Chapter 7 - The Line in the Dust
Cross’s hand never made contact with Leo’s jacket. With a blinding display of raw, unrestrained speed, Jax caught the vice president’s wrist mid-air, squeezing with a pressure so intense that a sickening crunch echoed through the quiet diner. Cross’s confident smirk vanished instantly, replaced by a mask of sudden, searing pain as his bones ground together under Jax’s grip.
“Keep your hands off him,” Jax whispered, his voice dangerously low, vibrating with a lethal intensity that made the two enforcers at the doors instinctively rest their hands on their belt knives.
Cross snarled, using his free hand to drive a vicious punch straight toward Jax’s ribs. The blow landed with a heavy thud, but Jax didn’t even flinch. Years of brutal highway brawls and bare-knuckle pit fights had turned his torso into a wall of solid muscle and scar tissue. Instead of retreating, Jax drove his forehead forward in a sharp, calculated headbutt that caught Cross squarely on the bridge of the nose.
A sickening crack filled the room as cartilage gave way. Cross stumbled backward, clutching his bloody face, his boots slipping on the slick linoleum before he crashed hard into a nearby table, sending salt shakers and ketchup bottles clattering to the floor.
“Kill him!” Cross screamed through a mouthful of blood, pointing a shaking, crimson-stained finger at Jax. “Tear this place apart and get that box!”
The two enforcers drew their hunting knives simultaneously, their heavy boots thudding against the floor as they charged the counter like enraged bulls. The diner transformed into a zone of pure chaos. Martha screamed from behind the kitchen door, ducking for cover as a heavy glass mug shattered against the wall inches from her head.
Jax didn’t hesitate. He grabbed a heavy metal stool by its chrome legs and hurled it like a javelin straight at the first attacker. The stool caught the thug squarely in the chest, sending him crashing backward over a vinyl booth with a groan of agony. The second enforcer lunged forward, his blade flashing in the pink neon light, aiming a wild, slashing arc toward Jax’s throat.
Jax ducked beneath the blade with practiced ease, stepping inside the man’s guard. With a brutal uppercut fueled by years of pent-up rage and protective fury, Jax connected squarely with the enforcer’s jaw. The man’s eyes rolled back instantly, and he collapsed onto the floor like a sack of wet cement, completely unconscious.
Silence descended upon the diner once more, broken only by Cross’s ragged breathing as he clutched his broken nose from the floor.
“You’re... you’re a dead man, Jax,” Cross spat, blood dripping onto his leather vest.
Jax stood over him, his chest heaving, his eyes burning with an unholy fire. He reached down, grabbed Cross by the collar of his vest, and hoisted the grown man off the floor with a single hand.
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“Get out of my sight,” Jax commanded, hurling Cross toward the shattered front door. Cross stumbled through the broken glass, scrambling backward into the night with his remaining conscious enforcer dragging behind him.
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