Page 132 of Yearn

A house cannot heal with constant infection.

A woman cannot breathe when her air is stolen by the wrong man.

Once the kids went to bed and Scott disappeared into the bathroom, I snuck into the kitchen, rushed to the fridge, and grabbed a bottle of beer. Next, a measured draw from the syringe and a puncture to the cap. Soon, I filled the beer with the sedative.

Once done, I put bottle put back into the fridge, went outside, waited, and watched.

When he grabbed that special beer bottle, I smiled.

It wasn’t murder.

Not yet.

It was dosage.

Correction.

Proof that I could regulate the chaos in Teyonah’s life.

And when Scott passed out a minute later and his snores began—thin, uneven, harmless—I knew the medicine was working.

The house was responding to my treatment.

Smirking, I rushed back into the house, took the bottle cap that I’d punctured, and headed downstairs to prepare my place for a romantic evening.

Once done, I texted Teyonah and told her she could come home.

And now, standing before Teyonah, I wanted to give her more than quiet. I wanted to give her breath, a heartbeat that didn’t gallop with fear, mornings that started with me instead of dread.

The whole day had been cold and empty without her and the kids.

This moment right here was the first warmth I’d felt since Scott had returned.

I didn’t just want her body.

I wanted her like an organ I’d been missing.

And I would keep cutting away the rot until she and her boys could live with me for good, no hiding or sneaking around.

She moved away, walked to the other side of the room, and got close to the wall. “I want to know what you did to Scott.”

I could have said a hundred things, but I kept my voice measured so the words would carry their own weight. “I temporarily put him down so we could talk.”

Her mouth parted. “You drugged him?”

“I gave you much needed peace and quiet.”

Rage surged, clean and white. The memory of last night raked its claws—the way he’d spoken to her in her own kitchen as if shewere some common slut he could bark at. That night, I had felt the animal in me lift its head and growl.

“Dominic. . .you can’t drug him. I don’t want you getting in trouble over my bullshit—”

“With the way he talked to you last night. . .” My jaw flexed. “He’s lucky to be alive right now.”

She shifted back a step.

I followed the movement with my gaze.

“Don’t talk like that, Dominic.”