“You’re going back in there, right?” Stevie’s voice was full of concern as she strapped the car seat in the back of her Camry. “Like…you’re not leaving her in there all alone, are you?”

I glanced over my shoulder at the bright lights on the tall building while holding an almost-asleep two-year-old in my arms. “No, I just had to wait out here until you came. I sent her in to find out what she can and told her I’d find her after you leave. Why? What’s going on?”

Aria squeezed my neck as tight as her sleepy arms could, which only slightly distracted me from the panic emanating from Stevie. I held her close for a moment before I buckled her in the car. Once the door was shut, I leaned forward, nearly trapping Stevie between the vehicle and myself. I needed to get a good read on her expression, as well as make it clear that I expected answers.

“What’s going on, Stevie? Don’t bullshit me. Jade was apprehensive about going in alone, and now you’re acting like I have a reason to be concerned. Is there something you need to tell me?”

Her gaze shifted over my shoulder and then right back to me. She shook her head and dropped her attention to my chest. “No. She doesn’t deal well with hospitals. I think it has something to do with her dad dying. He was in a motorcycle accident and spent three days in the ICU before passing away, so this is probably bringing back those memories. I don’t think she should be alone, that’s all.”

Jade told me about her dad dying, how a driver had cut him off without paying attention and caused him to crash, but I’d never heard the part about his hospitalization until just now. I wanted to believe that was the reason for Jade’s hesitation, but something told me differently. However, the more time I spent out here, pushing Stevie for answers, the longer Jade was inside by herself.

I couldn’t risk getting in there late and missing Jade. The thought of having to wait for her to find me when she was done didn’t sit well with me. It was clear she needed me—or at least, someone—and I wanted nothing more than to be there for her.

“Thanks again for watching Aria. You’re a really good friend, Stevie.” I offered a half-smile and then opened the back door, finding an angel on the verge of sleep. “Night, Tyke. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Night, Daddy.” I swear, right or wrong, my heart grew impossibly larger.

I didn’t bother to look at Stevie as I closed the door and turned around. Whatever her feelings were in regard to hearing Aria call me “Daddy” were none of my concern. Instead, I allowed the euphoria to fill me as I made my way inside.

The sight of Jade’s long, curly, cocoa-colored hair from the entrance pulled me from the cloud I rode in on. I had her name on the tip of my tongue, ready to call it out to gain her attention, but before I could utter the first sound, I was stopped dead in my tracks. She was with a man, and it was clear to anyone watching that she was uncomfortable. When she tried to walk around him, the man reached out and touched her. My blood boiled at the sight, followed by a rush of blinding rage so hot it left my body ice cold. But before I could do anything, she pushed him away.

I couldn’t take my eyes off her as she ran around the corner, making sure she got away safely. Once she was out of sight, I pulled my attention back to the guy at the front desk. He leaned over the counter, saying something to the woman in front of the computer, but all I could see were his lips moving. I couldn’t hear his words, although whatever they were made her smile. After a quick laugh, he slapped the counter and turned to leave, heading straight for me.

My pulse strengthened, something I was used to in the field when on high alert, and I quickly ducked into the hallway before he could see me. As he approached, I studied him, really taking note of his features, almost memorizing every pore on his face, as if my instincts told me I needed this information. I recognized him from somewhere, but I couldn’t place it. His sharp, angular nose brought my attention to his thin lips. His chin came to a point, his jawline forming a V. There was something off about him. It was written in his sneer, resounded in every heavy step, and was reiterated by his rigid posture as he made his way to the exit.

“Oh, Mr. Pierce?” the woman from the desk hollered.

He turned around, but I didn’t hear anything else. I had seen him before, in the file I’d created during Jade’s background check. It had information on every person in Jade’s family, including her stepfather. Aside from having basic details on him, I didn’t know much else. But his face…I recognized that face.

And once I realized who he was, I couldn’t stop replaying their interaction from a few moments ago. The way he tried to grab her, touch her, how she pushed him away. I was aware they didn’t get along, so it wouldn’t have come as a surprise to most to witness her avoidance of him. But for me…I saw so much more.

My jaw ached from grinding my teeth while I thought about her clenched hands as she pushed him away, the way her shoulders curled up and in, as if protecting herself from danger. My chest constricted as I recalled how her head almost bowed—not cowardly, but as if she couldn’t stand the sight of him. And when I thought about how she couldn’t walk away from him fast enough, my throat closed, blocking my airway.

In order to be good at my job, I had to understand that everyone handled situations differently. Some may cry in the face of tragedy while others needed time to process it before it became real. And when confronted by someone you loathed, some lashed out, yet others shut down. We all fight for different reasons. We all laugh at different things. But there was one thing I knew for sure, no matter how unique each person could be…fear isn’t easy to hide.

Jade didn’t just dislike her stepdad.

She was terrified of him.

And there was only one man she had reason to be scared of.

I’d just gone from trained and skilled to blind with vengeance.

I followed him outside, but rather than stay behind him, I veered off to the left in the direction of where I’d parked. A quick peek around the light poles offered insight about what areas were being recorded and which ones weren’t. Once I was certain my parking space was in a blind pocket, I picked up the pace.

“Hey!” I called out to him and waved my arms in the air to gain his attention. When he turned toward me, maybe thirty feet away, I called him over. “I need your help! Please!”

He glanced to the left, then to the right. When he realized there was no one else in this well-lit lot, he came over, but his apprehension was clear. I didn’t give him the chance to question me, just spun on my heel and kept moving toward the Range Rover, checking every few seconds to make sure he was still behind me. And when I got there, I stood by the back door, slapping the window frantically.

“You have to help…there’s a baby locked inside. I can’t tell if he’s breathing.” It didn’t take much effort to play up the hysterics for his benefit—I’d lost the usually controlled mindset I had on a job when this became more than an assigned task. I assumed if he were the type of person to touch a child the way he had Jade, rescuing a baby wouldn’t be his driving force, but I hoped it would call to some primitive need to play the hero.

His borderline disgust was evident enough that he had no interest in helping anyone. “Call the cops. What do you need me for?” And it took everything in me not to throttle him right here, right now.

As he stuffed his hand into his pocket for what I assumed was his phone, I reached out and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. “There’s no time! Please…help me break the window. Help me get him out.” With my hold on him, I directed him closer to the back door and released him.

Before he could notice the lack of a baby in the car, I took him by the back of the neck and knocked his forehead into the glass to disorient him. Anger rolled through me, drowning the adrenaline that had gotten me to this point. After nine years on the job, so much of it was autopilot for me. If I didn’t need to analyze a reaction or learn certain habits or schedules, most of what I did could’ve been performed with my eyes closed.

But not this time.

Emotion compelled me.

Drove me.

Consumed me until I’d lost sight of my training.

His knees weakened and he began to slip from my hold, his dead weight catching me off guard. Suddenly aware of the situation, I whipped my head around, reassuring myself that we were still alone. We were. But I couldn’t guarantee for how long. So I yanked the door open, folded him inside, and then climbed into the driver’s seat.

Turning my head to see him, I realized exactly how unprepared I was. Blood rushed through my ears like a roaring river, deafening me to the consequences of my actions.

I thought I understood what hate was.

But it wasn’t even close to the real thing.

We couldn’t stay here, so I was left with no other option but to drive—without having anywhere to go that wouldn’t put me in jeopardy. Thinking on my feet, I leaned behind me, stretching between the front seats, and grabbed his wallet from his back pocket. After removing his license, I shoved the worn-leather billfold into the console and pressed the button to start the engine.

* * *

This part of the job was foreign to me. I took care of the sweep, and another part of the team handled the transportation. Not only did I lack experience, but I didn’t have help. Just because I could toss him over my shoulder and carry him inside didn’t mean it was a good idea. I had no clue what his neighbors were like—if they sat by a window and kept watch, or if they would have their eyes glued to a TV screen. I didn’t care to take that chance.

I couldn’t risk anyone seeing me or taking note of a strange vehicle in the driveway, so I hurried inside to open the garage door. Luckily, he didn’t have an alarm. As soon as I had the Range Rover concealed in the garage, I wasted no time dragging the bastard inside. Although, he became more alert of the situation and refused to make things easy. At least I had been able to restrain his hands behind his back before his real fight kicked in.

I’d gotten him to the kitchen and had planned to put him in a chair, but the second his teeth broke my skin, I dropped him on the hard tile.

“What the fuck do you want from me?” he asked through labored breathing.

I no longer had rational thoughts in my head, only rage-filled desires. I squatted down with my knee pressed into his chest and grabbed his throat, his windpipe trapped within my grasp. Then I lowered my face to his to ensure he heard every word I said while I denied his brain oxygen. “I want…to make…you cry.”

His eyes watered, but not the way I needed them to.

“No…” I tsked. “Cry like Jade used to. When she’d beg you to stop, when she’d tell you she didn’t want you touching her…like that.”

Realization shone bright in his wide eyes. After a moment, he fought against my hold and squirmed on the floor beneath my knee. When I released his throat, he took in as much air as he could with my weight still pressed against him, awkwardly pinning him down with his arms trapped beneath him. Then I backed away, offering him the false belief that he could survive.

Mind games were my favorite form of torture. Fucking with someone’s head could prove to be more beneficial than inflicting physical pain. Either way, the person would reach a point and give up, beg you to end it, unable to handle what you were doing to them any longer. They’d give you any answer you wanted to hear, as long as it meant the torment would stop.

But I didn’t need answers from him.

Only retribution.

After allowing him to catch his breath, I applied pressure to his windpipe again. While he twisted his body in an attempt to free himself, I stared into his eyes, hoping he could see the hatred he filled me with.

His face turned red. I’d done this enough times to calculate exactly how long I had before I lost him. That was the key…take them right to the edge, and then give them a reprieve. Once they regained awareness, you pushed them right back to the breaking point, only to pull away at the last second. Over and over again. It was basically an endless cycle of giving and taking, all done by one person.

When I let go, he rolled to his side and curled into himself as best as he could, coughing and gasping for air. “Who are you?” he choked out.

“It doesn’t matter who I am. But if it’ll make you feel better, then I’ll tell you.” Once again, I shoved him onto his back and pinned him to the floor with my knee—this time, holding most of my weight off his chest. “I’m the blade of a sword, the brass tip in the chamber of a forty-five, the noose around your neck. I’m the judge…the jury…” I wrapped my fingers around his throat again. “And the motherfucking executioner.”

I had to pull away before I completely lost control—I was only hanging on by a weak and tattered thread. My hands shook and my neck flamed with intense heat. An ache settled into my jaw and set about a ringing in my ears. I’d never experienced anger like this. I was familiar with the desire to hit something or someone. But never, in all my life, had it brought me to the breaking point. The moment when I thought of nothing more than reaching inside a person’s chest and ripping out their heart with my bare hand.

His chest heaved beneath my knee as he fought to catch his breath. He lifted his head to lean forward, and against all logic, I let him. “I never forced her to do anything.”

Blinded by hate, I choked him again. “Did you come onto her when she was sixteen?” Realizing he couldn’t answer with my grip suppressing his airway, I added, “Blink once for yes, twice for no. The faster you answer my questions, the sooner you can breathe again.”

This time, before I’d stolen his oxygen, he’d taken a full inhalation. He thought he was smart, but all he did was completely expand his lungs without any way to relieve the pressure. Realizing this, he blinked his large, panicked eyes—once.

“Did you take her hand and make her touch you?” Blink. “Did you take her virginity?”

He rapidly opened and closed his eyes multiple times, as if repeating his answer. When I pulled away, he appeared to be on the verge of tears, desperately trying to ease the pain in his chest. But even that didn’t stop him from fighting back. “She never said no…” More coughs, more strangled gasps. “I swear.”

“That doesn’t make it right!”

Needing physical distance, I stood and stumbled a few steps away, my hands pressed against my temples in frustration. If I didn’t pull myself together, this kitchen would be a crime scene with evidence of my presence all over the place. And there would be no coming back from that.

“I’m not a pedophile. I know that’s what you’re thinking, but I’m not,” he argued in a borderline pleading tone. “I’ve never so much as looked at another girl her age.”

“Then why her?” I felt like I had lost my mind. This asshole didn’t deserve the right to explain his actions. I didn’t need to hear his response, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking. My chest burned beneath the tightness, and I swear my heart cracked behind my breastbone.

He stared at the ceiling, only one shoulder resting against the tile. With his hands trapped beneath him, his chest heaved with the labored exertion of breathing. “I married Lindsey when Jade was twelve.”

“I don’t give a shit about memory lane. I asked a fucking question.” The words slipped through my gritted teeth while I held my hands in fists at my sides. The muscles in my arms strained against the sleeves of my shirt.

His head rolled to the side, and his green eyes found mine. “And I’m trying to answer you.” When I didn’t interrupt, he returned his stare to the ceiling and continued. “She was shy, so to get her out of her shell, I’d joke around with her. After a while, she started playing along.”

My jaw clenched impossibly tighter.

“When she was fourteen, her laugh changed. It was no longer sweet and childlike, but more flirtatious. Then she started touching me.”

I couldn’t listen to any more.

But I couldn’t do anything to make him stop.

I was frozen—a reaction so foreign to me I was helpless to stop it.

“She’d shove me with her shoulder or playfully slap my arm. Her clothes got tighter, and the neckline on her shirts got lower. Her body was changing, and it was like she wanted me to notice. She may have been a teenager, but she was shaped like a woman.” He turned his attention to me again and added, “I’m not a pedophile. Girls don’t do it for me. But she was built like a grown woman.”

In two long strides, I stood over him with my feet on either side of his contorted body. I squatted down far enough to grab him by the front of his shirt, yanked him up so his shoulders came off the floor, and brought him closer. “You’re a sick son of a bitch. I don’t care what size bra she wore, she was a fucking kid. One you manipulated and took advantage of. You used the control you had over her as her parent, and you abused the trust she should’ve had in you. Then you knocked her up and left her to fend for herself.”

“Is that what she told you?”

I didn’t just let him go—I pushed him back to the tile and then swung at him. My fist connected with his jaw. I wanted to hit him again, but he curled his shoulder and pressed his cheek against the floor.

“I told her to have an abortion, to get rid of the baby, but she didn’t listen. If she had to fend for herself, it’s her own fault. She knew I wouldn’t be able to help her with a baby, but she chose to keep it anyway.” Then he cut his eyes to the side to look at me, and my world turned red. “If Lindsey doesn’t pull through, you better believe I’ll go after Jade and get custody of that kid.”

I was standing over him one minute, and kicking him in the ribs the next, screaming, “She’s mine, you motherfucker! You can’t have her! Aria’s mine!” The only reason I stopped was because I was physically dragged away. My arm was twisted behind me, a hand pressed against my heaving chest, restraining me.

Then I saw a pair of black boots, and it was enough to break the spell hatred had over me. I realized the position I was in, my arm locked behind me, a hand over my furiously beating heart, and my red world turned black.

“W-what are you doing here?” I stammered, unaware of how breathless I was until I tried to speak.

“Here? You mean in this house? Or in town?” Rhett didn’t play games. He never asked a question he didn’t already have the answer to, but sometimes, he’d ask something without actually seeking a response. This was one of the times I wasn’t sure which kind of question it was.

He took a step toward me, ignoring the wheezing man behind him.

“I came to town to do a li’l investigatin’ on her ma’s ol’ man. I’m here, in his house, because I found one of my men in it—unauthorized.”

I shook my head, as if I could convince him that this was all in his imagination.

“I find it interesting that you’re here an’ all, when ya told me you’d be home…on the other coast of Florida.”

There was no point in arguing…but I couldn’t let it rest. “Jade’s mom was in an accident and is currently in the hospital. We came here for that.”

“Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit. I didn’t know this was a hospital? How ’bout you, Kryder?” Rhett’s eyes shifted to my right, answering the question I’d yet to ask—who was behind me. “Did you have any idea this was a place of healin’?”

Damn Rhett and his sarcastic intimidation. “Would you let me explain?”

“Explain what, darlin’…how ya managed to end up at the house of the man who’d taken advantage of your girl? Not sure how you’ll do that, but sure. Go head. That oughta be good.”

“I didn’t know it was him until I saw him with Jade at the hospital.”

“Hmmm…likely story. But anywho, that’s neither here nor there. I don’t give a flyin’ fuck when or how you figured it out. Because I don’t recall givin’ you instructions to take this guy out. Last I checked, you work for me. Or did ya get your panties in a wad over bein’ sent to the desk and decide to start your own business?”

I struggled against Kryder’s hold, but he didn’t release me until Rhett gave him the nod of approval. My shoulder ached and my bicep burned, but I refused to admit it and appear weak. Not to these men. “What made you think it was him?”

“Because I know what the hell I’m doin’.”

“So do I!” I roared, not caring that it was my boss taking the brunt of my rage.

“Oh, ya do? Well, you bypassed the stop sign ’cause you were lookin’ for a traffic light. You weren’t usin’ your fuckin’ brain. The very first place you always look is at the family. But if I’m bein’ honest…I didn’t know it was him. I only came here to check it out. And considerin’ I found you in his kitchen, I’d say it was a lucky guess.”

I stared at the piece of shit on the floor, snarling at the sound of his moans. I hated him for what he did. He’d hurt the woman I loved, and all I wanted to do was make him pay.

I turned to Rhett for guidance. “So now what do we do?”