Her eyes widened as she stared at my hand.
“You fucking failed,” I growled. “You let a known pedophile into your home and left him alone with your daughters.”
“He wasn’t—”
“Don’t fucking lie to me. You knew exactly who and what he fucking was.”
“Is he dead?” she asked, the denial dropping from her tone. I didn’t miss the fact that she asked about him, not her daughters.
“No, but if you defend him. If you bring him back into your home, he will be. And so will you,” I promised. “I’ll be fucking watching.”
“My girls—” she started.
“You don’t give a fuck about your girls. You’re damn lucky I didn’t take them with me. Give them a home with a mother who would fucking protect them. Not lie about the man who was abusing them.”
“He wasn’t. Richard wouldn’t do that.”
“He fucking did it before, and you defended him. Lied to the fucking courts for him,” I snarled, stepping closer and letting herknow I knew exactly what she did. Her eyes widened in fear. “I’m watching you, bitch.”
I clipped her shoulder as I walked past, pushing her into the side of her car. Haizley would have been proud of me. I stayed in control. I didn’t beat the fuck out of her the way I had Richard.
That was fucking progress.
But I knew someone who owed me her life. And it wouldn’t take much to convince Indie to come here and beat the fuck out of this woman if she didn’t protect her daughters.
And I would sleep guilt free.
Chapter Seventeen
Derek
I stared at Haizley’s front door, afraid to knock. Afraid to confront what I had done, and how disappointed in me she would be. I didn’t want Haizley to think I’d pissed on all the work she’d done to help me since I started seeing her.
I raised my hand to knock, my eyes catching the bruised and torn skin on my knuckles, expecting something to wash over me—guilt, remorse. There was nothing but satisfaction.
The door opened and Haizley stood in the entrance, her hands on her hips. She took a deep breath and stepped out of the way, allowing me inside.
I sat on the couch and waited for her to speak.
Three days had passed since I’d beaten the fuck out of Richard on his front lawn. Three days since I’d felt his windpipe collapse under my hands. Three days since Jack and Gunner had dragged me off him before I finished what I started.
Haizley studied me with the clinical expression she wore when she was trying to read my mind. Her pen tapped against her notepad, the only sound in the room.
“You want to tell me what happened?” she finally asked, sounding like a mother confronting her disobedient son.
“You already know what happened.” My voice came out flat, emotionless. “Your old man was there.”
“I want to hear it from you.”
I leaned forward on the couch, my elbows on my knees, hands clasped together and my head hanging down. “Kat told me what he did,” I began. “She told me what he did to Frankie.”
I looked up at her. “I went there to beat the shit out of him. I know it was wrong, but I didn’t fucking care. What he did...” I took a deep breath the way Haizley had taught me. “He deserved to be punished.”
I waited a beat for Haizley to argue that three years in prison was his punishment. She stayed quiet, watching me, waiting for me to continue.
“I watched him for three days, and I began to wonder if maybe prison had changed him. Then that bitch went to work. She worked the night shift at the hospital, and less than thirty minutes after she left, he walked into that girl’s room.”
The words stuck in my throat. Not from guilt. From rage that still simmered just beneath my skin, ready to boil over again if I let it.
