“My brothers will come after you.” Brennan sounds smug. He sounds as if his family is a shield.
I grab his dirty collar and pull him to his feet with one hand. He gasps. It’s as if he’s shocked by how strong I am. I grin like an animal in the wild who has just cornered its prey.
“They’ll pay you. Whatever you want. You can find another bitch. Black bitches like her—” He stops talking when I arch an eyebrow. He swallows. Dax takes a step closer as well.
“He’s all mine,” I say, my voice low.
Dax puts up both hands, nods his head, and backs away.
“He hurt your woman. He’s yours,” Dax concedes.
I could ask Brennan why, but the why doesn’t matter. No reason in the world would justify what he did. I could tell him to beg. A coward like him would get on his knees and kiss myfeet if he thought it would spare him. In the end, Brennan is not worthy of the energy it would take for me to question him.
I pull the 357 Magnum from my waist and put it under his chin. His breathing turns erratic, and his eyes dart from corner to corner.
“You can’t kill me.” He lets out a maniacal laugh, but I can smell the fear on him. It’s as strong as the piss smell clinging to his clothes. But that’s not as bad as his breath.
I put the gun down, and he exhales in relief. He laughs again. I tilt my head, and Preacher pushes the chair he was sitting on toward me. I shove Brennan in the chair and put the gun to his forehead.
“You want to play with my girl’s life? Let’s play with yours. How about a little Russian roulette?”
He tries to stand, but I shove him back down. To show him I mean business, I stomp my booted foot on top of his bare one. He howls. I do it to the other one, and he starts to weep.
I rotate the cylinder of the gun, and when it stops, I grin at him.
“Nooo!” he yells.
I pull the trigger, and nothing happens.
“You fucking psycho,” he screams.
I rotate it again, and this time he cries like the pussy he is.
When it stops rotating, I don’t move for about half a minute. I let him sit there and wait. He sweats, and if he had a heart, it would be beating erratically now. I finally pull the trigger, and a guttural sound comes out of him. He sounds like a cross between a woman and a child.
“You fucking pussy,” I say. “You’re not so tough now, are you?” I continue to torture him. The cylinder moves and stops. I stand there, waiting as the tension escalates. Brennan pisses himself, and I pull the trigger.
He falls to the floor in relief, but this is far from over. I hand the gun to Preacher, pull Brennan up, and sucker punch him in the face. He falls back.
“Get up, you sack of shit.” I kick him in the stomach, and he rolls over and groans. I grab the back of his collar and lift him to his feet.
He stumbles. I go for his ribs this time. I hit until I know I’ve broken a few.
“Okay,” Dax says. “One more.”
“Two,” I say before I punch him two more times in the face. I think a couple of his teeth fly out of his mouth before he crumples to the floor.
Chapter 63
Eden
I lean on Rip’s arm as he walks me down the hall of the hospital wing. This is the part I hate the most. It was less embarrassing when I was in the intensive care unit, but this floor has more people, and everyone notices my man whenever he steps out of the room.
It’s a cross of fear and excitement. He’s cold and withdrawn to everyone but me, but some of the nurses try everything to get his attention.
“I can’t wait to get out of here,” I whisper. If there’s a God, that will be tomorrow. I’ve been in the hospital for ten days now. I’ve been tested, pricked, and prodded. The headaches linger, but the fatigue is not as bad as it was when I first woke up.
In all my time here, Rip has never left my side. He never leaves the hospital. Someone brings him clothes, and he stays with me all day. My parents and friends visit daily, and my room is never void of visitors.
