I was fuming as I listened to Hannah recount her story of how she was abused at the hands of her high school boyfriend, but I didn’t let her see how angry I was getting. She didn’t need to see anger at that moment. Instead, she needed to be supported and made to feel like she was cared about.

After she finished the story, I changed the subject so we could talk about happier topics. I asked her about her favorite foods, music, movies, television shows. I asked her question after question in an attempt to cleanse her mind from the things we’d been discussing. There was no reason for her to dwell on those things. I was going to be doing enough of that for the both of us.

I discovered that Hannah loved wine and she seemed enthusiastic when I pulled out a bottle of red moscato. She was so enthusiastic, in fact, that she drank an entire bottle by herself.

Tipsy as hell, I helped her into bed. In her inebriated state, she had gotten more than just a little flirty. She was downright sexual. As I helped her into bed, she threw her arms around my neck and tried to pull me towards her for a kiss. As badly as I wanted to kiss her and do a lot more, I wasn’t going to take advantage of her while she was drunk. Instead, I gave her a kiss on the forehead, told her goodnight and went into my office to do some research.

Pulling up my criminal record search software, I type in Jake Patterson to see what he’s been up to since high school. Unsurprisingly, he’d found himself in more and more trouble as time went on, which was not at all uncommon for someone with a temper and anger issue such as his.

He had page after page of arrests. He had a number of restraining orders against him, most of which had been renewed multiple times and were still active. He had double digits worth of arrests for various domestic assault charges.

The problem with all the charges in his file was that none of them ended up being prosecuted after the arrest. That was odd to me, so the next day, I went down to the police station and, citing the Freedom of Information Act, requested his files.

In every single case, the female who was being abused dropped the charges against him before any action could be taken. That kind of thing happens for one reason and one reason only, and that reason was fear. They were scared of him and there was no doubt in my mind that he used whatever intimidation tactics he had to do to ensure that he stayed out of trouble.

It pissed me off to think about the fact that the only reason he hadn’t done time in prison was because these poor girls were scared of him. Someone needed to put a stop to it before he eventually killed someone. I noticed that the address on his last three arrests were the same, so it was probably a current address. Who better than me to make sure there weren’t any more victims.

I was waiting outside his house when he pulled into his driveway. I found it comical that the star quarterback who was supposed to be the next big thing came home in a Burger King uniform, smelling of grease and onion rings.

“Are you Jake?” I asked, causing him to turn towards me in surprise.

“Who’s asking?” He replied in a very condescending tone.

“I’m a friend of Hannah’s.”

“Hannah? Hannah who?”

“Hannah Sullivan. Surely you remember your old high school sweetheart, right?”

His eyes widened and he went to make a run for his front door, but I cut him off quickly, tackling him down onto the ground.

“What the fuck do you want?” He asked. “I haven’t even seen her in years.”

“I want to know why you get off on harming women.”

“Come on, man! That was years ago. I was just a kid. Don’t hold that shit against me.”

“I might be willing to agree with you if it was a one time thing, but you’ve got domestic abuse arrests as recent as three months ago. That tells me you’re a chronic abuser and I just can’t have that. Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right now.”

“Please, man! I’m trying hard to turn my life around.”

Before he could say another word, I grabbed his arm and yanked it until I heard it snap and Jake started screaming at the top of his lungs like a little girl.

“Shut up,” I growled into his ear. “You’re acting like a little bitch. Now I just did to you exactly what you did to Hannah. Do you want me to make it even worse?”

“No sir,” he whined.

“I’m going to be watching you very closely. I’ve got alerts set up to notify me if you get into any trouble. If you get so much as a ticket for jaywalking, I’ll know about it. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good, because if I ever find out that you’ve laid your hand on a woman again, I’m going to come back here and I’m going to finish the job.”

“Okay, okay, I get it!”

“Do you? I want to make sure I’m crystal clear on this. If you lay your hands on another woman, I will kill you.”

“I’ll never touch another woman again. I swear! I’ll be good.”

“That’s what I like to hear. Now stand up.”

I pulled my camera out and snapped a photo of his arm dangling in a very unnatural angle. The photo wasn’t for evidence, of course. It was more like a trophy. Something to remember the encounter by. I had many such trophies from previous scumbags that I’d had to deal with.

He was shaking and was obviously trying hard not to bawl loudly.

“You might want to get that looked at,” I told him. “Just tell the doctor you fell.”