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Kris looms at my back, ready to back me up even if it means Kelsey kicks both of our asses. Though, I don't think she will. She's disgusted by this piece of shit too. I think she would have come and kicked his ass herself if Kris had let her. She did not take it well when he told her to sit her pretty ass back down and not to even think about it.
"Why the fuck are you knocking at my goddamn door like the police?" Chad growls, ripping the door open. He peers out through bleary, bloodshot eyes. Jesus. He looks exactly like the piece of shit he is. He's maybe forty, though the alcohol andcigarettes have aged him beyond that. His skin is sallow, his fingers stained by nicotine.
"Are you the landlord of this fine establishment?" I ask.
"Depends on who's asking." He frowns, leaning closer to me. I catch a whiff of the stale alcohol and cigarettes on his breath and take a step back. He smells like an ashtray bathed in beer. "I know you from somewhere."
"Indeed," I mutter, taking a step toward him. I don't tell him who I am. No need giving him a story to sell.
Kris paces me until we're standing inside the shabby apartment with Chad gaping at us like he isn't sure how it happened. I take a deep breath to keep my blood pressure from skyrocketing as I take a quick look around. An overflowing ashtray and beer bottles litter the stained coffee table. His couch has burn marks in it. The place looks like a health hazard.
He wanted my little fairy to live here? Hell no.
John and I both fucked up letting her move into this place. We should have looked into this asshole when she let us know she moved off campus. I'm going to regret not doing that for the rest of my life. I'm guessing John probably will too. But I'm fixing it now.
"You can't just come into my apartment," Chad says, pulling himself up to his full height. Which might be impressive to someone Charlotte's size. It's not to someone my size. I'm a good three inches taller, and about sixty pounds heavier. I could put him down with one hand and not even break a sweat doing it. My body is a machine. His is what's left after a rave.
"I can send the police instead, if you'd prefer to do this that way," I offer. "Even if you have a key, entering someone's apartment without permission and removing their property is still illegal."
"I don't know what you're talking about," he mutters.
"Really? So if I send my friend here to check your bedroom, I'm not going to find a box of my girl's panties in your possession?" I ask, crossing my arms. "Or whatever the fuck else you took last night?"
Chad splutters.
For a criminal, he's a shit liar. Guess that's all the booze seeping through his veins.
Kris steps around me, headed for the bedroom in question.
"You can't go in there!" Chad cries.
I grab him by the scruff and yank him backward before he can put himself between Kris and the bedroom. He trips over his own feet, landing on his knees in the floor. Kris shakes his head and steps around him as I haul him back to his feet and back him up against the wall.
"Here's how this is going to go," I growl, getting in his face. "We're taking Charlotte's stuff, and we're leaving. When the moving company gets here in an hour, you aren't going to interfere. You aren't going to stick a single toe out of this fucking door until they're done removing the rest of her belongings. Try to stop them, and you'll be going through detox in a jail cell. Piss me off, you'll be going through detox in a jail cell. You got it?"
"I got it," he wheezes, his face turning red where I'm gripping his shirt so tight.
"She's mine, you sick fuck. She'll never be yours. You don't come within a mile of her, or you'll be breathing through a tube until God slams the gates to hell closed behind you. You don't think about her, you don't even remember her name once this conversation is over, are we clear?"
He bobs his head in a nod.
"I want to hear you say it."
"Don't think her name," he wheezes.
I loosen my grip, allowing him to take a breath. "And you'll be paying for the damages to her apartment yourself. Try to sue her and I will make your life a living hell."
"I can't afford that!"
"Should have thought about that before you stole her panties," I growl. He screwed himself and I have no sympathy. Had he kept his hands off her shit, I would have paid whatever he wanted to repair the damage. Now, he's shit out of luck.
"Just wanted to talk to her," he mutters. "I thought she'd come looking for her stuff, and I could talk her into moving in here with me. She shouldn't be out there on her own. I was trying to look out for her."
I'm not sure which is worse, the fact that he's serious or the fact that he thinks he's man enough for a woman like Charlotte. He's not. He's a washed-up alcoholic. He isn't good enough for her. Hell, no one is. I know damn well that I'm not. But she's mine anyway. I will tear this world apart before I let anyone take her from me. She's mine to protect, mine to love. I'll be the one watching out for her, the one keeping her world running.
This motherfucker won't ever be anything except a bad memory quickly forgotten.
"I don't fucking care," I snap, releasing my grip on him when Kris steps out of the bedroom with a box in his arms. "If we have to have this conversation again, it'll be while you're on the other side of a jail cell."
