“Nancy?” I shook my head, moving further away from the group.
I should have just hung up—fuck knows it wasn’t the right time—but something about her tone kept me talking to her. Kept me moving away from the group and listening to the bullshit she was spewing down at me.
“How could you? I trusted you!”
“Nancy? I have no fucking clue what you’re talking about, so you’re gonna have to spell it the fuck out for me.”
“Of course you have no idea! Because that’s how easy all of this is to you. You’ve probably already moved on to your next bet. I wonder if you’d be willing to share her too?” she sobbed angrily.
I froze at her words.
Fuck. No, double fuck!
“So, how about that name? Sketch—he was the man that broke my heart. Peter Anthony Lear—he was the man that stole my virginity. And Kenny Jennings, Paul Smith, and Frank Grahams were the men that he let rape me until I passed out from the pain. There are your names. And I’ll give you one more name, Sketch. One more and you leave me the hell alone forever. Tammy. That’s my ex-girlfriend that told me all about your little promise to share me with her. Now go fuck yourself.” Nancy hung up and I stared at it for a long second before closing it and putting it back in my cut.
“Fuck,” I grumbled, knowing I’d fucked up big time. Wasn’t even sure I could win her back after that big of a fuckup. I mean, I had to, because there was no way I was giving her up, but thanks to that bitch Tammy, my job wasn’t going to be easy.
Bitch had played dirty—real dirty—and I wasn’t sure if that shit could ever be clean again.
I headed back to the group, to where Agent Lear was on the ground, curled up on his side. Vin was on the phone and Balls was standing over Lear, kicking him in the ribs. My footsteps came to a halt and I looked down at Agent Lear, my stomach suddenly turning. I walked over and pulled Balls off him, glaring down into his bloody face.
“What’s your name, fuckwad?”
He looked up at me, and spat out a mouthful of blood. “Lear,” he grunted.
I crouched down and snarled. “What’s your first name?”
His chest wheezed when he breathed, his breathing labored and sounding painful. Punctured lung and some broken ribs? Maybe. He’d live, though. At least for the next thirty seconds.
“Peter,” he hissed out painfully, his eyes looking at me beseechingly.
I saw red.
Literal red.
A haze of it drowned everything else out until all I could see was him.
I pulled out my gun and pressed it into his forehead. He put up his hands and started to beg for his life, tears leaking down his bloodstained face.
“Please! Please! I have kids—two little girls, a wife. Please! I told you everything I know! I was just trying to help my family. I was just trying to get us some extra money. I’m just like you, really! I’m just trying to stick it to the man and live a good life.”
Hate burned the edges of my vision. “I’m nothin’ like you, motherfucker,” I growled out, “you remember a girl named Nancy?” And I felt my brothers at my back, listening to everything going down.
Peter’s eyes went wide. “We were just kids,” he muttered. “We were just kids for gods sake!”
“So you do remember her?” I gritted out bitterly. All I could see was Nancy’s tearstained face as she told me what he and his friends had done to her. The things they’d called her and how much they had hurt her. All I could think about was that Peter Lear—Agent fucking Lear—had watched them rape her, and he’d probably gotten off on it too. And now he was a cop with a wife and kids of his own.
“I’ve been watching Nancy,” he said, his words coming out quiet, like he already knew his fate. “Kept a close eye on her after she left town—just to make sure she was doing okay. I felt awful for what happened, couldn’t get her out of my mind.”
“You’ve been stalking his girl?” Balls said from next to me. “That’s fucked up.”
The air thickened and I sucked in a sharp breath, struggling to breathe as he spoke. Because I saw the look on his face when he said her name. There was no shame in his eyes, no concern for the girl he’d broken, only lust. I was going to kill him. Then bring him back to life so I could kill him all over again.
I thought I knew hate, but up until that moment I hadn’t felt anything even close to it.
“Not stalking, no, just watching. I just wanted to make sure she was okay. I’ve not seen her in such a long time. Things went too far that night—I never meant for that. But you can’t blame me. She’s beautiful, and back then she was innocent and beautiful. And she never said no, so how did they really know?” He held out his hands, appealing for me to understand him.
All I wanted to do was shoot him in the face with every new word he spoke.
