Edwin hesitated for just a moment, and Alex took the opportunity to clock him in the middle of his chest with a forceful punch. He watched Edwin fly through the air, land several feet away with a heavy thud, and then roll to a stop.
"How dare you attack me!" Edwin said with a scowl as he struggled to get up from the floor, his hands shaking with anger.
Alex had humiliated him in front of Baltimore's wealthy elites, and the embarrassment he felt was crushing.
In spite of the intense pain, Edwin stood up, picked up a chair, and rushed over to Alex while holding it above his head.
"Don't even think about it," Louisa shouted. Her voice stopped the man in his tracks. She walked over to Edwin while taking a drag from a long cigarette, and her bright red high heels clacked on the hall's polished floor.
"You're not a fighter," she said. "What the hell are you doing? If you don't stop now, Alex is going to beat you into a pulp."
He gritted his teeth and gasped for breath. Do I seriously have to let this kid walk all over me? he thought.
Louisa looked at him with a warm expression and sighed.
"We're all civilized people here," she said as her voice softened. "Quit acting like a brute. You'll just embarrassing yourself even more."
Edwin threw the chair aside, wiped the wine off his face, and retreated to the side of the hall, still seething with rage.
Louisa walked toward Alex and stood in front of him. "You beat up Edwin and disturbed our guests," she said. "I can't let you leave here without reporting this to the police. Why did you pick a fight with him? Did you come here just to make trouble?"
Alex stared into her eyes with a sharp gaze. "I'm not going to waste my time trying to explain myself to you," he said. "I have important business to take care of. Where's Michael?"
She was slightly flustered by his stare, and she averted her eyes, but she felt her anger start to boil inside her.
"What did my family ever do to you?" she asked. "Why are you looking for Michael? Let's have a little chat and sort this out like civilized people instead of resorting to violence."
He walked away from her without replying and looked around the hall for any sign of Michael.
"Who do you think you are?" a young man asked as he ran over to Alex. It was the youth who had offered to help Michael earlier in the party, when various guests had started throwing out lazy ideas for how to deal with Alex. "Do you really think you can challenge Michael?"
He pulled a sharp knife out of his pocket, and it gleamed in the light as he pointed it at Alex.
"Michael doesn't care enough to pay any attention to you, so I get to enjoy cutting that smug look right off your face myself," the man said.
Before he could move, Alex struck his arm, causing him to drop the dagger. Alex caught the dagger midair and plunged it into the man's arm.
Everyone stepped back in shock as they watched Alex pull the dagger out of the man's arm, and they screamed as a stream of blood poured from his stab wound. He turned away from Alex completely, fight forgotten, and rushed to grab napkins to staunch the wound.
So the rumors were true, the man thought as he clutched his arm. He's as vicious and dangerous as a tiger.
Alex tossed the dagger aside and looked at the man with a smirk. "This Michael guy is such a wimp that he hires people to fight for him," he said. "Some big brother he is."
He sat down, pulled another chair close to him, and rested his legs on it, leaning back in his seat.
The whole banquet hall was silent. Everyone had retreated to the sides of the hall, and they stared at Alex as he relaxed like nothing had happened.
The people who had said that Alex wasn't worth even a moment of Michael's time didn't dare to say anything more. Although they were surprised by Alex's strength, they still couldn't bring themselves to respect him.
"Is that all you have got?" Edwin shouted to Alex from the side of the hall, brushing his disheveled hair away from his eyes. "What a shame. Stabbing someone isn't very impressive; anyone with a knife can do that. I thought you were supposed to be a skilled martial artist."
Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in his face as something hit his mouth and broke several of his teeth. His mouth filled with blood, and he spit fragments of his teeth out. He looked over at Alex, who was still sitting in his chair in the middle of the floor. It seemed like he hadn't moved from his seat.
What the hell was that? Edwin wondered. Is he really so fast that I didn't see him move? That's impossible.
He covered his mouth as he scrambled to gather some napkins to try to stop the bleeding and picked up the bits of teeth on the ground.
Michael was still nowhere to be seen, so Louisa decided that she needed to try again. "What are you trying to accomplish here?" she asked Alex.
Alex ignored her again and looked up at the second floor of the hall. "I know you're up there, Michael," he said. "Are you just going to keep standing there and watching while we fight down here? Do you think you're too good for us, or are you just afraid to get your hands dirty?"
"You sure do talk a big game for being such a savage little punk," Michael replied as he appeared on the balcony, and everyone looked up at him. "You just shanked someone like a criminal. What a loser."
He walked down the stairs with a strained expression, as if he were trying to act more confident than he felt.
"You should be ready to take responsibility for your actions," Alex said. "Everyone will look down on you if you don't clean up your own messes. How could you abandon your sister and guests when they needed you?" He picked up a glass of red wine and swirled it in his hand.
Michael's face turned red as he realized that Alex was intent on making a laughingstock out of him.
His reputation was incredibly important to him. Although he typically let his subordinates do his dirty work, he knew that he needed to stand up to Alex at that moment or risk losing everyone's respect for good.
He managed to take down a master like Harvey on his own, he thought as he glanced at Alex. He knows some martial arts, but just how strong is he?
He took a cigar out of his pocket and lit it with a lighter. He then inhaled deeply and blew out a puff of smoke with a condescending look on his face.
"You might be a rich kid who rubs elbows with the elite, but you're still just a spineless thug," Michael scoffed. "You have made that pretty clear.
"My subordinates are just like you. They don't hesitate to do whatever it takes to get things done. People like you are a dime a dozen. Do you really think you can compare to me?"