Chapter 3 Counterstrike! Pummeling Kane!

Sophia looked at me with a cold smile.

"What, are you going to run again? The way you did when I was taken?"

I was done bending. I met Kane's eyes.

"Move! Go attend to my dear wife!"

Kane narrowed his eyes. His voice turned cold. "So our Alan wants to be a real man tonight? Who do you think you are? Sophia loves me!"

Kane stood six foot three and was packed with muscle. He looked formidable.

Sophia reached out and jabbed a finger into my shoulder.

"We were over the day you abandoned me! Kane is the hero here! Apologize or get out! Or security will carry you out and throw you in a cell!"

Her eyes were nothing but rage.

Then a better idea occurred. Instead of marching straight over to seize him, I could draw the assassin near and take him by surprise.

"Do you think I still care, Sophia?"

I shrugged at her, then drove a fist into Kane's stomach. He doubled over like a folding jackknife.

"Ooh."

Kane retched and went down on his knees in pain. All that muscle was no use to him.

"Oh my God!"

Sophia covered her mouth in shock and cries went up around us. No one had expected me to dare hit Kane at the President's dinner.

Bob was staring at me too. He had no idea why I was attacking Kane so brutally.

I took a handful of Kane's hair and looked at him.

"Enjoying yourself, Officer Kane? Hero Kane? I hear you can kill a few hundred terrorists all by yourself."

His eyes had lost focus and he looked up at me with no strength in him at all. He had gone down that easily.

People crowded in around us. Entertainment like this doesn't come along often.

Sophia rushed at me in a frenzy, trying to push me off.

"Alan! You bastard! What are you doing! Get off him!"

I felt nothing now for the woman I had once loved so deeply. We owed each other nothing.

Crack!

I slapped Sophia across the face.

"Shut up!

"Do you think that new husband of yours could kill a few hundred terrorists?"

Kane lay on the floor looking up at me in despair, and I planted my foot on his head.

Sophia held her face and stared at me in disbelief.

"You actually hit me?!

"You bastard, Alan! If Kane didn't save me, was it you, you coward?! You're jealous of him! And you sucker punched him like the coward you are!

"Security! Grab this man! He has no invitation! He sneaked in here!"

Sophia was shouting like someone who had lost her mind.

All the guests crowded around to watch her spectacle, and when word spread that someone had sneaked in, every guard closed in. One drew a gun, came up to me, and watched me warily.

"Sir, may I see your invitation?"

Their highest‑ranking superior had brought me in personally. Why would I even need an invitation?

Sophia pointed at me furiously.

"He used my invitation to get in! He's a thief! He assaulted my husband!"

It hurt. Kane had become her husband, while I had been branded a thief.

But she was not what mattered. I could see the young man, and he had come closer too, still gripping the thing in his hand that looked like a detonator.

When no invitation appeared, the guards who did not know me reached for their weapons. Bob looked at me, anxious to explain, and I shook my head.

"Sir, please come with us."

Three guards closed around me while Sophia kept clamoring to have me thrown in prison.

My voice was quiet. "Gentlemen, would you like to see a magic trick?"

"What?"

The guard frowned at me.

I dropped into a crouch and swept all three of them off their feet, and before anyone could react there was a pistol in my hand.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Three shots. Three rounds whipped through the crowd and struck the young man cleanly in both wrists and one knee.

"Ah!"

Screams followed, and the whole hall dissolved into chaos.

I set the pistol down so the special forces coming through the doors would not shoot me.

The remaining guards finally reacted and rushed in to hold me.

Bob shouted over the chaos, "Nobody fire!"

Sophia stared at me as though she were meeting me for the first time. She could not believe I had shot someone in this room!

"Insane! God! Alan, you lunatic! Is this how you prove you're brave!"

Sophia thought I was taking revenge for all the humiliation, and on the floor Kane began to smile.

That idiot Alan is finished! Sophia can only be mine now!

Crouched beside his son, William shouted in anguish, "Les? Les?! An ambulance! Now!"

At last, the President's detail brought him into the room. The shots meant my part was done; I had never once missed.

"Everyone, quiet."

The President stood on the platform and took hold of the room, and everyone went silent. Just as they all expected him to order my arrest, he pointed at me.

"Now, release our hero, Colonel Alan."