Midnight Vigilante, Leonor Bass [top business books of all time .TXT] 📗

Riley had made up her mind. She was going to do it. She was going to fight crime tonight, alone, because something had to be done, and she figured she was the only one willing to do anything at all.

The first time Riley fought against a man, she lost. Though it wasn’t a competition, she was knocked out five minutes after the fight had started.

Santino had told her that winning had nothing to do with being strong in size, but strong in mind. So the next fight she was smarter than her opponent and she won.

That had been her training.

This time it was different. This wasn’t a game; she was actually fighting to save lives. She didn’t know her opponent. She had barely caught a glimpse of how they looked when they interacted. Although, to her advantage, she knew where to find them, and she had rage on her side, too. Rage could lead people to do crazy things.

Like getting ready to hunt two of the worst criminals in LinHill, with a high possibility of ending either badly hurt or dead. Not that she cared, for now she had nothing to lose.

It was past nine when Riley finished getting ready that night, donning her always-faithful all-black attire: jeans, an oversized hoodie, dark boots, and a balaclava that only left her blue eyes exposed.

Santino had taught her to be invisible and quiet when the moment required, and she was quite good at it. The darkness of the street helped her. The bush she had decided to use as a hiding spot was too small for her height, so she had to stay on her knees until she was ready to come out.

The two guys she was waiting for were nowhere to be seen yet, probably because it was too early for them to start terrorizing. Only ten minutes later did they appear, laughing, telling jokes, and the mere sight of them made Riley burn with fury. They seemed so relaxed, so happy, and it angered her how normal they acted after what they had done to that woman, and to Adrian.

Riley knew their joy would be over soon, and she was more than pleased.

She walked out of the bushes and stopped right in front of them, blocking their path.

“Who the fuck are you?” one of them asked her, receiving only silence in response. “I fucking asked you a question: who the fuck are you?”

Riley kept her mouth shut, which seemed to make the man angry, and the first thing he did was strike at her. She dodged the blow, and saws the surprise written on the man’s face at how easily she moved around to stop from being hit. Instead of letting it go, she retaliated, hitting him with an open hand directly to his nose, making him bleed and momentarily lose his balance.

Riley watched him wipe the blood from his nose and step forward again. She expected and could easily work with it, like she had done so many times before.

“I think this bastard wants to get his ass kicked,” the man hissed.

Riley was more than ready.

The next blow the man gave her was so quick Riley couldn’t dodge in time. It went directly to her abdomen and she bent forward in pain. She coughed a bit and inhaled as much air as she could. The man had a triumphant grin on his face, one that Riley didn’t hesitate to wipe away with a counterattack. This time the punch was hard enough to send him backwards to the ground.

His companion decided to join the battle as well. Riley received a second fist, this time somewhere in her rib cage, and she suppressed the moan that almost escaped her lips when the pain left her out of breath. She wanted to cry, scream, and run, but her mind reminded her she was doing a good deed, and fear was not going to be an impediment, so she fought back.

While the first man tried to catch his breath and the other one was getting ready to hit her, she made her next move, this time with the help of an expandable baton Mickey had given her that she always carried in case of an emergency.

She hit one of them on the side of the head so hard she could hear the crack of his skull. His partner tried to defend him, but received the same amount of damage as his friend.

Blood covered everything around her, even her own hands. The bodies lay on the concrete, motionless. She caught her breath, looked around herself, and blinked the soreness of her body away. There was a sense of satisfaction that always washed over her after winning a fight, maybe because most people assumed a woman couldn’t fight two large men and win. And yet there she was, hurting, yes, but triumphant.

One of the bloody men moved and concern washed over her. If they lived, she was doomed. The gun that she had tucked in the back of her black jeans was only meant for safety; she didn’t want to use it. But there was no other option. Riley pointed her gun straight at the man’s head and felt the trigger cold under her touch.

“You wouldn’t dare,” the man breathlessly said.

Bang!

His body stopped moving and blood spilled onto the concrete around him.

Bang!

The other one went down.

All the energy that she carried left her body. She had forgotten how tiresome fights actually were, despite having gone through one only a week ago. She took a moment to put her gun back where it belonged before walking past the corpses and back to her house, dawdling along the way in case anyone had seen her mysterious black-clad figure.

If the cops didn’t do anything to help protect LinHill, someone else had to. She was doing the town a favor, one that she would likely never receive a thank you for, but one everyone would appreciate.

Chapter Seventeen

The first time Riley had