Page 8 of Deviant Reign (Knight's Ridge Empire 6)

The sight of it makes my chest tighten as I think back to my reaction when Emmie crashed it all those weeks ago. That was nothing, looking at my poor baby now.

Wincing as my fingers hit the cut on my head, I pull my hand away and look back at Alex.

“Some cunt ran us off the road,” I snap, fury burning through my veins.

I’m gonna find whoever those motherfuckers were, and I’m going to put a bullet through their heads for this, especially if my suspicions are correct and they’ve taken something that belongs to me.

“Us?” he asks, looking around for who I might be with.

“Emmie,” I mutter, kicking the ground in frustration.

Alex’s lips part before he looks around once more.

“Where is she? Don’t tell me she ran away from you.” There’s an edge of amusement in his tone and it pisses me the fuck off.

Despite the pain raging within me, I have him backed up against a tree and my hand around his throat faster than he can compute.

My nostrils flare as I glare at him, my breaths racing over his face.

But as much as I crave seeing my own anger reflected back at me—a reason to fight, to expel some of this frustration, this fury that’s bubbling up inside me faster than I can control…

It’s just not there.

“Do it if you think it’ll make you feel better,” Alex offers, keeping his hands hanging limply by his sides. “It’s not going to bring her back though.”

My fingers tighten around his throat as his words wash through me, but he still doesn’t react.

“Fuck,” I breathe, releasing him and pushing back, bending over and resting my palms on my knees.

Silence ripples around us as I suck in breath after breath, trying to work out what the hell happened tonight.

I didn’t think things could get worse than me having to see another man’s hands on my wife, but this… this… “FUCK,” I scream, my voice echoing into the night.

“Why are you even out here, T?” Alex asks after another long silence.

Spinning to face him, I reach up and shove my hands into my hair, sending pain shooting down my spine.

If he notices me flinch, then he doesn’t say anything.

“I thought you were going home to beat the shit out of a punching bag after being booted from training?”

I think back a few hours ago and it feels like it all happened a million years ago.

Fucking Emmie in that empty classroom, skipping out on the rest of the day until I turned up at training, knowing that Coach would rip me a new one. But it turned out that showing my face and then throwing my weight into anyone who came my way and breaking our goalkeeper’s nose wasn’t what he wanted either.

Motherfucker kicked me out of training and has benched me for the rest of the week. At least he’s not taken Friday’s game from me… yet.

“I did,” I mutter. “Then I got a call to say that Emmie was off her head at some Wolves party in Lovell and I went to get her.”

He stares at me, waiting for me to continue.

“She was with fucking Niall Daxton,” I spit out, my fists curling as the image of him grinding down on her as she came hits me once again.

Alex’s brows rise, knowing me well enough to know that I wouldn’t have let that ride.

I might never have confessed to him how I feel about Emmie after everything that’s gone down between us, but I don’t think he needs me to.

It might only be Seb who truly understands, but they all get it. Either that or they're just so used to my obsessions over the years that they just let me do my thing and hope I don’t take it too far.