“On a day when he should be in school?”
“It’s a holiday break. Teacher’s only day or something.” She raises a hand to my cheek. “Don’t hurt him or you’ll have to answer to me.”
“He’s alive. That’s more than he deserves.”
She sighs and turns away, knowing I speak the truth. “People make mistakes.”
“Not in my line of work, they don’t.” I don’t bother to tell her what we both know already. There wasn’t any mistake. His malice towards me might’ve got out of hand but everything he did was intended.
Familial ties and youth are the only reasons he’s alive right now. Anyone else, I wouldn’t have hesitated to kill.
I walk along the hallway, raising my hand to knock on Gabe’s door just as he opens it, phone in hand. Grabbing the device, I push my brother hard enough that he falls back a step into his room, and pull the door shut. I hold it closed with my left hand while I flick through the screens with my right.
A text.
“I’m in Auckland and Dad won’t answer my calls. Can’t you visit him?”
The number says unknown, but it’s obviously from Crimson. I push aside the betrayal becausewhere in the ever-loving-fuck did she get a phone?
I release the handle and the door flies open. Gabe’s face twists in a scowl. He snatches his device back, eyes widening as he sees the screen I’ve been looking at.
“Going somewhere?” I ask in my snidest tone.
“What’s it to you?”
I shove his chest and he falls back a step. We’re the same height but I have fifty pounds on him, all of it muscle. Part of that is from staying in shape for work. Add four months of boredom in jail, and I had the time and focus to bulk up.
My brows knit together in fury. “Don’t text with my wife again.”
Through gritted teeth, he hisses, “She’s not your wife.”
I hold out my hand, rocking it from side to side. “Just a matter of a few days,brother.” I wait a beat, then smile broadly. “And she’s already mine in all the ways that count.”
His retaliatory punch is expected, so I easily fend it off. His kick, less so, but I’m used to him acting like a little bitch so it’s not entirely surprising. In reprisal, I slam my foot into his knee, then spin, kicking the same leg from behind so it buckles. I twist his arm behind his back, using the other to put him in a headlock.
“She’ll never be yours,” he says between grunts. “She’s in love with me. You can force her to marry you, but she’ll always resent you. I’m the one she wants to be with.”
Releasing his arm, I swipe my phone and click into the gallery. The short film from the security cameras is top of the list, ready to play. Gabe’s eyes lock onto it, staring at the freeze frame of Crimson, standing naked.
A rage stronger than anything I’ve ever known before engulfs me. I shove the phone back in my pocket, brain whited out because the fucker just looked at a nude image ofmy wife.
My inner savage doesn’t care that I was the one to show him, doesn’t care that I cued up a whole video of the same, he just wants blood.
“I’ll do you the decency of sparing you the whole thing,” I snarl into his ear, before shoving him to the floor. He goes easily, bones turned to rubber.
“She doesn’t love you.” The words sound as dejected as his face; a last volley when the game is already lost.
“I don’t need my wife to love me. I need her to lay back while I fuck her and nurture my seed in her belly until she grows my heirs.” I lean over to ruffle his hair. “Are you going to make a good uncle? Play catch with my sons?”
He grasps my hand and twists it, bending the fingers back while I laugh. Getting him off me is no more difficult than flicking away a bug.
“You should hope she’s happy. You’re the only reason I took her,” I tell him, revelling as the pain shines in his eyes. “This is what you bought when you opened your mouth to the wrong people. This is what my incarceration cost. Your precious girlfriend as my wife.”
I leave him crumpled on the floor, physically intact but mentally broken. I kiss Azalea goodbye with a clear conscience, then head out the door.
In the car, I phone through to a contact and touch base with a private investigator who’s worked for friends in the past. I need to know more about Crimson’s childhood injuries. Need to work out whether her father really was responsible.
I need to know because the longer my thoughts dwell on it, the more I want to kill him if he’s to blame. That’s the only lesson that will stick. A situation that will become awkward if I later found out he wasn’t the one who hurt my wife.
