Page 127 of Her Ex-Husband's Brother

But then I realize Jake is shouting and pounding the steering wheel with a frustrated fist as mud continues spewing out behind the back wheel.

I hear his voice through the window. “You stupid bitch! Do you have any idea what you just did?”

And then comes Lennon’s voice as her hands bat away the deployed passenger seat airbag and she finally enters into view. “I’ll do anything to get away from you, you psychopath!”

She braces one hand against the dashboard, her hair wild around her face. Even through the muddy glass I can see how pale she is. Too pale. Poison-plus-shock pale.

Still alive, though, and that’s all that matters.

My vision tunnels so sharply the edges of the world go dark.

“Open the door!” I slam my shoulder against the window.

Jake’s head whips toward me, and for the first time in my whole damn life, his mask is down.

There is no wounded older brother in his face. He’s not the sad, embarrassed saint who has only ever tried his best with the unstable people God handed him.

Nope. There’s just naked, ugly hatred there. And it’s familiar enough that some younger version of me recognizes it before I do.

Then he smiles.

Actually smiles.

“See?” he says, but not to me. To Lennon, already crafting the story in his head. “Look at him.”

Lennon twists back toward the panel of door controls.

But Jake sees and grabs her wrist. Son of a bitch!

Lennon’s face tightens in pain and she claws at his hand, scratching him as I continue shouting and yanking at Jake’s locked door. He curses and jerks her toward him hard enough that her shoulder hits the center console.

But her hand manages to sneak out to pop the lock, even as he manhandles her.

I take advantage and yank the driver’s door open.

Jake turns like he has something clever to say but I’m done hearing the shit that spews out of that hole.

I grab him by the front of his shirt and tear him down out of my truck.

He hits the mud on his back, all the air gusting out of him in one go. I follow him down, my vision red, still seeing him putting hands on Lennon in my mind’s eye.

I punch him in the face, and my fist snaps Jake’s head sideways.

For a second, the whole world stops.

Blood appears bright at his mouth, gushing from between his teeth, and the world rushes back in all at once.

The gas station alarm. Lennon screaming my name. Mud cold through the knee of my jeans.

The bones of my hand lighting up with pain.

And underneath all of it, worse or maybe just brighter than everything else, the terrible clean satisfaction of getting to finally smash the fucking bastard’s face in.

I have imagined this more times than I would ever admit to Dr. Delaney.

Not like this exactly. Not in a ditch outside a gas station with Lennon trapped in a truck and sirens in the distance. But Jake under me, his poisonous mouth finally stopped and the outside rearranged to reflect the ugliness on the inside.

For years, I told myself violence was not the answer. Refraining from hitting him wasproofI wasn’t the maniac he told everybody I was.