AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He doesn’t hear me, or he doesn’t care. His fingers dig deeper as he yanks me close so he can scream in my face. “Why can’t you leave well enough alone? Why can’t you keep your fucking hands to yourself?”
“I’m sorry!” I’m sobbing by the time he throws me away from him. I land on the bed before he sweeps his arm over the nightstand, sending the lamp and clock crashing to the floor. That isn’t enough. The nightstand itself comes next, tipping over and splintering against the wall.
Then he whirls on me again, and the rage in his eyes—and his clenched fists—make me recoil in fear. “Please, don’t hurt me.” I throw my arms over my head, cowering, waiting for one of those fists to make contact.
“Get out of here,” he pants. “Get away from me.”
I’m not about to press my luck. I’m too scared to even look at him.
My hands shake as hard as the rest of me, but I manage to get my clothes together, pulling on my sweater and leggings in the hallway, then shoving my feet into my shoes before running down the stairs and out the door without a backward glance, my coat and hat in my arms. The last thing I hear is something else hitting the floor up there. Something heavy.
I think I just dodged a bullet. A very violent, terrifying bullet.
8
LUKA
Not many thingswent right the last time I saw Noelle two nights ago.
Except for one thing: when she told me that bastard’s name. Jake Miller. It’s been there all this time at the forefront of my mind, the way a new target tends to take over my every waking thought.
Since then, I’ve found his address and virtually everything there is to know about him. At the time he got arrested for domestic assault but was released when the charges were dropped. He has a sports betting problem, too, and is deep in debt as a result. Probably trying to relive his glory days.
There’s one more thing I know about him after checking last night’s camera feed: he’s been paying nighttime visits to Noelle’s house, fucking with her lights. I don’t know what he expected the outcome to be—was she supposed to collapse into his arms and beg for protection? Or is he simply a childish prick who would rather torment a woman than win her over?
Either way, with the footage taken overnight cued up on my phone, I knock at his front door six houses down from mine. He answers, wearing a football jersey, and with a beer in one hand. “Yeah?”
“You’re Jake Miller, right?”
“Sure am. Don’t you live down the street?”
“Are you home alone?” I ask, ignoring his question.
“Yeah…” He cocks his head to the side. “What’s this all about?”
Before he knows what’s happening, I shoved him inside and closed the door. He’s still sputtering, his beer sloshing everywhere when I take him by the jersey and haul him in close. “I have something on my phone I want you to see, Jake Miller.” I pull it from my back pocket and push play on the video, which clearly shows him peering through Noelle’s front window in the middle of the night before destroying the lights hanging from Santa’s sleigh.
“This you?” I ask, and the sight of his blank-faced shock is almost too gratifying.
“How… why…”
“Why? Because some asshole’s been fucking with her, that’s why.” I shove him away from me but am soon on him again, holding him in place by his throat. “Now, here’s how it’s going to be. You are never, ever to step foot on her property again. Not even if she invites you, which she will never do again once I tell her what I found. Do you understand me?”
“So fucking what? I didn’t do anything that bad.”
I’m almost glad he said that. “Is that really the defense you’re going with? Then maybe I have to convince you in some other way.”
Before he can stop me, I take the beer from his hands and smash the bottle upside his head. He falls back against the wall, stunned, immediately placing a hand where I made contact.
“What the fuck?” He barely has time to study the blood on his fingers before I drive my fist into his nose.
He bends at the waist, choking and gagging on blood, and this time, it’s my knee driving into his face, catching his cheek and his eye. “You are never, ever to go near her again!” He falls to his knees, and I kick him in the ribs again and again until he lands on his side and curls up in a defensive position.
“Please, stop!” he cries out between each deliberately placed kick to his back and stomach.
“Say it. Say you’ll leave her alone.” He doesn’t answer quickly enough, so I pick up an empty bottle from the end table. It, too, finds his head, leaving me with nothing but the jagged neck in my hand.
I roll him onto his back, cupping a hand around the back of his head and pulling him up before touching the jagged glass to his throat. “Or I will watch you bleed out here and now. Do you fucking doubt me?”
