The heavy steel baton sliced downward through the freezing autumn rain.
Brad sneered, putting all two hundred and twenty pounds of his muscular body into the blow. He was aiming straight for Marcus Reed’s right wrist. He wanted to hear the satisfying snap of bone on wet stone.
“Say goodbye to your keyboard career, you broke rat!” Brad shouted over the roar of the downpour.
Marcus squeezed his eyes shut. He pulled his battered waterproof briefcase tight against his chest, curling his body around it. Even with icy rainwater soaking into his collar, he refused to let go of the truth.
CLANG!
The sharp crack of snapping bone never came. Instead, the sound that echoed off the granite walls of Wall Street was the dull screech of tortured metal.
A massive, calloused hand wrapped around Brad’s wrist like an immovable iron vice. The steel baton stopped exactly one inch above Marcus’s bruised knuckles.
Brad grunted in shock, trying to yank his arm back. His arm did not budge a millimeter. It felt as though he had struck the solid hull of a nuclear battleship.
