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Chapter 21
Michael
MybloodboilswhenI see how broken Damon looks and the angry bruise on his cheek. It takes everything in me not to just shoot this motherfucker right now, but I don’t want Damon to see me like that. I want him as far away from this violence as he can get. I saw how it affected Abel, and Abel is a tough little fucker. Damon is tough in other ways, but I don’t think murder will be easy for him to see.
“Damon, baby,” I say in a normal voice, not wanting to startle him anymore. “Step behind me.” When his stepfather doesn’t let him go, I smack him on the side of the face with my gun. His stepfather lets him go. “Come on, baby.”
Doing what I say, Damon skirts around his stepfather and moves to my back. “I’m sorry I didn’t leave,” he murmurs.
I push Damon’s stepfather, causing him to stumble forward. He whips around, a look of anger on his face, but my gun raised at eye level causes the expression to bleed away and his eyes dart to Damon. “Who is this?”
Smiling, I do a bit of a bow, taunting him. “Michael Prince. And you are?”
His jaw ticks as he answers. “James.”
“James. Nice to meet you properly. I rarely talk to my victims before I kill them. It’s a novel experience.”
Briefly, a flash of fear crosses his face, but he covers it well. “We weren’t going to hurt Damon,” he says in what I assume is his best lawyer tone. “Just get the money. Then he can go. I want nothing to do with him.”
I shrug. “Don’t care. You’re going to die for what you did to him his whole life and for what you did to my brother. Brent Montgomery.” Now the fear is evident in his eyes, and I relish it. Shooting him might be too easy.
He licks his lips in a nervous gesture. “That was … a misunderstanding.”
“I’m sure. Damon, do me a favor and go to your room. I’ll come get you when this is taken care of.”
“My stepbrothers,” Damon says, and I curse myself for forgetting about them.
Glancing over my shoulder, I tell my frightened boyfriend, “It’s fine. I’ll just—”
I don’t get the chance to finish my sentence. James smacks the gun from my hand. I should have known better than to get that close. When I turn to face him, I barely dodge the fist he throws to my face. Even though he missed, he’s fast. I barely have my bearings when he tackles me to the floor.
I’m not fast enough to avoid the first punch to the face, but I do block the second one. His hands wrap around my throat, but he doesn’t get time to put pressure on my windpipe because I punch him in the side, hard. He moves his hand to hold his side, so I take that time to roll us, pin his legs, and start to pummel his face.
Every hit I deliver is for the way he treated Damon, every story he told me giving me strength. I hit James for stealing Damon’s money and beating him down until he felt worthless.
Then I switch hands and beat him for the pain he put my brother through.
As if from far away, I hear a roar and a scream, then, once again, I’m tackled to the ground. The man that lands on top of me is big. Maybe has fifteen to twenty pounds on me. He lands on my chest, knocking the wind out of me, but I don’t let it show. I raise one hand to guard my face and with the other, I blindly give him body shots. That doesn’t seem to bother him.
“You killed my father!” he shouts in my face, landing a good hit that breaks my nose, my blood spraying everywhere. Even though it hurts like a bitch, I smile, finally finding a formidable opponent.
Bucking him off me catches him off guard. When he’s off balance, I roll him over. He scrambles to his feet, and I do the same, not wanting him on top of me again.
“Michael!” I hear Damon shout, voice full of fear.
“Go to your room, baby,” I say, not making the mistake of taking my eyes off … “Conrad, I presume.”
“Fallon, bitch. You’re a dead man,” he says before he rushes at me, throwing punches wildly. I dodge them, backing up until my back is against the bookcase James had Damon against. When he throws another punch, I duck, and his hand hits the wood. I hear him snarl and I stand back up to throw a jab at his face, cracking his nose.
“Fuck!” He bellows, then reaches out as if to choke me. I duck under his arm and push him into the bookcase, smiling at his frustration.
Fallon spins around, face red with blood and anger, then he stalks over to me again. But before he reaches me, I hear three shots and see blood bloom across his front. He looks down in confusion, stumbling back as he touches his chest. He coughs, blood spraying. He drops to his knees before falling forward.
I spin around and see Damon with a gun in his shaky hands, but a look of determination on his face.
Slowly, I walk over to him, hands out in front of me. He looks at me with a look of confusion, and I think he doesn’t recognize me. He surprises me by saying,, “I’m not going to shoot you, Michael.”
Grinning, I wipe my face, trying to get as much blood off as I can before I pull him into my arms and kiss him. I don’t add tongue—I just want to feel his mouth against mine so I know we’re both alright.
