Page 103 of Yearn

I should fucking kill him for showing up so late.

He parted his mouth in shock and took me in—barefoot, sleeves rolled, happiness I hadn’t had time to hide. “Who the hell are you?”

Chapter nineteen

The Husband that Wouldn’t Go Away

Dominic

Was this some cruel joke?

Everything was finally coming together for Teyonah and me.

And then the door creaked open, and there he was—Scott.

The bastard who had thrown Teyonah’s heart away, who made her juggle life, law, and loneliness while he paraded around with young, silicone-breasted sluts who probably didn’t even know his kids’ names.

Now he stood in the doorway like a snake in a tailored suit, smirk thin as a scalpel, waving papers that reeked of legal poison.

My body went taut.

Every nerve ending lit up, not with fear, but with the steady crawl of rage.

No. I will not let him ruin this for me. I had to fight to even get her to warm to us.

I looked at Scott—the villain in my life.

Did he think that he could just walk in here and take back what he’d lost?

Hell no.

My jaw clenched.

In my mind, I mapped the next five minutes.

I could knock Scott out—quick, efficient, a strike to the temple with the heel of my hand. The perfect impact to trigger neurons misfire. Membranes fail. Adrenaline flood. Lactate climbs and tissue gasp.

He would fall back, and I would drag his limp body across the driveway before he even hit the ground hard enough to bruise.

Next step would be to toss him into his car’s back trunk like a bag of trash and fold him inside.

Then drive.

Thirty minutes out, there was a lake I’d passed with the kids in the car, surrounded by trees no one cared about.

I would have to park his car, push it in neutral, and let gravity and water do the rest.

The lake would swallow him whole.

Then I’d call a ride-share back.

Be home before bedtime stories were finished.

Teyonah would never need to know.

I could do it.

I knew anatomy. I knew how long a man could be choked before oxygen deprivation did irreversible damage. I knew exactly how to silence him without leaving a mark that couldn’t be explained away.