If they even did.
I couldn’t tell you.
I had one fucking thing on my mind, and it was to find the asshole who was so fucking determined to catch my attention that he’d already murdered one woman I gave a shit about and now he was going for number two.
I’d seen plenty of pictures to know who the fuck I was dealing with, so my aim was fucking on point when I caught him standing at the end of an isle with an employee, his face puffing and red, though his posture seemed relatively at ease.
Maybe he thought he’d won this time.
He was wrong.
I stepped forward, drawing my fist back to deliver the most satisfying blow ever, and an army of fingers grabbed hold of my wrist, halting the powerful punch from following through.
“You don’t wanna do that,” Austin ordered with a motivational squeeze, to back the statement up.
“Oh, trust me when I say I really fucking want to,” I argued, looking back at him through the corner of my eye.
“I’ll let you talk to him.”
“Words don’t break bones.”
“Words won’t get you arrested and let him walk out untouched,” Austin growled under his breath, his eyes on the perp. “Don’t make me put you away instead of him.” He gave me a shove, forcing me to the next aisle where Garrett was chatting with Austin’s partner, her notepad open and pen scribbling across the paper.
“Barton!” Austin called from behind me. “Let’s compare.”
She frowned, eyeing the both of us before finally tucking away her pen and stepping past me.
Austin shuffled them backward, putting enough distance between us that I could have a few quiet words with this fucker without them overhearing, but close enough that they could intervene quickly when he realized he’d made a mistake letting me get him alone.
“Marcus Hall.” The way he said my name was like he knew I hated it. As if he was very aware of the salt he was sprinkling over an open wound. “Such a pleasure to finally meet you.”
“Is it?” I challenged, inching closer, actively aware of the people who were still moving around us in the busy store, the eyes that were watching every flinch and twitch of my muscles. I had to keep my cool. The microscope was always focused on me—the one who was always going to come out second best—and not because I was less powerful, but because my clothes were rougher, my hair messier, and my vocabulary far more fucking colorful.
I should have wiped the smirk from his face with the can of beans just to his left.
“We all think we know who our wife spreads her legs for, always certain it’s only us,” he rambled, rolling his shoulders back, the first sign he wasn’t as good at controlling his emotions like he was trying to portray. For a man like him, betrayal was demeaning. It was embarrassing—a strike to the ego.
“Mine, though…” He clenched his jaw, and the moment of emotional breakdown lasted less than a second before he was laughing it off and shaking his head. “She was always pushing the boundaries,” he clarified.
Like that was the kind of explanation I needed. As if I was just going to be like, oh okay, I understand now. “Always pushing, never satisfied.”
“That why you killed her?”
The playful laughter became lower, his chin falling to his chest before he looked up at me through the tops of his eyes. His dark irises became like black pools, the whites around them only making them sink further into the depths of hell.
If I wasn’t sure before, I was fucking sure then.
This guy had fucking problems.
One’s that were so built-in, so fucking ingrained, only a bullet was going to fix.
I stepped in closer, holding his demonic gaze, letting him know I wasn’t fucking scared. That I had demons of my own, and they were a lot fucking scarier than his. “What about me? I was there, too. Takes two to tango,” I taunted, testing him, baiting him. Hoping he might lose it first so could at least claim self-defense when I broke his jaw. “I knocked her up, and she was so sure it was mine it must mean you two weren’t doing the deed on the regul—”
He jerked toward me, expecting me to flinch.
I didn’t.
Because I wanted him to hit me.
I wanted an excuse to bring this bastard to his knees, and I wanted witnesses to say he moved first. Unfortunately for me, Garrett Drake wasn’t just a murderer. He was a fucking pussy.
His hands shook as he swiped them through the front of his thinning hair and pulled at his cufflinks. “If you make me look like an idiot, make me look weak… I will return the favor.” Straightening his tie, he forced his shoulders back again, the darkness in his eyes slipping away like a monster slinking back into the safety of the shadows. “An eye for an eye, you know how it is.”
“Yeah, I know.” I smirked, my hand shooting out and grabbing the front of his perfectly ironed suit and scrunching it in my hand as I stepped in closer.
“Shotgun!” Austin’s warning was sharp. His footsteps slowly moving closer.
I lowered my voice. “You come near my woman or my son again, and I’ll make sure I give Emma her eye for an eye and splatter your bedroom ceiling with your blood… while you’re still breathing.”
“Shotgun, let him go.”
Warning number two.
For someone whose mask is pretty damn solid, the panic in Garrett’s face was obvious. More so in the way he spluttered out his next words, though they were barely a whisper in the air. “You kill me. I’ll make sure you never find Thayleah. And do you really want the blood of two sisters on your hands?”
“Shotg—”
I shoved the bastard back, sending him stumbling into the shelf of canned beans before holding my hands up in the air and turning to Austin, who was tucking his gun back into the holster at his hip. “I was on warning three,” Austin growled, his nostrils flaring.
“We’re practically second cousins twice removed.” I grinned, Austin’s sister not only being Meyah’s best friend but also her sister-in-law. “That should earn me at least four and a third warnings.”
“Get out before my fourth and a third warning is shoved straight up your goddamn ass,” he snapped under his breath before adding quietly, “I’m not joking, Shotgun. I’m not going to miss out on booking this fucker because of your fucking alpha male bullshit.”
“He killed my son’s mother,” I growled under my breath, my joints clicking loudly as I curled my fingers into fists, annoyed I felt like I was repeating myself to Austin again and again. I get he thinks finding evidence and locking Garrett up was gaining some sort of justice, but there would be no fucking justice for Emma until he was dead.
“Go home,” Austin ordered before stepping around me and toward Garrett, who was making a show of dusting off his suit.
I turned and made for the exit, finding Repo and Shake hanging out a few feet away, watching the show. “Way to warn me about Austin almost putting a bullet through the back of my skull.”
“I was getting ready to yell zig,” Repo commented with a shrug, a smirk on his face as they strolled out of the store beside me.
“I think I would have zagged,” Shake added with a frown.
Jesus Christ.
“So, he’s still breathing.”