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“No! Nate told me! He has a move he’s never used in a fight. Something he’s saved just for Dog. A deadly throat punch. I have to warn him!”
Something Charley said must have affected Cutter because his hands loosened. She slipped free and ran for Dog.
“Stop! Stop! He’s going to kill you!”
Her words were ineffective. Dog and Nate kept going after each other, one vicious punch after another. She got close, so close she could smell the sweat on their skin, the blood that freely flowed. “Please! You have to stop!”
Dog didn’t give her a glance—his eyes never left Nate. His expression, one of abject rage, had transformed his beautiful face into that of a killer. But Nate’s face looked exactly the same as in the cottage, and she knew he was prepared for this moment.
Dog pulled back his arm, but instead of Nate looking scared, his face broke into a grim smile. Charley knew the time was now.
She plunged between them and grabbed Nate’s arm. Dog pulled his punch, barely missing her, and growled, “Charley!”
Nate tried to shake her off, but she held on with all she had. Nate drew back his free fist, a snarl on his face, and slugged her on the side of her face. Stars flashed before her eyes, and her world went black.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Charley’s eyes shuttered, and she slipped to the ground. Dog dropped to his knees and cradled her head. “Baby, wake up.”
Cutter appeared from nowhere and squatted by his side. “I’ve got her,” he whispered. “Finish this fucker.”
Dog shook his head. “I can’t—”
“Finish him. For her. For what he planned to do to her.”
Horrifying images flooded back. The pillowcase, the zip ties, the gag. Charley naked and helpless.
The rage at Nate, which had slipped away when Charley went down, boiled through his veins again. He nodded. Cutter picked Charleyup and carried her back to the crowd.
Dog slowly rose and faced Nate.
The asshole’s face twisted into a sneer. “Bitch got what she deserved. Women need to know their place.”
But that’s just the way men are, his ma had said long ago.
Dog had believed her. Thought it about himself, given the anger that raged in him. But she was wrong. Dog saw that now. That was not who he was.
The anger he’d held at bay, the fury at his father, at Nate, at all men who treated women this way, ripped free. He charged Nate, tackling him to the ground and wrapping his fingers around his necksqueezing. “That what you told Krystal when you beat her up? That she deserved to be raped?”
Nate clawed at Dog’s fingers. “Krystal was mine,” he rasped. “She didn’t get to just walk away when she felt like it.”
Dog remembered his father saying the same thing to his mother before he killed her. Rage licked through Dog’s veins, and his fingers contracted. “And Charley? She wasn’t yours. Why her?”
Nate heaved his torso up and tried to roll Dog over. “She’s yours, asshole,” Nate squeaked out. “That’s all the excuse I needed.”
Dog slammed his knee into Nate’s balls. Nate’s face screwed up, and he let out a howl.
“That was for Krystal. Too bad she isn’t here to see it.”
Dog slugged him in the jaw. “That was for Blow’s sister. She didn’t deserve what you did to her.”
Dog punched him in the ear. “That was for the woman in Asheville. I know it was you.”
He hit Nate in the eye. “That was for all the ones I don’t know about.”
Then Dog drew back his fist. “And this, this is for Charley.”
Channeling all the heartache, grief, and loneliness of his youth, Dog power punched Nate in the temple. Nate’s head whipped to the side, and his body went limp.
