Page 137

His head jerks up, wild-eyed, wearing only a towel around his waist, red across his knuckles.

His eyes meet mine—and he freezes for a second before scrambling away.

I see her first on the bed. Blood on her face. Her hoodie torn. Her wrists red and raw.

Laney. I rush to the woman I love, my fingers shaking as I gently touch her neck feeling for her pulse. It’s strong, beneath my fingers as she groans in pain.

Everything inside me fractures. Then I turn and see him.

Randy.

And I go black.

He turns, barely managing a smug smirk before I slam into him like a fucking freight train. I don’t yell. I don’t speak.

I just hit him.

Fist. Jaw.

Bone meets bone and his head snaps back with a sickening crack as I ram him against the wall. His body bounces off the drywall, and I drive my fist into his gut, once, twice—hard—until he gasps like a fish out of water.

He staggers, and I grab him and drag him down with me, slamming him into the corner of the nightstand. A picture frame shatters on the floor beside us.

I’m not thinking. I’m not hearing anything but the pounding in my skull, the deafening scream of what if—what if—what if—

What if we’d been too late?

What if this sick fuck hurt her worse—

I punch him again, his lip splitting beneath my knuckles, blood spattering onto the carpet. “You touched her,” I snarl, my voice shredded. “You fucking touched her.”

Another hit. His nose crunches. He gurgles something I don’t care to hear.

“She trusted you once—and you used that to do this?” I grab him by the throat and slam him into the dresser so hard the mirror above it rattles. “You think you’re a man?” I roar, fists clenching again. “You think beating a woman makes you strong?”

I strike again.

And again.

Until he’s a mess of blood and tears and panic, no fight left in him—just a pathetic heap curled on the floor, whimpering and sobbing, trying to crawl away.

Nico’s voice cuts through the red fog in my head. “Eddie.”

I don’t stop.

He grabs my shoulder. “Eddie.”

I shrug him off, breathing hard, my hands shaking, blood on my fingers—his, not mine.

“She could’ve died,” I whisper, chest heaving. “She could’ve—she—”

Nico grips the back of my neck. Hard. “Go to her,” he says, low and fierce. “Go to her. I’ll handle him.”

I look back at Randy. He’s curled in on himself, groaning. A shell. A coward. Exactly what he’s always been.

He’s nothing.

I drop him.