Taken: Day 10

Word Count: 60,014

Summary of Events:

Mitchell was severely worried about Dolly's connection to Mr. Edgar, but Dolly was able to prove to him that she wasn't in on the plot to destroy his reputation — in fact, she hadn't realised Mr. Edgar was her employer until Mitchell told her. With that resolved, Mitchell went to visit the headquarters of the labour union Mr. Edgar was a part of and applied to join the union under a false name to see what he could learn about Mr. Edgar through it. Mitchell was told he'd have to wait a few days to find out if he was accepted into the union, so he took advantage of the free time to follow Dolly to the casino to keep a look out for her attacker, whom he only found when the man was forcibly ejected from the casino for cheating; the man managed to get back into the casino and Mitchell followed him . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

The room was almost deafeningly loud with gambling, as well as many a shout and scream of alarm.

Mitchell scanned the room and soon found his target slapping a cigarette girl across the face and shoving her to the side.

Not far enough beyond the man for Mitchell’s liking was Dolly, barefoot, but tray still clutched in her hands, hurrying through the crowd that wasn’t doing a good job of letting her through.

A hand seized Mitchell’s shoulder firmly.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” a man asked firmly.

Mitchell tore the man’s hand off without looking back and charged through the casino, vaulting himself over and across several gaming tables — with no care what cards and chips he was scattering — in a beeline trajectory for the man, who was catching up to Dolly despite her smaller size and lighter figure that should’ve been giving her the advantage.

With a powerful leap off the baccarat table Mitchell landed on the man’s shoulders.

Immediately the man roared and swung wildly at Mitchell, who swung right back, his fists much better at making connection mostly because his slim build allowed him a fuller range of motion, and because he wasn’t really blinded by rage, he was focused by it.

Mitchell ended up getting onto the floor in front of the man and throwing some hard shots at his face that started his nose bleeding while the man struggled to connect with him at all.

Because he was lighter and more agile Mitchell was able to avoid the man’s every attempt to strike him — although Mitchell couldn’t deny that his longer arms probably played a role in his success as well — while popping in quick, hard shots of his own.

It didn’t take long for him to wear the man out, and then knock him to the floor with a solid hit to the cheekbone.

Immediately he dropped down onto the man, putting one hand around his throat, pulling the other, fisted, back above his shoulder, ready to pound the man’s face in.

“You leave her alone, got it?” Mitchell asked firmly. “Or next time I won’t be so easy on you.”

“She isn’t yours,” the man replied, sounding somewhat groggy.

“Yes she is,” Mitchell replied. “She’s mine.”

The man struggled to try and push Mitchell off, but Mitchell quickly fired three shots at the man’s face which — combined with the tile floor — succeeded in knocking the man unconscious.

Satisfied, Mitchell got to his feet and looked at Dolly, who stared at him with wide, somewhat frightened eyes.

Mitchell sighed and walked over to her. He put a finger under her jaw and tipped her head up.

“Ain’t no one going to hurt you on my watch,” Mitchell said.

He kissed her forehead lightly and strode calmly out of the casino, all of the astonished patrons thereof stepping aside to let him through without a word.