Chapter 10
Bridger
I watched him closely. I had been for a few weeks.
Gordon Cavendish was the man who married the girl I used to call the love of my life. You would think he was her type—the type that good, rich girls like her were supposed to end up with. Expensive suit, fancy car, hair all neat and tidy.
Gordon was a defense lawyer. He defended guys like me: guys who weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty and stain them with blood. He came from old money, generational wealth passed down to him so that he was guaranteed an easy, luxurious life he hadn’t done a fucking thing to earn.
It all made sense that he was the one Juliette chose in the long run. The pretty little princess with all the money in the world had ended up with a man with the right last name, family, and occupation. Her husband was everything her parents deemed worthy.
But me? The boy with tattered clothes and a tiny house and next to no money in his wallet? Their daughter falling in love with me wasn’t part of their plan, and they would have done anything to keep me away from her. They had achieved just that.
My head tilted as Gordon came into view. He had stayed back late, later than the rest of his co-workers. It was almost nine, the front of the building close to empty except for his car.
All I could think about was how he hadn’t left as soon as the clock hit five and made his way back home. Back into that big warm house with the girl that used to be mine. There was nothing and no one in that office that could have been better than Juliette.
My throat cleared at the thought of her.
She picked him over me. She picked that boring fucking life she always told me she never wanted.
It was the suited-up asshole walking to his car not too far away from me that got to feel her.
Have her. Love her. He had everything handed to him from the second he was born.
Wealth and success, and then he went and hit the jackpot one more time when he got my girl.
It was enough to make me want to kill him.
Turning my head, I watched as Gordon kept on walking to his car. Thumbs tucked under my balaclava, I gave it a swift tug so that my face was covered up.
One gloved hand opened up the door of my car, the other reaching to the passenger seat, my fingers wrapping around metal. The crowbar felt wonderfully heavy in my hand as I exited the car, my eyes darting left and right, spotting nothing but an empty parking lot and darkness. Perfect.
The idiot hadn’t seen me yet. Briefcase in hand, he carried on walking, my own steps quickening as I approached him. The crowbar tapped against my thigh, excitement taking over.
I was gonna hurt him for two simple reasons: the first was because he was calling the girl that should have been mine his wife, and the second was because of the way he had talked to her that night.
The night we broke in. When he snapped at her like that when he was supposed to be comforting her, when he spoke to her with a little too much accustomed rage in his voice.
I could still feel the way Juliette flinched underneath me at his words.
It was also that fucking letter that set me off.
The one from that fertility clinic. I still thought it was hilarious that the guy had billions but still had balls that didn’t work, but the idea of him taking Juliette away to a place like that, all in the hopes of getting her pregnant with his baby?
No. No fucking way was I tolerating that.
My heart rate stayed steady, just a few feet away from Gordon now. He still hadn’t noticed me yet. Hadn’t heard my heavy footsteps. When I was close enough, I reached a quick hand up, fingers tangling in his thin hair as I gave his head a heavy tug backwards.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” I said.
He gasped. His fight or flight mode response was betraying him, because I could literally see him stiffen.
His shoulders tensed, arms straight by his sides, not even bothering to lift a hand up to push me away.
He was a weak bitch from top to bottom. The kind of man who couldn’t ever look after Juliette.
“Stay quiet,” I said, teeth gritted as I got him face first on the ground.
“What… What do you want?” he asked, voice shaky. Loud too. Too loud.
“Keep your voice down,” I snapped.
“What?”
“Stop yapping. If you’re gonna yap, do it quietly.”
“What… What… What do you want?”
“Take out your phone and wallet,” was my answer. I didn’t want to rob him, but that was my cover.
“My what?”
“I didn’t fuckin’ stutter.” I pushed his face to the cold cement of the parking lot ground, my knee digging into his back harder than necessary. “Wallet. Phone. Now. Do it.”
“Okay, okay. Just wait. Just let me…” He shifted awkwardly below me, his left hand digging into the pocket of his pants. I could see him shaking under the pale light of the street lamp. No composure, no steadiness. A pussy through and through. No wonder he couldn’t get Juliette pregnant.
“Fucking move it!” I barked at him, but I wasn’t particularly in a rush. I just wanted to see him jump. And he did.
“I can’t… I can’t find my wallet…” he sputtered out. “It’s somewhere… Please don’t hurt me… Look, you don’t know what I’ve been through… Just a few weeks ago I was—”
“Phone and fucking wallet. Move it,” I said, digging my knee into his back.
“Okay, okay!” he cried out. “Please, that hurts!”
“Does it?”
“Yes!”
“And?”
“Your knee is on my back! I have arthritis!”
“Christ, you’re old,” I muttered. I pressed my knee up against him harder. “And no, it’s not.”
As he coughed and choked below me, I watched as he pushed his other hand into his right pocket.
With a clumsy, fumbling movement, he pulled out what I had asked for.
Still didn’t want it. Didn’t need it. Just wanted to fuck with him, because those scared little noises he kept making just kept reminding me what a weak man he was.
“There!” He placed his phone and wallet to his side, hand trembling. “There it is.”
“Nice.” Snatching the items off the ground, I quickly turned the phone off and shoved it into my pocket along with the wallet. “Guess I’ll leave you alone now.”
“Oh, thank you!”
I grabbed the crowbar, standing up slowly. Gordon stayed on the ground, and I gave him a quick tap to his hip with my boot. “Turn over.”
“What, why?”
“Just do it.”
“I gave you what you asked for!”
“Turn the fuck around.”
“Okay, I’m turning around.” Sitting up slowly, Gordon did as I asked, his hands pressed to the pavement. He blinked at me, tears in his eyes, and I didn’t even fight back my grin.
“Are you crying?” I asked with a snort.
“No,” he said fast. “No, I am not crying. You got what you wanted! What else do you want from me? What else do you want me to give you?”
Your wife. I want your wife.
Despite the ache she had left behind, despite that never healing scar, I still wanted Juliette so bad it fucking hurt.
I wanted her close to me, next to me, with me always.
I wanted her up against me, her hands on mine, my lips on hers, her bright eyes staring up at me, her smile all sweet and perfect and pretty.
He got that, though. That was what he got to go home to.
He got the dream I had wanted since I met her.
And that just really fucking pissed me off.
I raised the crowbar high before slamming it to Gordon’s right knee.
He cried out loudly, the noise just encouraging me as I hit him again and again, and then one more time just because I felt like it, and then another time to the ankle on the opposite leg, because he had earned it for talking to Juliette the way he did.
“Stop, stop, stop!” he screamed, hands grasping at his shattered knee. “Get away from me! Get the hell away from me!”
I hit him one more time, right to the ankle. It was his fault for not moving fast enough. Stepping back a little, I took a mental photo of Juliette’s pathetic, shooting blanks husband laying on the cold ground, his cries turning into full on sobs. What a nice fucking noise.
“Does that hurt?” I asked, tapping his leg carelessly with my boot.
“Get away from me!” was his response.
Chuckling, I loosely held on to the crowbar. “Want me to call an ambulance for you? Don’t think you can drive like that.”
“Stay away!” He tried to move back, hands on the ground as he attempted to crawl away from me, but the pain seemed to be too much as he winced and whimpered, his movements all slow and sloppy.
Standing above him, I lazily pointed the crowbar at him. “That’ll heal in a couple of months.”
“You’re psychotic!”
“I was just tryna give you some advice.”
“Leave me alone!”
I was enjoying the fear in his whiny, cracking voice. I also wondered how Juliette had managed to put up with him for so fucking long.
Turning around, I began the journey back to my car. I’d dump his phone somewhere in what he would call the bad part of town where some kid would probably find it and keep it. Same thing with his wallet. Someone would get a nice surprise.
The more I moved away from Gordon, the softer his whines of pain became. It was a shame. I really liked hearing him suffer.
* * *
Chase and Bennett were at my place by the time I got back, their eyes finding mine the second I pushed open the door.
We all had keys to each other’s places, but we usually never turned up completely out of the blue unless something serious had happened.
I already had a feeling what it was all about.
“What do you guys want?” I asked, pulling my jacket off.
“Where were you tonight?” Chase asked.
“I was out,” was my blunt answer, moving into the kitchen so I could grab a beer.
Bennett must have told him about the whole Juliette thing, but I had been expecting that. That secret was bound to come out eventually. Pulling the fridge open, I grabbed a beer and moved back into the living room, leaning on the doorway.