“Last chance. Get in your car and never come near this woman again.”
“You don’t get to take her from me. I’ll kill every last one of you fuckers if you don’t give her to me.”
I shake my head. “That’s never going to happen. You lost her, that’s what happens when you knock a girl around to make yourself feel better. You’re a fucking coward, and no woman wants a coward.”
His face turns red in his rage but he turns to Dina and softens his gaze. Even I have to admit that he’s a pretty damn good actor but Dina’s still got bruises around her neck where he tried to choke her the last time they were in a room together. “Dina, Baby, please don’t do this to me. I love you; you know that I do. I’m sorry, Sweetheart. Come home with me, and we can fix all this.”
For a moment, I think she’s going to break. She looks back at him with tears in her eyes, and it’s obvious that she’s struggling. What the hell am I supposed to do if she decides to go back to him? After a couple of seconds, she takes a deep breath and turns away from him, hardening her face, and all hell breaks loose. Mitch bellows as he runs at Chance and punches him in the face before Chance can react. As he falls from the blow, his head smashes into the side of the truck, and he slumps to the ground, not moving. I don’t have time to check on him as Mitch keeps coming for me, his gaze homicidal.
He slams into me, and we fall to the ground. Mitch manages to get a couple of good punches in before I’m able to roll him to his back. Laying my fist into his face again and again, I think about how many times he’s probably done this shit to poor Dina and any woman unlucky enough to come before her, and it fuels me on. I want to make sure that he’s never a problem for any woman ever again.
Mitch lands a punch to my throat, and it knocks the wind out of me long enough that he rolls us again and starts returning the beating I just laid down on him. I know my face is probably already swollen and bruised but the adrenaline keeps me going, trying to get him off me. His fist comes flying at my face again, and I turn my head, causing him to punch the ground right by my head instead, and in the next moment, a booted foot is kicking him off me.
“Piece of shit,” Chance growls, gently touching the side of his head as he stares down at Mitch in disgust as he lands half on the concrete steps. Mitch rolls around on the grass, shouting that Chance broke his ribs.
“Serves you right, fucker.” He laughs but there is no humor in his tone. He walks over to me and holds out a hand to help me up. My head spins when I’m back on my feet, and Chance slaps a hand on my shoulder to steady me.
“You okay?”
I nod. “Yeah, I’m good but we should split.”
“I called Smith. He’s coming to sit with our friend here until we get her somewhere safe.”
“You can’t hide her from me,” Mitch snarls, spitting blood out on the ground. “I’ll always find her.”
Chance crouches down and gets right in his face, pulling a gun out from his waistband and pointing it between Mitch’s eyes. Mitch freezes, and his eyes widen in fear. “You’re making the bullet I’m dying to put in your brain look better and better. If I were you, I’d shut the fuck up. Unless, of course, you’d like to splatter this nice woman’s house with pink mist.”
“Jesus Christ, Chance. Put it away,” I growl, looking around at the houses on either side of us. This is not the kind of neighborhood where nobody bats an eye when you pull a gun out and I’m sure the fight drew some attention.
Chance stands and tucks the gun back in his waistband just as Smith pulls up on his motorcycle, nodding at us. “I got this. Get her out of here, yeah?”
I nod, and Chance stalks off to the truck without another word. I can’t say that I blame him. This is personal for all of us in a way, and I’d love to find an old back road and bury this waste of space somewhere even the gators won’t find him. It’s a fine line I walk between being the man that I know I should be and turning into the monster that years of darkness contorted me into. But maybe with Ali in my life, I stand a fighting chance.
* * * *
“What is it that you wanted to show me?” I ask Streak, the bottle of Jack firmly in my grasp as he walks past me. He stops and looks at me with a grimace on his face.
“You look like shit.”
I take a swig of alcohol and grit my teeth. “You got something to show me or not?”
He holds his hands up in surrender and points to the little office where he works most of the time. “Follow me.”
I follow him back to his office and he shuts the door, sitting down in his office chair, and I throw my body down on the couch we put in here since he’ll go days without sleeping sometimes. He powers up the computers and turns to me.
“So, the guy you told me to keep an eye on,” he starts, and I nod. “He’s been a model prisoner, and I can’t find a single thing on him no matter how hard I dig.”
“You already told me this shit,” I snap, irritated that he can’t find the proof to back up what I already know.
“Well, then I got to thinking that if he was smart, he would stay far away from all of this so I looked into his family. Did you know he’s got a twin brother?”
I sit up and blink at him, trying to figure out if I heard him right. A twin brother? I search my memory but I can’t ever recall Fi telling me about a twin. “No, I didn’t.”
“Not surprising. It seems he’s a bit of a black sheep. The family keeps him out of the limelight and that means, he doesn’t get to share in the family money.”
“Where the fuck are you going with this, Streak?”
“Recently, withdrawals of two thousand dollars have been coming out of Ian’s account every week and going into the brother’s account. And I can’t find a record of the brother working anywhere.”
I run my hand over my face, trying to process what he’s telling me. “So, you think the brother is being paid to follow me? For what reason?”
Streak shrugs. “Just to mess with you. I mean, based on everything I’ve found out about this son of a bitch, that’s his MO, right?”
“Yeah, that sounds like him.”
“Look, man, I could be wrong but the brother barely has a criminal past. A couple of drug charges for weed and an assault charge for a bar fight, but he certainly doesn’t seem like a criminal mastermind.”
I take another swig of Jack and stand, stumbling a little. “Yeah, I hear you. I’m goin’ home.”
He nods and turns back to the computers. “Get a ride.”
“I will, Mom,” I sneer, and he laughs.
“Asshole.”
Chapter Seventeen
Chris
It’s cold out tonight. My breath fogs up the window as I lean in, unable to stop myself from trying to get closer to her. I hate that there’s anything between us. Pulling my glove off, I press my hand to the window, imagining that it’s her warm soft skin against my palm instead of this cold hard glass. If I close my eyes right now, I could imagine what it feels like to run my hand down her body, let it graze over the curve of her hips as I pour my love into her. The noises she would make as I pull pleasure from her body fill my ears, and I groan softly, the wind masking my sound of torment. She could have absolutely anything her heart desired. All she would have to do is ask, and I would do whatever it took to give it to her. Someday, I will build heaven for my angel and count my blessings everyday that she lets me stay there with her.