If anyone could do it, it was him.
Bad’s hazel gaze met mine for a moment before he stepped forward. It’s almost like time stopped. Ryder and the guy he fought came to a standstill, both of them backing off to watch Bad storm for Maverick. Cash rubbed at his shoulder, watching his dad with an intensity he rarely showed.
Chapter forty-eight
Ride The Lightning
Maverick
Iwas like aman possessed. All reason, all mercy, all rational thought left me as I pummeled the man’s face with my fists. I saw red. I saw black. I saw nothing but memories, echoes. My own fears and insecurities flashed before my eyes in nonsensical images that drove me to punch, crush, destroy.
Another hand on my shoulder. Another echoing voice calling my name. But the beast inside of me, fighting for purchase over my sanity, sank its claws in deeper.Hurt. Fight. That’s all it wanted.
I lashed out, struck—the beast inside me winning. My gaze settled on Bad as my fist sailed through the air.
Only he caught my hand easily and dragged me into an embrace. Not so much a hug as a smothering hold meant to starve the flames of my rage of the oxygen that sent them burning out of control.
“You got him, boy. He’s done.” Bad’s deep, gravelly voice grated in my ears, cutting through the haze of rage blazing within me.
But it wouldn’t break. Not completely. Not quite. “Ain’t done yet.” I ground out. My voice. It sounded different. Almost like someoneelse was talking.
Bad’s voice was soft in my ear, yet stern, hard. “You keep goin’, he’s gonna die.”
“Good,” I grunted, the wild, feral part of me still struggling for a hold. I needed to kill that man.The reason for the beast inside me. The reason for a lifetime of torment. A lifetime of pain.
“If he dies, you gotta one way ticket to prison. Who’s gonna take care of Cheyenne? The baby?” Bad shoved me back enough to look at me, his hazel eyes boring into my own.
Cheyenne… The baby.
Something shifted in me then. Broke. Tore loose. I looked down at what I’d done. AtNate. At the bleeding, sobbing, broken man that I had almost killed. Not the one with eyes the same color as mine.
“It ain’t him, son,” Bad said softly, his hand on my shoulder. “It ain’t him.”
The air left my lungs in an explosive whoosh, chased out by sobs of grief as I realized what had driven me to nearly commit murder.
Oh, God.
I backed away from Bad, shaking as my gaze dipped to my hands. My knuckles were already swelling up, my fingers caked in blood. Tears flooded and blurred my vision as I inhaled a shaky breath and looked up slowly to meet my uncle’s unrelenting stare.
“That ain’t him, and you ain’t either.” Bad pulled me in once more, pressing his forehead to mine. “It’s over Maverick. Just let it go. It’s over.”
Shame and guilt filled me, wrenching the air from my lungs and making my knees weak.
What had I done?
Chapter forty-nine
Heart Like A Truck
Cheyenne
Bad gripped Maverick’s shoulder,similar to the way Cash had when he’d tried to get him off Nate. And just like with Cash, Maverick swung, wild and furious. Bad caught the punch easily, and pulled him into a hard, unrelenting embrace. Maverick struggled for a moment, reminding me of that little red filly the first time I’d watched him work with her—all anger and fire and brimstone.
Bad spoke to him, his hold on Maverick unyielding. Bit by bit, inch by inch, the anger slowly dissipated from Maverick—the tension in his muscles, the anger lingering in every fiber of his being melting away like ice in a glass on a warm day.
I watched in stunned silence, tears slipping down my cheeks as Bad moved back a step. All the fight was gone from Maverick, a hollow shell of despair in its place as he glanced down at his hands. He looked pained, haunted, tortured. And then Bad’s hands gripped Maverick’s shoulders as he pressed his head to his nephew’s.
Bad spoke to him, even from the distance I could see his lips moving, though I didn’t know what he said—I probably never would. But it seemed to bring Maverick back to himself.
