Kai

The way her thumb rests near her cheek is adorable, and her deep breathing sets me at ease. There is nothing better than waking up to Teagan fast asleep in my arms. So, it’s hard to pull myself away from her this morning, but I do.

Just as I hoped, Burke is up bright and early, already sitting at a barstool at the island. “What took you so long?” he mocks.

I barely open my mouth before he cuts me off.

“Choose your words carefully because, if you say one motherfucking word about how being with my sister is what kept you away, you’ll be eating your breakfast through a straw.”

Okay, maybe it’s too soon to poke the bear, but damn is it tempting.

“Let’s cut to the chase then. Tell me everything. Did Smith grovel? How did you kill him? Did Teagan see him? I want to know everything.”

I fucking hate that I was stuck in that hospital bed and missed the show.

“Teagan saw him. She spoke to him even.” Burke casually takes a sip of his coffee and then sets his mug down as if he hadn’t just told me something important.

“She spoke to him?”

“Well, confronted I guess would be a better way of putting it.”

It would be great if Burke could find a few more words for his explanations.

“What did she say?”

“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her.”

Now, I wish he’d given me time to get out my smart-ass comment before he started to torture me with the world’s vaguest answers.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I tied him to a chair, made sure he wouldn’t be able to touch her or escape, and let her have some privacy with him. I wasn’t in the room for whatever they talked about. If you want to know, you’ll have to ask her when she gets up, or you could go ask him.”

My knuckles turn white as I grip the counter.

“You left them alone together? What the fuck happened to the overcontrolling caveman you’ve always been when it comes to Teagan? How could you allow that to happen?” My head is reeling, and my words spray out faster than my thoughts can process.

“You’re losing it, dude. Calm down.” His response comes as he barely takes his eyes off his phone. Am I lost in a time warp where Burke is suddenly the reasonable one, or is this motherfucker purposely winding me up?

“Calm down? You’re telling me to calm down?” I rake my hands through my hair and turn away from him before pausing and spinning back. “Wait, you said I could ask him? How can I ask him? Were you being a smart-ass?”

“He’s still tied up to that chair, man, probably weak and more than a little thirsty.” He points toward the back, in the opposite direction from where I stayed with Teagan last night. “I thought you deserved to end the motherfucker.”

Burke kept him alive for me. That’s friendship.

“You could have led with that, fucker.” Thank you is too easy of a sentiment.

“You’re welcome,” he gloats.

“What about the money?” It takes everything in me to extend this conversation when I know Smith is waiting for me.

“We got most of it back. He had the briefcase on him. The missing cash is made up for in the drugs we found with him. We have some H to unload, but we’ll live to pay our bills next month.”

Fucking fantastic!

“Good to know, and with that …”

Feeling as though I have all the information, I’m on the move and headed toward Smith as fast as my bruised and battered body will take me. Sex and violence are probably against the doctor’s aftercare instructions, but I didn’t stick around long enough to hear the information anyway.

Even if I had, I would have ignored them because the man tied to a chair hit and kicked her. I walked in on him beating her while she was helpless. He pumped her beautiful body full of drugs and did whatever the fuck he wanted while she was high. He was her connection to the suppliers she blindly gave herself to. He released the motherfucking tape.

I’m not only going to kill him. I’m going to annihilate him.

Slowly, I push the door open and freeze. Smith no longer looks like the man I remember. He’s thin, even thinner than before, and I can’t tell if he’s even alive with his head hung and his eyes closed. Maybe he died right there in that chair sometime during the night.

Nope. He isn’t dead.

His head rocks up just enough for him to crack open an eye and look at me.

“They finally sent in the executioner?” he croaks.

“Shut up!” My anger at merely hearing his voice skyrockets off the charts.

“You don’t look in such great shape yourself. I guess that car accident wasn’t completely a lie. I’d have thought they’d send someone who could cause a little more damage though.”

My fist catches him on the side of his face, and a tooth flies from his mouth. There is a sharp, ripping pain that shoots through my side. I hit him again. This time, it’s so hard that my knuckles split and leave a smear of blood across his face.

Welts rise, and bruises darken his skin. I’ve killed more than a few times before, mostly by firing off a bullet into someone. This time is different. Personal.

Hell, it’s about as personal as it can get to me. I want him to suffer before he goes, and I want him to die by the cold, hard beating I give him. He groans, going in and out of consciousness as a gash on his forehead bursts open.

I untie him and yank him to his feet by his throat. Again, my side burns in pain, and I have to grit my teeth, so I don’t drop him. Still, I hold him up.

“You hurt what’s mine, and for that, you’re the worst kind of piece of shit.”

The memory of Teagan on this motherfucker’s floor pains me.

My next punch knocks him to the ground, but I stand him back up.

He mumbles incoherently. His words are cut off when I slam my knee into his diaphragm. This time, I let him fall to the floor where he braces himself on his hands and knees. It is incredibly satisfying to watch his blood drip and pool under him and to hear him wheeze as he tries to draw a breath.

“Please …” he gasps out, begging me for death as he lies like a pitiful mess.

So, I kick him in the ribs. The crack is a fucking symphony to my ears.

Punch after punch, the life drains from him. I kick him, once for every day Teagan spent with Smith. The way she fell apart during her time with him. Smith was there at the worst possible moment to help tear her down. All of this pain no longer rots inside me. The anger and hatred from the past is fused and enforced in every brutal strike. 

With my muscles aching, I drop to the floor and place my hands on his throat. The whites of his eyes turn red as my grip gets tighter. After a few minutes, his pulse weakens under my touch. “Fuck you, Smith.” Pure enjoyment lights up my soul as his left eye twitches, and his breathing ends. “You fucked with the wrong family.” As my adrenaline from the anger wears off, my body gives out, and I collapse beside Smith’s dead body as everything goes dark.