Page 377 of Romeo

Mac knew exactly how to stop me.

His knee drove into my side hard enough to empty my lungs. He used the opening to roll us, and my back slammed into the floor with him above me. His fist connected with my cheek, then clipped the side of my head before I caught his wrist on the third swing. I yanked him forward and drove my forehead into his face.

He reeled just enough for me to throw him off.

We came up together.

I had never expected Mac to be easy. Men didn’t rise as high as he had in the Mob because they were good at standing behind somebody else. He came at me before my balance had fully returned, and we hit the kitchen counter hard enough to send a mug crashing to the floor.

Fiona gasped somewhere behind me, but my focus never left the man in front of me.

Mac grabbed my shirt and swung again. I got my arm up in time to take most of it, but his knuckles still clipped my temple. Light flashed behind my eyes. I answered with a punch beneath his ribs, another to his stomach, then caught his jaw hard enough to send his head snapping back.

He staggered.

I stayed on him.

“How long?”

Mac wiped blood from his mouth and looked at what came away on his hand. Then the bastard smiled.

That response pissed me off worse than anything he could have said.

He came forward again, and I met him halfway. We hit the wall shoulder-first, too close for either of us to get clean punches. Mac forced his forearm against my throat and leaned his weight into it. Pressure built fast, but I drove my fist into his side again and again until his hold loosened enough for me to hook my leg behind his.

We hit the floor hard.

This time I landed on top.

He blocked the first punch. The second got through. So did the third.

Blood spread from the corner of his mouth as his head knocked against the floor, and every ugly part of me wanted to keep going. He had brought men into the bayou. He had put his hands on Fiona. He had used her old name like she belonged to whoever had sent him.

My fist drew back again.

I stopped.

Not because Mac deserved mercy.

Because he had answers.

I caught his shirt in both hands and hauled him partly off the floor. “How fuckin’ long?”

His laugh came wet through the blood on his teeth.

I hit him once more.

His head struck the floor, and the laugh stopped. I stayed over him long enough to make sure his chest was still moving before I finally pushed to my feet.

Alive.

Barely conscious.

Good enough.

Then I looked for Fiona.

She stood against the far wall with both arms folded tightly across herself. Her face had gone pale, but she was upright, watching me, and the second I saw that she was okay, Mac stopped mattering.