Page 85 of Recovering Ivy

“Thank fuck,” Leo huffed.

“Where’s Zane?”

“Taking out the trash. He’ll be right behind us soon enough.”

“The trash?”

I didn’t know what that meant, but by the look on the guys’ faces I was pretty sure I could figure it out. Whatever Zane was doing to Lance, I hoped he made sure he could never hurt another woman again.

31

Zane

“Come on, motherfucker. You said you liked to hear begging. So beg.” I waited for Lance to respond but it never came. I suppose the fact that he was now missing most of his teeth and his mouth had already swelled, it was a little hard for him to speak. In the last twenty minutes or so I’d heard him beg enough. However, I would think a man who was getting ready to have his cock removed from his body would try to say something. With my gloved hand I squeezed his tiny dick harder and with my free hand flicked my knife open, the shiny metal blade reflecting the overhead light of the small motel bathroom. I situated myself over Lance, straddling the bathtub the best I could, and I pressed the serrated edge at the base and leaned in. “You think raping women is fun?” I dug into his flesh, pulling a scream from him. “I heard what you said to my woman. You like ‘em to fight, huh? Does it make you feel like a man when you take a woman against her will?” Lance had snot and tears mixing together and dripping down his chin. I was almost through the soft member when I stopped and pulled my knife back. “You’re the worst kinda scum hurting innocent women.”

“Please don’t,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry.”

Lance’s head snapped back against the plastic insert of the tub from the force of my punch. If he’d had any teeth left from his previous beating, they were gone now. One more jab for good measure had the sickening sound of bones crunching.

“Too late for sorries, motherfucker.” And with that, I lowered my knife and finished. Lance’s dick was severed.

His eyes rolled to the back of his head and his body slumped. I dropped the bloody piece on his chest and closed my knife. “You’re lucky I couldn’t stomach holding your dick a moment longer or you’d be gagging on it.”

“Clean up is two minutes out, we need to leave,” Jaxon called from the doorway.

With one last look at the man who’d attempted to steal Ivy’s innocence, I pocketed my knife and walked out of the bathroom. Seeing the man bloodied and left for dead did nothing to calm my racing heart, nothing to quiet the echo of Ivy’s screams.

“Zane?” Linc called out.

“Not now.”

“She’s safe, brother. He didn’t touch her.”

“He did. He tore her clothes from her body. He had her on her stomach. He terrified her,” I seethed.

“But you got to her in time. All she needs is you. She’s safe.”

I ignored Linc’s last statement and got behind the wheel of the waiting SUV. Jaxon and Linc got in and I drove around the motel to the exit, happy to see the police hadn’t been called. It was a goddamned miracle no one had called in a noise complaint. Soon, someone would come and fetch Lance’s dead carcass and dispose of his disgraceful ass.

No one spoke for the first hour of the drive. It was both welcomed and a curse. The silence allowed me to run through all sorts of alternate scenarios in my mind, scenarios where we didn’t get to Ivy in time and Lance was able to hurt her. The images of her broken were so vivid in my mind I had a hard time differentiating them from the truth.

Linc’s phone dinged and I glanced at him as he read the incoming text.

“They pulled off at a rest stop fifteen miles ahead,” he informed me.

“Tell them to continue on.”

“Ivy’s asking about you.”

“Tell them to continue,” I repeated.

“The fuck, Zane. Your woman is half-naked, sobbing in Declan’s arms, and you want me to tell them to continue?”

“I’m not ready to see her.” My grip tightened on the wheel and my head started to throb. She could’ve been raped. A second later, she would’ve been. The image was replaying over and over.

“Fuck that noise. Man the fuck up. Your woman needs you now. Not in five hours, now.”

“I’m covered in blood, Linc. What the hell? You think I want her to see me like this? Touch me when I have another’s man blood on my clothes and hands? I killed him. She doesn’t need to see me like this.”