Chapter Twenty-Six
Truett
I loved that Gwen had such a logical and composed attitude about the way that asshole had treated her. She had her son to focus on. It was obvious he had become her beacon of light in the darkness.
I, however, wasn’t so forgiving. Abuse was abuse, and it did not sit well with me that this piece of shit had gotten off scot-free. He was out there, living his life, while she was saddled with the memories of throwing up after sex.
I would never win husband of the year.
I’d failed her on every front.
But not that one.
Never that one.
A quick Google search of his name brought up a bio for a law firm only five minutes away. The prick still had a picture of her and Nate on his “about me” page.
I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing, so when I saw her keys on the kitchen counter, I took it as a sign.
Fury, molten hot and unrestrained, raced through my veins as I flung the door open and stalked into the lobby. A sign that read Weaver, Lowry, and Dixon hung on the wall above the front desk. The older woman sitting behind it looked up with a smile on her face that fell the moment she caught sight of me.
“Jeff Weaver,” I spat, the name burning as it tore from my throat.
Her eyes widened as she glanced down the hall and then back to me. “He’s, uh, in a meeting. Can I take a message?”
The only message he would be getting from me would be delivered in person.
Veering right, I marched down the hall in the direction she had inadvertently indicated.
“Sir! You can’t go back there! Sir!” Her frantic voice echoed behind me, but I paid her no mind.
Conveniently, the first door on the right had a gold plate engraved with his name. With the door cracked open, I could hear voices coming from inside. I gave exactly zero fucks if I was interrupting something. I shoved the door open and stalked inside—a predator on the prowl.
He was the only one in the room, sitting reclined in a leather office chair, his feet propped up on a large ornate wooden desk. Behind him was a wall of framed diplomas that probably made him feel superior, feeding his apparent case of little man syndrome. I clocked the wall of windows to my right, and to the left of his desk were bookshelves, filled to the brim. They rattled when I slammed the door behind me and locked it in one swift motion.
He sat up, his feet finding the floor as he snapped, “Who the fuck are you?”
“Excuse me?” A voice came through the speaker of the phone positioned on the corner of the desk. I snatched it up, ripping out the wiring as I launched it across the room.
“Hey!” he shouted with all the confidence a five-foot-five man wearing penny loafers could possess. “Have you lost your damn mind?”
“Yep,” I clipped, rounding the desk. I fisted the front of his yuppy-ass button-down shirt with one hand and dragged him to his feet. Bending, I brought my face just inches from his and growled, “You fucking piece of shit!”
He squirmed like the weasel he was, but my hold on him was rock solid. “Get your fucking hands off me!” He shoved at my shoulders, trying to free himself, but I spun, kicking blindly at his office chair. It sailed across the room, slamming into the bookshelf as I pinned him against the wall. His head cracked on a diploma, sending it crashing to the floor.
“What? You don’t like being touched without permission?” I seethed.
“What the fuck is your problem, man?” He tried again to escape my grasp, his pathetic attempts only fueling my rage. “Patty!” he shouted, craning his neck toward the door. “Call the fucking police!”
The knob rattled as who I could only assume was the receptionist trying to get into the office. Her voice was laced with fear as she responded, “They’re on the way!”
“You better hope they’re fast.” I spoke with such an eerie calm I barely recognized my own voice.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Oh, this isn’t about me.” I shook him, his back hitting the wall as a button flew from his shirt. Angling my face down to his, I leveled him with a hard stare. “Let me make myself perfectly clear. You so much as breathe the same air as Gwendolyn Pierce and I will rip your skull from your spineless torso.”
“Gwen?” It took but a split second for him to put the pieces together, and once he did, he let out a sardonic laugh. “Truett West. We meet at last. Christ, you’re even more of a lunatic than I’d heard.” Spittle flew from his lips as he leaned into me. “Stupid too. Did you not see the sign when you walked in? Do you have any idea who the hell I am?”
I wouldn’t have cared if the sign had said President of the United States . There was nothing on my mind except all the ways I was going to make him pay for what he had done to Gwen.
“I know who you are. You’re the troll under the bridge who thought it was okay to touch a woman even after she said no.” With another violent shake, I slanted my head, our noses practically touching. “Let’s see you force yourself on me.”
He smirked. “You’re not my type, but I do appreciate the offer. By the way, you got it wrong. Gwen’s last name is Weaver. Not Pierce. And sure as fuck not West .”
The fury that had been simmering in my gut grew into a rolling boil. “Big man, huh? Only way you can get some is to force yourself on a woman.”
Smug arrogance coated his every word. “I’ve never had to force myself on anyone, least of all, my wife. I’m sure you remember how marriage works.”
“Yeah, asshole, I do. I remember that being married meant both people consented and no one ever threw up when it was over.”
He scoffed. “I don’t know what lies she told you. She loved everything thing I did to her. Fucking begged for it. She’s just looking for an excuse to make herself feel better about how she ruined her life when she walked away from me.”
The sheer lunacy of his statement forced laughter from my throat. “You’re out of your Goddamn mind if you think she regrets leaving you.”
His dark eyes sparkled. His twisted ass was enjoying this. And they called me crazy.
“You’re delusional, man. With me, she was taken care of. She didn’t have to spend all day and night in that dump of a diner. I was the one who took care of the bills, made sure she had what she needed. Which, from what I’ve heard, is a hell of a lot more than you ever gave her. No surprise, she took care of me in return.” A vile grin stretched across his face. “Been a long time since you were with her, but I doubt you’ve forgotten how good she is at satisfying a man.”
Bile surged up the back of my throat as I thought about my Gwen, soft and sweet, ever having to be touched by this monster. Much less spending a fucking decade with him.
Jeff Weaver was the worst kind of human. He thought he was a smooth talker, born with a silver spoon in his ass, someone who had never been held accountable for his actions. He’d spent his entire marriage getting away with any and everything he wanted, abusing the woman he was supposed to love and protect all for his own selfish and despicable pleasures.
Like a scene from a movie playing out in my head, I thought about how I was going to relish my hands giving him back all the pain he’d caused her.
His grunts as my fist connected with his nose.
His cartilage crunching under my knuckles.
His pleas for me to stop.
I reared a fist back, my arm tingling in anticipation.
Before I could even begin to swing, the office door flew open with a crack. “Police!”
In an instant, two men were on me, pulling me away. I fought the urge to shake them off and finish what I had gone there to do, but nothing would change him. And if I was locked in a cell for the better part of my life, I couldn’t protect her. It was less than a second before I was face down on the office floor, my hands wrenched behind my back.
“Don’t fight me!” an officer yelled, his knee in my back. “Put your hands together and don’t move.”
Despite the adrenaline still surging within me, I did as I had been told.
Cuffs clicked around my wrists, and then the pressure on my back eased when two officers each grabbed a bicep, helping me to my feet.
“Anyone want to tell me what’s going on?” the younger officer asked.
“He’s a psycho who just burst into my office and assaulted me.”
The older cop with a thick gray mustache arched an eyebrow. “Any particular reason?”
“He thought he could put his hands on my woman,” I replied. “I thought he should know otherwise. You got here one swing too soon.”
“Your woman?” Jeff scoffed. “You should really take him in for a psych eval before hauling his ass to the jail.”
The cop hit me with a glower. “Sounds like we got here just in time. You got any ID?”
“No, sir,” I said, never tearing my eyes off the pretentious garden gnome in the corner.
“You got a name, then?”
“Truett West.”
The cop’s eyes flared with recognition, while the other let out a low whistle from behind me.
“You screwing with me?” he asked.
“No, sir.”
“Dammit. This is not what I wanted to do with my day,” he mumbled under his breath. He looked at Jeff. “Do you need medical attention?”
Insult pinched between his eyes. “This pussy ruined my favorite shirt, but that’s about it.”
The cop frowned, his eyes narrowing. “You mind watching your mouth?”
“Actually, I do,” Jeff replied like the smug bastard he was.
The cop’s face got hard. “I’m not going to ask you again. Shut your mouth.”
He held Jeff’s stare for a long second, and unfortunately, he actually closed his gaping asshole of a mouth.
“Right.” The cop nodded, tugging on my arm. “You come outside with me. Darren, you stay here and get Mr. Weaver’s statement.”
My feet shuffled after him, but before I exited the office, I issued one last warning. “You come near Gwen again, and I’ll put your ass in the ground where you belong.”
Pure evil twinkled in his eyes as a venomous smile curled his lips. “You mean, like you did with your daughter?”
My vision flashed red, blood roaring in my ears, and the room around me disappeared as every ounce of restraint I’d ever possessed was gone in an instant.
A blinding rage detonated inside me. Stripping my arm from the cop’s grasp, I bolted toward him with my hands still cuffed behind my back. I hit him with my chest, slamming him into the wall. The pleasure I felt when the fear he couldn’t hide transformed his face was only second to the sound of his nose cracking as I headbutted him so hard it made my head spin.
The cops tackled me from behind again and the air rushed from my lungs as I landed on the floor, face down.
“Stay down.” The older officer came down on top of me and growled in my ear, “Do not make me tase you, West. One more move and you’re going to have more problems than I can help you with.”
My chest heaved as I fought to catch a breath. The wild desire to get my hands on that monster ricocheted inside me, destroying me from the inside out.
“You fucking nutjob!” Jeff roared. “I swear to God, you will rot in prison for this.”
“Hey!” the younger cop snapped. “Not another word or you’re walking out of here in cuffs too.”
“Me?” he whined.
A grin split my mouth as I caught sight of blood pouring from his nose.
As my pulse slowed, adrenaline ebbing from my system, logical thought won out and I forced my mind to ignore the bitter outrage still churning inside me.
“Listen,” the cop said. “You’re gonna push to your knees and then you’re gonna stand. When you do, do not so much as look in his direction. You got me?”
I grunted my agreement and the officers once again pulled me to my feet. I kept my head down, knowing that if I caught sight of him again, their threats to tase me would become promises they would have to follow through on.
Murmurs followed as I was led away, but I kept my gaze trained on my feet, focusing on each step so I could block out the sound of his words replaying in my head.
The officer guided me past a small group of employees gathered in the lobby and through the front doors.
I didn’t feel guilty. Not one fucking ounce. Maybe that made me a monster too, but I’d put on a green mask and talons every day of my life if that was what was required, because no one had ever deserved a headbutt more.
As I walked to the squad car, I saw a pair of brown leather shoes trot up beside me. “Truett, would you like to comment on what happened in there?”
My head snapped up and I saw Taggart Folly beside me, a mic in his outstretched hand. A cameraman trailed behind him, trying to keep up.
Fuck.
What the hell was Folly doing there?
And how long had he been recording?
The windows in Jeff’s office had been wide open. If Gwen was right and Folly was looking for something juicy to use in his documentary, my going off half-cocked would give him everything he needed.
It was only that realization that caused any form of regret to sink in.
Good Lord, I’d spent eighteen years locked away, keeping to myself, and staying out of the public eye. And now I was suddenly flanked by officers, more than likely being arrested for assault.
Though I’d also spent eighteen years without Gwen, and for ten of them, she’d been in the arms of that maniac.
As I slid into the cold plastic back seat, handcuffs biting into my wrists, an unlikely smile split my mouth.
Worth it. So fucking worth it.