Chapter 31 Derek #3
Pennington slowly lifted his head, sweat-drenched hair falling over his brow, blood pooling in his mustache. One eye was nearly swollen shut; his face already painted with bruises and cuts courtesy of Xavier Kozington.
Derek twisted the knife, and Pennington’s eyes shot wide, a strangled sound ripping from the man’s throat. He pulled the blade out with deliberate slowness, reveling in the pained shriek leaving the reprobate in front of him. Apt that the man would squeal like the swine he was.
The rattling of metal and the squeak of wheels disturbed the chamber. Derek glanced over to where Ryker had pushed a metal cart a few feet from Derek, laden with metal instruments on top—various sized daggers, cane swords, what looked like pruning shears, and surgical implements.
“Doctor Jones donated some of his things.” Ryker’s feral smile, all teeth, flashed in the candlelight.
Derek’s gaze locked on the pruning shears. Something ugly and heady rushed through him, adrenaline from the events of the night pumping through his heart at an alarming rate. Increasing as visions of what he was about to do flashed through his mind.
He picked up the shears and walked to where Pennington’s left arm was suspended in the air by a rope at his wrist. Derek grinned down at a white-eyed Pennington. He snapped the blades of the shears, a hint of what was to come.
A whimper fled Pennington at the same time he clenched his fist tight.
But he was helpless. He’d touched her. Derek had made a silent promise in this very gaming hell of what he would do if this man touched his minx.
Derek snarled. Fucking his. Derek peeled back one of Pennington’s fingers.
He lifted the shears, settling Pennington’s finger between the blades.
He locked eyes with the man. And squeezed the handle.
Pennington’s ear-splitting scream had glee pumping through Derek’s veins.
“You touched her,” Derek said softly. He moved the shears to another finger. “You won’t be able to touch anyone ever again.” Squeezed. Another screech.
Tears streamed down Pennington’s face, and he dry-heaved. But Derek wasn’t done.
Make him suffer.
Another finger hit the ground. Pennington couldn’t even scream that time, choking too heavily on his pain.
And another. Blood dripped down Derek’s wrist, the handle of the shears slipping in his grasp. One more. Pennington’s thumb hit the ground. The man gagged, and he finally emptied the contents of his stomach.
Derek released the man’s wrist, blood pouring from what was left of the uneven, knubby hand.
He stepped back, his hand trembling as he dropped the shears onto the cart.
Bruiser stepped up to him, cloth proffered.
Derek wiped off his hands, eyes never leaving the convulsing man bound in front of him.
A glass of whisky appeared in front of him, and Derek took it gladly.
He threw back the alcohol, let the burn consume him, adding fuel to the fire within.
“Untie him,” he ordered.
Ryker and Bruiser made quick work of the bindings, and Pennington collapsed into a heap on the blood-and-vomit-covered dirt floor.
“Hold him up for me.”
Derek rolled his shoulders, stretching his neck from side to side as the men lifted Pennington, the bastard’s head lolling back and forth, chin to his chest. Derek flexed his hand. He tilted Pennington’s head up, the man’s pain-glazed eyes unable to focus on Derek.
“Today is the last day you harm a woman,” Derek said softly.
He balled his fist. Visions of Livy when Derek walked into his private rooms flashed.
The red mark on Livy’s cheek. His pulse pounded in his neck.
Bruises in the shape of handprints around her wrists.
His nostrils flared. Her torn bodice. His fist flew.
Cracked into Pennington’s cheek, sending the man’s head snapping to the left.
Xavier yanked the swine’s head back by his hair, setting Derek up for another blow.
Rage erupted from Derek with every ragged breath.
This world. It was full of such evil. Men like Pennington.
Men like Derek’s father. And so few had any protection against it.
Derek’s fist sliced through the air. It collided with flesh and bone, and Pennington flew backward into the wall, the hit so hard it’d dislodged him from Xavier’s and Ryker’s hold. He crumpled to the ground.
Derek dropped to a knee, yanked the man to him by the ankle, straddled him, and pulled him up by his waistcoat. Sank his fist into the man’s face again.
Derek’s intoxicated father’s face rushed forward.
He threw another punch.
His father’s hand fisting his hair, slamming his head into the wall.
This man had made Livy feel just as Derek had growing up. Made her feel pain. Helpless. Fear.
Never again.
Derek roared. The crunch of bone echoed around them.
He couldn’t see. He couldn’t hear. He was back in that study.
Scrambling away from his father, but never fast enough.
Fabric slid through his fingers, and a muted thud reached his ears.
His arm arced through the air. Over and over.
Fist smacking flesh, cracking bone, something moist misting over his face, wetness slicking over his knuckles.
Derek finally registered hands on him, pulling him off Pennington. He stumbled backward, breath exploding from his lungs, ribcage struggling against the force of the expansion. The cellar gradually came back into focus, Pennington slowly coming back into focus. Or what had been Pennington.
“He’s gone.” Ryker’s murmur penetrated Derek’s bloodlust.
Derek stared at the bloody mass on the floor.
He was gone.
Something lodged in his throat, cutting off his ability to breathe.
It wasn’t fucking enough.