“Two other complaints while working as a social worker. Both females, one in her mid-twenties, the other in her early thirties.”
“And?”
“And the complaints were dropped before they could even be rightfully heard.” Pax sounds both pissed off and disheartened.
My jaw ticks. “Why do I have a feeling you’re holding something else back?”
“Because I’m afraid you might just hunt down the man and kill him.”
No need for hunting when he’s already here. “What is it, Pax?” I bite out.
“You know how I have a knack with technology,” he begins and I know it’s not to boast but to stall.
I take a breath. “Which is why I had you dig into him. What are you getting at here, Pax?”
“You just can’t fucking kill him,” he warns me.
“Pax,” I say his name lowly, “I can kill him if I fucking please. You know this. I know this. We all fucking know it. And you and I both know Snake will help me.”
“Fuck, Oak.” Pax sucks in a breath. “Remind me to never fuck with you,” he laughs but it’s more of shock than humor. “Not what I meant, by the way. The feds are watching you closely. They already want you for Townsend. Add this and you’re definitely going to be behind bars.”
“IfI’m caught.”
“Do you really want to chance it? Think about Grace. She’s going through enough right now she doesn’t need to worry about you.”
I glance down at Grace whose eyes are already on mine. And unlike before where they were filled with despair and hardened with disappointment, they’re soft. She’s staring up at me with the one emotion I haven’t been ready to hear but now I’m longing for it.
“You’re right,” I admit to him. As much as I want to kill Steven I can’t.
Grace then raises up on the tip of her toes with her head tilted back. Meeting her the rest of the way I kiss her softly on the lips. She kisses me back, our breath mingling with one another’s as her tongue dances with mine.
As the kiss comes to an end she places one last one on my opened mouth before gently removing herself from my hold. She then stands on the side of her mother’s bed and takes her frail hand in hers.
God, the heart this woman has is tenacious.
“Can I hear that again?” Pax jokes on the line and I refrain from rolling my eyes. “Oak admitting someone else is right is a rarity.”
“Because I’m hardly wrong.” I’m not saying it to be arrogant, it’s the truth.
He expels a long breath and with it I know what comes out of his mouth next I’m not going to like. “He has pictures of her, Oak.” The blood rushing in my veins immediately turns to ice. I can hear my heart pounding viciously in my ears. The need to hunt him down and kill him is strong. But I can’t. Not yet. “Pictures of her dropping Connor off at school. Pictures of her going to class. Pictures of her at the trailer. And he has fucking videos.”
“Of?” My voice is lethally calm. Pax swears under his breath. He knows as well as I do what’s going to happen. And there isn’t no stopping me.
“He has videos of her at the strip club. Videos of her when she was performing.”
Threatening her with the custody of Connor had already sealed his fate with me. But having pictures and videos of my woman to pleasure himself with? That has just guaranteed him a slow and torturous death.
“Oak,” Pax says my name tentatively, “you’re being real quiet.”
Despite the rage consuming me inside my voice comes out calm. Too fucking calm. “I’m thinking of all the ways I can torture him. How long I can make it last until he’s dead. I’m thinking weeks. Starting with severing each of his fingers.”
He sucks in a shaky breath. “You and Snake are fucking something else.”
“You hacked his phone?”
“Yeah and with the cloud everything is just too easy.” I imagine it is for him. Pax’s hacking skills are nothing short of impressive, he’s quite the master at it.
“Can you save it?”
