AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Strider advanced.
Flagton stepped out into the hallway. “Sir, what is the meaning of this—you cannot come into someone’s home and—”
His words cut off as Strider reached him, grabbed the lapels of his coat, and then dragged him toward the open front door.
Jasper stood between them and the butler, not that the servant was inclined to do anything to stop Strider from dragging Flagton out of the house.
Into daylight and Strider threw Flagton down the four front stairs. The bloody prig tumbled, grunting as various parts of his body slammed into the stone steps. He landed in a heap on the brick walkway, flailing for footing, searching for who had just thrown him out of his own home.
Strider was down to him, the front of Flagton’s coat bunched in his fists before Flagton could gain his feet.
“Where in the blasted hell is Pen, you bastard?” He shook him, sending Flagton’s head flopping. “What did you do to her?”
“Pen?”
“Penelope—Miss Willington—you know damn well who I’m talking about. What did you do to her?”
Flagton’s hands flew up, waving. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Strider leaned down, the force of a thousand hurricanes in his words. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. Where is she?”
Flagton paled, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. “I—I—I don’t know. She’s not here.”
Strider’s hold shifted and he gripped the man’s cravat in his left hand, yanking it tight until it was a collapsing noose. His right elbow drew back, then sprung, sending his fist straight across Flagton’s jaw. “Where is she? You tell me now or I will tear out every one of your fingernails. And that is just the start of the pain I will cause you.”
His head bobbing about, his eyes still glazed from the punch, Flagton reached up with both hands, his weak fingers wrapping around Strider’s forearm. “Please…please…I removed her from the house. She was lying, she was—”
“When?”
“A week ago.”
Strider yanked him upward, his words seething as he set his face in front of Flagton’s bleary eyes. “Did you give her anything?”
“Give her anything? What—no—she was lying—she deserved it. She lied and—”
“You kicked her out of your home without a penny? Without clothes? With nothing?”
“She deserved it.”
“She has spent the last seventeen years waiting on your bloody mother, your father—you—hand and foot, and you kicked her out of your home with nothing?”
“No—no, no. We fed her. Clothed her. She had everything with us. Everything she needed and she threw it all away. She could have had me and instead—”
Strider’s fist met his face again, knocking the grotesque words from Flagton’s putrid mouth. The thought that Pen would ever want this sniveling, slimy excuse for a man was laughable. Blasphemous. Enraging.
His fist slammed into Flagton’s face again. And again. And again.
Only red in his eyes now.
Red and the blurry outline of Flagton’s face in front of him. Flagton’s eyes had long since rolled back in his head, but still Strider pummeled him. Over and over and over, blood flying with each strike.
“Hoppler. Hop! You need to stop.”
Strider got the vague sense that Jasper was yelling at him, but he seemed so far away, like he was screaming from a far-off street.
“I don’t”—his fist went for Flagton’s nose— “need to do anything”—another swing, crunching bone along the bastard’s jaw— “except make this”—the next blow landed at Flagton’s temple— “sniveling worm pay.”
“It’s broad daylight. People are gathering.”
