AndthenI leave, locking the door behind me, and driving away from her house, speeding through dark roads, mind filled with fury and need and…
Fury.
It stays inside me until I got home, until I park in my garage, until I push through the door.
Then it threatens to burst.
Thankfully, it only takes a few more steps to make it to my home gym.
And a few more after that to get to the punching bag.
Which brings me to now, my knuckles bruised and bleeding, the bag dented and swinging so hard it threatens to come down from the ceiling altogether.
And the rage inside me hasn’t abated in the least.
I want to drive straight to Hiller’s place, yank the asshole out of bed, and commit murder.
But I’ve made that mistake before—and although I stopped short of actually committing murder, it still imploded my life…and more importantly my sister’s.
Who—
I catch a flash of dark brown in the mirror then jerk, spinning to see Kylie leaning back against the open doorway, her hair sleep-mussed, but her eyes far too alert for the middle of the night.
“I could hear you all the way upstairs,” she says quietly.
Fuck.
I spin back toward the bag, wanting to start punching all over again, this time with the addition of my guilt and frustration for not being able to protect my sister from all manner of things big and small, even tonight from interrupted sleep.
I don’t want to stop punching.
The rage inside me is still there, swirling and red-hot.
But I bypass the bag and go straight for the stack of towels, grabbing a couple and using one to mop my forehead and the other to wipe the blood from my knuckles.
When I turn back, she’s gone, but I know it’s not because she’s returned to bed.
And my proof of that is when she returns, two bottles of beer in hand.
She passes one over to me and says, “Leave the suit by your hamper and I’ll take it to the dry cleaners tomorrow.”
I glance down at myself, see my jacket and shirt are wrinkled, sweaty, and spotted with blood.
Probably too far gone for even the dry cleaner to salvage, but I’m not one to deny my sister anything.
“Okay, Ky.” A beat. “Thanks.”
She tilts her head down the hall and I start following her, stopping to flick off the lights in the kitchen as we go.
It’s not until we’re climbing the stairs to our bedrooms that she bumps her shoulder against mine. “Wanna tell me what brought you trying to break another punching bag on?”
I don’t.
I really fuckingdon’t.
But all I say is, “I found out more shit about Hiller.”
She sucks in a breath, and I hate the shadow that crosses her face.
