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While he goes over the game plan once again, I lose myself in thought, wondering how you manage an addiction that’s clawed its way into your heart.
That seems like the kind of damage you don’t come back from.
When I leave the office for the day, I stop by the trailer out of fucking habit, and because I don’t like Riley not being able to contact me directly—especially given I’m the one paying her goddamn phone bill.
I haven’t heard from LeeAnn since the day I got Riley enrolled at King’s Trace Prep, and the silence has been deafening.
If not for the distraction of the redhead I spend my nights with and the shit going on at work, I’d have already tracked the bitch down and figured out what her problem is, but I’d just be playing right into her hands.
She ignores me to punish me, and I fucking hate that it stings, even after all this time.
Propping my bike against the Volkswagen parked outside, I sling my helmet off and bound up the makeshift steps, not even bothering to knock before I rear my foot back and drive the heel of my Oxford shoe into the door just below the knob.
It swings open, popping off the top hinge with the force, and I’m met with a pungent stench that has me covering my nose as I stalk inside.
I’m nowhere near fucking prepared for what I walk in on.
Romeo Bianchi curses in Italian as he scrambles to his feet, his beady little demon eyes locking on me instantly. The zebra-print dress shirt he has on hangs open off his chest, his hair damp with sweat, his left palm curled around a giant shard of glass.
Blood drips from his palm and streaks down his face and chest, and it takes me a few beats before I realize that it isn’t his.
My chest tightens to the point that I can’t fucking breathe when I glance at Riley lying prone on the floor, drenched in blood to the point that she’d be unrecognizable if I didn’t know what I was looking at.
Bile rises in my throat, eliminating any passage of oxygen as I begin choking on the effort it takes not to puke, my hands shaking so violently at my sides that my shoulders ache.
Clenching my jaw, I remind myself that I need to remain calm. I’m no use to Riley if I lose my cool, even though murder pumps clean through my veins at the moment, expanding until it’s damn near the only thing I can imagine.
Romeo keeps repeating something in Italian, and the sound grates on my shot nerves. “Speak English, you fucking piece of shit.”
He bares his teeth like a feral animal, running a bloody hand through his brown hair. It slicks back, sticking up in places, making me boil; I launch myself at him, limbs flailing as adrenaline and pure malice course through me, driving my movements.
The glass falls from his hand, and his head smashes against the wall as I slam him into it, the resounding crack satisfying for the briefest moment. I grip his chin in my hand and repeat the motion, slamming his skull into the plaster until it splinters under the force, a hole breaking open behind him.
He spits in my face and it lands on my tongue as I shift for better access to his windpipe; when I taste the tangy copper of my sister’s fucking blood, I see crimson. My hand shifts from his chin to his throat, squeezing until I feel his tendons struggling and his esophagus crumpling under my fingertips.
He claws at my hand, scraping his nails against my skin and trying to kick at me, but I’m taller and stronger and lift him just far enough off the ground that he can’t gain any purchase.
Gasping for air, his chest heaves and his face turns a reddish-purple, a fucking sunset I’d be content to watch for the rest of my life. I’m reveling too much in the way his eyes bulge in fear to notice he’s dropped his hands and reached behind him, wriggling a gun free from the waistband of his pants.
The butt of the pistol cracks against my forehead, sending a sharp pain across my skull as the skin splits under the impact. I release him with a curse, and he hits me with it again, this time in the back of the head, sending me to my knees.
Not because he hits particularly hard, but because I’ve been beaten there too many times at this point for the surface not to be tender, and it catches me completely off guard.
Sprinting toward the door, Romeo keeps the gun trained on me as he disappears, leaving me cradling my head and hoping my sister isn’t fucking dead.
I’ve never been a spiritual man, but as I crawl to my feet and wrench my phone from my pocket, I ask the universe for a second chance with her. To not let this be the end.
My nostrils flare with anger as I get up and search the rest of the trailer, my beast craving LeeAnn’s flesh as I send Kieran a text saying what kind of assistance I need right now.
Unsurprisingly, she’s not here—typical, having someone else do her dirty work and not even being around to ensure the job’s taken care of.
Big fucking mistake, Mother.
I don’t approach Riley yet, not sure I can handle seeing her broken up close, but my eyes never leave her when I come back into the living room.
Surveying the damage, I note the broken television against the wall, the end table with its legs ripped off, and the shattered mirror lying a few feet away, likely where the glass came from.
My phone rings a few seconds later, an unknown number flashing on the screen, and I answer immediately, putting it on speaker.
