips into the wound and held it open.

“Cari, use that wad of gauze to mop up the blood. I’ve got to see where the blood’s coming from. Gunter, get me a locking clamp. It’s the one that looks like a cross between scissors and pliers.”

Cari leaned over his arm, sopping up the copious blood. She pulled the gauze away and, for a second, he had a clear view of the wound. Hallelujah. He’d spotted the bleeder. It wasn’t cut all the way through; it was merely torn. A simple clamp should hold it for long enough to get this jerk to a hospital.

“Bring that clamp over here, Gunter, right by the wound. Okay, Cari. One more time.”

She mopped up the blood again and, as she lifted the soaked mess away, he used his left hand to hold the wound open and his right hand to grab the clamp and slap it onto the arterial tear. The blood flow from the wound diminished noticeably.

He grabbed one last handful of gauze and cleaned up the wound. He packed it open for the surgeon, who would finish cleaning and repairing the stab wound, then field-dressed it quickly.

God, he couldn’t count how many wounds like this he’d treated over the course of his career. The guys in Charlie Squad usually did a pretty good job of not getting themselves hurt, but civilians who bumbled into the cross fire and nimrod bad guys like Rico were a dime a dozen. No common sense at all.

He sat back on his heels and had a look at the rest of his patient. The wrist wasn’t in too bad a shape, although it would need to be pinned while the surgeons had him under anesthesia. Joe slapped a quick splint on the wrist to keep Rico from doing something stupid like poking the broken wrist bones through the skin.

A couple wads of cotton stuffed up Rico’s broken nose to keep it from swelling shut and that was about all he could do for his patient for now. He was actually capable of doing the required surgery to clean and repair the knife damage to Rico’s intestine, but he’d rather leave it to a surgeon in a nice, sterile hospital. Meatball surgery always carried a certain amount of risk, and guts were filthy places to mess around without the proper equipment.

He looked up at Gunter. “This idiot’s going to need minor surgery to repair the damage in his gut and set his wrist. He’ll also need a heavy-duty antibiotic to keep him from getting peritonitis from all the gunk that’s leaking out of his intestine into his abdominal cavity right now. Make sure both things happen—surgery to repair the gut and wrist, followed by antibiotics to combat the infection. He’ll die if he doesn’t get both treatments, got it?”

Gunter nodded briskly. “Got it.” The German looked up candidly for a moment. “Thanks.”

Joe retorted wryly, “For not slitting his throat or for patching him up?”

“Both.”

He shrugged. “No sweat. I told him I knew how to fight. But did he believe me? Nooo.”

Cari caught his gaze, some strong emotion swimming in her eyes, but damned if he could name it. Awe? Dismay? Disbelief? Hard to tell. She was good at masking her real thoughts when she wanted to. After a few minutes, she went inside, mumbling about getting dressed.

He stayed on his knees by Rico, monitoring the guy’s vitals for the next half hour while an ambulance made its way from St. George to the seaside estate. Several of the guards brought out a stretcher and carried Rico through the house to the ambulance when it finally arrived. Joe picked up the sterile packaging that was strewn all over the ground by the pool and bundled up the gauze, wrapping the whole lot in the bloody towel.

A maid scuttled out to help him, looking scared. He handed it to her and said kindly, “Just throw all this stuff out, okay?”

She nodded and hurried away. He needed a shower. He was sweaty and covered in sticky blood. Heading for the house, he peeled off the rubber gloves as he went. And drew up short as Gunter stepped in front of him.

“Mr. Ferrare would like to see you.”

Joe blinked. “He’s home? I thought he was in town on business.”

“He got back in time to witness the…excitement.”

Joe slapped Gunter on the shoulder and laughed. “Excitement, huh? Where I come from, it’s called an ass whupping.”

Gunter grinned. “It’s called that where I come from, too.”

“Can the boss cool his jets long enough for me to take a shower? I’m covered in blood, and who knows if Rico practices safe sex? He’s not bright enough to bother with condoms, if you ask me. Wouldn’t want to expose my father-in-law to any nasty diseases or anything.”

Gunter opened his mouth to answer, but Eduardo spoke from the doorway to his office. “Go take your shower. I can wait.”

Joe blinked. Eduardo almost sounded friendly there, for a second. “I’ll be down in a jiffy.”

Eduardo nodded and turned, disappearing into his office.

Cari looked up as Joe burst into the bedroom.

“Oh, hi,” he said. He sounded mildly distracted.

Apparently, it was an everyday occurrence for him to nearly knife a man to death and then patch him back together. Abruptly, just how little she really knew him hit her squarely between the eyes.

He stripped off his bloody T-shirt and carried it into the bathroom. “If you’re here when the maids pick up these clothes,” he called out over the sound of the shower turning on, “tell them to burn ’em. Rico’s blood has to count as hazardous biomedical waste, don’t you think?”