Page 77 of Overkill

“I paid you to investigate her, not fuck her!”

I bristled at his accusation.

“I didn’t fuck her.” Because there was no fucking about it.

I’d made love to her. Felt her. Worshipped her. The word fuck didn’t encompass any part of what we had done. What we’d shared.

“You’re playing house, though? Taking her out on dates on my dime?”

He wasn’t paying for the meal. What the fuck was he on about?

“Mr. Gray,” I said, trying to stay calm. “We will turn in the findings of our investigation—”

“I fucking paid you to figure out how she did it.” Turner had his finger in my face, spittle flying out of his wretched, too-wide mouth. “Get your shit together and stop being blinded and pussy-whipped! Or I swear to God I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” I asked, leaning down.

Fear and uncertainty flashed in his eyes.

“You’ll fabricate a crime and frame me for it?” I pushed forward, because cowards like Turner knew nothing. They needed people to do their dirty work, and I refused to be his fucking stooge. I refused to be a puppet.

He stepped back, incensed that I’d stood up to him. That I’d defied the Gray name. Fucker.

“Try it,” I said with as much venom as I could muster. If I were a predator, I would have bared my fangs. Not in warning, or to posture. But to toy with him. To play with my food.

“You don’t know who you’re messing with!” His voice wavered even as he invoked his family ties. An act that would have meant something to anyone else in this town, but not to a squatter like me. “I’m a Gray! I know people!”

“So do I.” I felt my eyes flare as I stepped forward again. “You can’t touch me. And you sure as hell can’t touch her, either.”

He tripped over a table, falling on his ass with a clatter as wooden furniture broke under his weight.

“This is your one and only warning,” I said, leaning over Turner.

I didn’t lay a single finger on him. It wasn’t necessary, but I would have been glad to. I just needed him to give me an excuse.

“Stay away from Melody Gray.” I spat right in his face. “Stay away from my woman.”

He was frozen stiff. Fight, flight, or freeze. He wasn’t a fighter. With wide eyes, he went as stiff as a corpse.

I smiled. “Boo.”

Turner scrambled to his feet, running more clumsily than a three-legged dog in a horse race.

I chuckled as he scrambled to the door, halfway ready to piss himself.

Rubbing my hands together like I was washing myself of this whole mess, I was feeling pretty damn pleased.

Until I walked into the bar and saw her with my jacket bunched in her arms. She pushed it towards Taz like it was on fucking fire. “Just give this back to him, okay?”

“Mel, what’s wrong?” God bless Taz for trying to get an answer, but I recognized a damn flight risk when I saw it.

“Sweetheart!” I called.

Melody turned to me.

Then she bolted for the door.

I grabbed my jacket from Taz and chased after her, Taz’s “What the hell?” following me out the door and into the quiet parking lot.