Adrenaline Read Online Free PDF Page B

down. I may just hold you up here until you stop breathing. The good news is that I know you better than you know yourself. You’re weak. Your whole life has been nothing but easy, and it’s all you know. So killing you is simply an option. If I decide to let you live, you will never, ever, carry out that silly threat, because you’ll be looking over your shoulder for me the rest of your life. You understand?”
    She tried to nod. He let go of the jump rope, and she dropped to her knees. She was terrified, gasping for air. He knelt down and smoothed back her hair so he could speak into her lovely ear. She flinched.
    He said, “As for me landing on the street, I think I just might like it.”
     
     

 
    Chapter 4
     
     
    Geoff was thinking about the hooker when he left the bar. He had never paid for sex in his life, but he was charged up thinking about that time with Kelly. And the money problem kept on intruding into his thoughts, worming its way past the mental barriers he had carefully stacked.
    He would have missed her, had the man not raised his voice. “I said what the fuck you been doing?”
    Geoff instantly decided the man was a pimp. Very muscular, white, long black ponytail. An angular, cruel face. Geoff started in the other direction. Not his business.
    The girl cried out.
    Geoff looked back and saw the man cuff her with an open hand.
    “I’ve been working, I’ve been—”
    The man closed his fist. “Shut your mouth.” He knocked her to the ground.
    “Hey!” an older man yelled from across the street, while his wife tugged at his arm. “Leave that girl alone.”
    “Shove it, you old fart.”
    Geoff saw the hooker touch her mouth and take away blood from her lips. The pimp took his walking stick that he had leaned against a tree and nudged her with it. “Get in the car. We’ll finish this.”
    “No.”
    The pimp looked surprised.
    Across the street, Geoff’s eyes narrowed. This was getting interesting. He hesitated, thinking of his resolve of just a few minutes ago to rein himself in.
    But he walked across the street. He had the sense of being a little outside of himself, thinking, What are you doing?
    Knowing by now that he wasn’t going to stop, he kept just behind the pimp’s line of vision.
    “Get in the car,” the pimp hissed at the girl. He snapped the stick against her head. Geoff winced for her, the noise it made.
    “No!” She lashed out with her heel, those sharp heels, and caught the pimp on the thigh. He cursed and drew back his stick fully.
    “She really was, you know,” Geoff said.
    The pimp looked over his shoulder, surprised. “Keep moving, faggot. I’m doing business.”
    “I’mtalking business. She just did her job on me. Half an hour ago, just as I was going into that bar.”
    The girl looked more frightened. She shoved her bright hair away from her face, streaking her cheek with blood. “Jammer, he means I asked him. I did, that’s doing my thing. But he said no. I didn’t make any money; I would’ve given it to you if I did. Tell him what you mean, mister.”
    Jammer looked back at him, confused, and angered by it. “What’s this shit?”
    Geoff winked broadly at the girl. “I wouldn’t call it nothing. Gave her five hundred bucks.”
    Then he looked directly at the pimp. “That’s why she’s working for me now.”
    There. Geoff felt the adrenaline pour into his veins as if he mainlined it with a syringe. Felt the rush, tasted the blood singing through him. Felt himself maintain control even as his heart beat faster, as the sweat trickled down his back. His balance was good, flowing down from him to the pavement through the balls of his feet.
    Geoff wondered if the pimp had a gun and reveled in the absolute confidence that even if he did, somehow, Geoff would take it away.
    Somehow.
    What a great high.
    Better than with that bike messenger, much better.
    He saw the pimp was still thinking it over, wondering what was going on. So Geoff made it very simple