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Alec sends her a long, smirking glance, giving her space as she steps up in front of Cole. Her silver eyes narrow on his pathetic stance. The power swelling in her expression is a sight to behold.
“My father is responsible for the state of that hand, right?” she asks, though we all know the answer.
Cole doesn’t speak. The anguish stretching his features answers for him. He feels betrayed by her. Delusional doesn’t begin to describe what is wrong with him.Sickis closer.Pervertedis even better.
“My mom deserved better than what you put her through.”
I inch closer, wanting to be at her side when she loses control once again. Fuckingneedingto.
“I won’t make the same mistake my father did by letting you go and giving you a chance to change the way you live your life.” The emotion in her voice is quickly overrun by pure, spitting rage as she looks down on him. “There is no changing you. You are a pathetic, broken excuse of a man who never deserved to live a day on this earth.”
A stifled cry spreads his lips before a sickening crunch sings through the air. One by one, Tinsley crushes his fingers beneath her shoes, snapping bone and cartilage. I’m moving quick when I hear the first of his vocal cries. I tear a thick strip from his shirt and shove it into his mouth, muffling any noise that could potentially have us filling a jail cell alongside him.
“You could have done that once we were no longer in a place so public,” Alec half-assedly chastises her.
She ignores him, hovering her foot over Cole’s wrist bone, about to press down when I grip her arm, tugging her back.
“Not here,” I murmur.
Flashing me her pupil-blown gaze, she jerks her head in a nod and sets her foot back on the cement. Without sparing another look at us, she starts for the back door and snaps, “I’ll be in the car.”
We don’t hesitate to collect Cole’s broken body and follow after her. My headlights flash in the alleyway behind the gym, where I hid it before coming inside, and I catch a glimpse of Tinsley sliding into the passenger seat. Alec releases a muted chuckle, doing something that elicits a pained whimper from Cole.
“Seems you picked the wrong girl, buddy. She’d do well in Crimson Bay,” he tells him. As he maneuvers around me, dragging Cole with him, he adds, “So would you, Scowls.”
“Crimson Bay sounds like a fucking make-believe city,” I mutter.
He shoves Cole the rest of the distance to the car, and we watch as he topples over the trunk, his forehead slamming into the paint. “Been saying that for years.”
“Are you finally going to tell me what Cole stole from you?” I ask.
With the hand not holding Cole to the car, Alec tugs a handful of zip ties from his back pocket and shoves them at my chest. “Help me restrain him. We don’t need you somehow escaping again, do we?” He thrusts his palm into the back of Cole’s head, propelling his forehead toward the trunk again.
I take a black zip tie and hand back the rest. “You didn’t answer my question.”
I’ve never zip-tied anyone before, but it’s simple enough. Cole’s broken fingers are a horror to look at, and I enjoy that too much. He howls into the fabric between his lips when I use them to pull his hands together, tightly binding them without cutting into his wrists.
Alec steps back and hauls Cole off the trunk before I pop it open. The car dips as we force Cole inside, sealing him in.
“Contraband. Worth a fortune,” Alec finally divulges. “He didn’t know he stole from us at the time, but it doesn’t matter. We aren’t the forgiving type,’ Alec finally says. Feeding me what he thinks will be enough information to placate me. He couldn’t be more wrong.
“Who is ‘we’?”
He dismisses my question with a shake of his head, his tattooed hand gliding over my car as he heads to the back door. It’s an expensive car, but he appears unimpressed by it. More questions plague my mind.
“Get in the car, Noah. It’s time for you to finish this and take your woman home.”
I exhale a long, tight breath and let it go. He opens the door and slides inside, but before he can close the door, I catch Tinsley’s waiting stare from the passenger seat. The determination in her eyes is enough to have me slamming Alec’s door shut and joining them inside, ready to end this.
* * *
Tinsley isthe first one out of the car when we pull up outside of a fucking decrepit-looking barn nearly an hour later. I fly out after her, rushing around the hood of the car and reaching her side before she has a chance to take off into the barn on her own.
“Be careful here, Tinsley. I don’t even know where we are.” The absence of road signs beyond the city limits has left me on edge, a deep-seated distrust churning in my chest.
I take her hands in mine, feeling the obvious shake in them. Bringing them toward me, I rub them over my sternum and trap her stare.
She breathes out softly. “Did you hear everything earlier?”
