Page 98 of Fracture

It was on.

Vinnie landed jabs to his ribs, alternating sides. Arthur hit the ropes, and Vinnie kept going. Ribs, arms, kidney, uppercut. Over and over as the blood rushed through his ears and all sound beyond his gloves hitting flesh a muffled hum.

“Vinnie!” someone shouted, yanking him off Arthur.

Vinnie fought them, shrugging them off before he heard his name again.

“Morgan!”

Shit. Vinnie dropped his hands, all the fight gone as he realized he fucked up. Bad.

“My office. Now,” Damien snarled at him.

Vinnie glanced back at Arthur, who was fighting off his teammates. They were trying to help him up. Blood poured from Arthur’s nose. The way he twisted to the side said his ribs were injured.

Fuck.

Vinnie ducked between the ropes and followed Damien down the hallway to his office. As soon as they were both inside, Damien closed the door. Hard.

“What the hell is wrong with you? You do know Arthur is a member of this team, right?”

“He’s not on our team,” Vinnie spat.

“He’s a fucking SWAT member,” Damien growled, getting in Vinnie’s face. “You don’t do that. You don’t lose your shit and wail on anyone until they can’t fight back. What the hell is wrong with you?”

Vinnie opened his mouth to defend his actions and shook his head. It was better if he kept quiet.

“You don’t want to tell me, fine. You can work patrol for the day.”

“What? But I?—”

“You beat the shit out of a teammate. You were ruthless and violent. You killed a man yesterday, and today you looked like you wanted to do it again, but this time with your bare hands. So unless you can tell me what the fuck is going on with you, you’re on patrol.”

Vinnie glared at his boss. He hated patrol. Not because it wasn’t valuable work, but because Vinnie fit in SWAT. He liked kicking in doors and taking down assholes like the fucker who killed seven people the day before.

“I’ll get my head on right, boss. I won’t fuck up again.”

“You’re right. You won’t. Or you’ll be on patrol for good.”

“You’re really going to send me down to patrol?”

“Get the hell out of here, Morgan. I don’t have time to babysit. You want to act like that, they can deal with you.”

Vinnie slammed his fist against the wall and yanked the door open. He stomped to the locker room before he remembered his bag was still in the gym.

Vinnie retreated and stomped his way to the gym, the halls clearing ahead of him whenever someone saw the look on his face.

Vinnie grabbed his bag and turned to head back to the locker room. He was almost there when Molly caught up to him.

“You’re going to patrol today? What the hell happened?”

“Nothing,” Vinnie barked. He wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone. At least on patrol he could ride alone or ignore whoever he got sidelined with.

“That’s bullshit. You hate patrol. You beat the shit out of Arthur for a reason.”

Vinnie spun on Molly and got in her face. “Do I need a reason? He’s a cocky son-of-a-bitch who doesn’t deserve to be here. He threw down a challenge and couldn’t live up to it, and I’m the one who’s the asshole?”

Molly raised one eyebrow. “Back the fuck up. Right. Now.”