Chapter Twenty-Two
Rip
We walked to the restaurant’s exit together.
Laurie was trying not to act nervous, to appear calm, but her death grip on my forearm gave away her nerves.
I longed to tell her she had nothing to fear from the human scumbags.
That, if I wanted to, I could rip the water from their bodies in a second, leaving them little more than husks to crumble to the sidewalk.
Already, I was reaching out to the water in their bodies, draining it from their arms, slowing their reflexes. If they tried to bring the guns to bear, I would have plenty of time to show them just how poor a choice they’d made.
Now was not the time for more big reveals, however.
Although she was handling it well, I could tell there was a lingering shock over the pregnancy.
Once Laurie fully accepted it in her core that she would be a mother, that it was real, then I could begin to clue her into the truth of her child’s heritage.
Our child’s heritage.
I tightened my grip imperceptibly on Laurie as the host pulled open the door.
“Have a lovely evening. Thank you for choosing Leblanc’s.”
“Always a pleasure,” I said as we swept out into the night, picking up the pace, hoping to get a few extra steps on our followers before we were forced to confront them. Laurie kept pace with me, hurrying along at my side.
“What do we do now?” she hissed as we headed for the parking lot next to the building where I’d left my car. I was now glad that Laurie had disdained the valet service upon our arrival, claiming she was perfectly capable of walking.
I liked the self-awareness she possessed. It was very practical, something I valued highly.
We rounded the corner, and I slowed to a halt. “Now,” I said, eyeing two more men who came toward us from a big silver SUV parked off to one side. “I think we have a chat.”
“A chat?” she asked nervously.
“Stay close to me. Do exactly as I say without hesitation,” I told her. “If you do, we’ll be fine, I promise, okay? I swear you have nothing to worry about.”
“But there are four of them. And they have guns.”
“I know. I can’t explain. I need you to trust me. Can you do that?” We had stopped perhaps halfway up the building. The two men following us caught up to us and closed off our retreat in that direction.
“Um.” Laurie looked behind us as they approached. “Maybe?”
“You’ll be safe,” I vowed. “I will protect you.”
“Protect?” one of the men from inside the restaurant sneered dismissively. “We just want to talk.”
I scoffed. “If that’s the case, then why the weapons?”
“Covering our bases,” the same man said, outing himself as the leader.
He was tall and burly, with a clean-shaven skull and a bushy ginger beard that covered the lower half of his face.
I suspected he would look more at home in a leather jacket and jeans, not the black collared shirt and matching pants he wore.
His partner, who was shorter and muscular though less bulky, wore a similar outfit.
The others were a mix. They weren’t professional assassins.
I could tell that much, given their general lack of physical fitness.
However, they held themselves comfortably and showed no signs of nerves despite the tense situation.
They weren’t amateurs either. Intimidation was something they were used to.
“I don’t know who you are,” I said, “nor do I care. Just go away, and leave us alone. We don’t have to do this.”
“Yes,” a new voice said from the silver SUV, speaking through a previously closed window. “We do.”
Laurie stiffened angrily. “Eric,” she hissed as the door opened and her ex-fiancé emerged from the vehicle.
“Go away, Eric,” I said very, very calmly.
He hesitated at the flatness of my voice, but it didn’t stop him. His eyes flicked to his four thugs, and he chuckled. “No, I don’t think I will. Not until I get what’s owed to me, at least.”
“Owed to you?” Laurie spat hotly, taking a half-step toward him. “Owed to you? Are you out of your god-damned mind? I don’t owe you shit, asshole.”
“Mmmm, tsk, tsk. Such foul language for a lady. It’s really unbecoming of you,” Eric said, wagging a finger.
“Fuck you,” Laurie fired back. “You deceitful pile of liquid dog shit.”
Eric just shook his head, then looked at me. “You sure you want to take my place?”
I laughed heartily. “I stepped over the bar you set simply by thinking about her as a human being, Eric Wrexton II. It was incredibly easy to not only ‘take your place’ but be a better figure in her life. Thanks for being such an incredible waste of space, I guess.”
Laurie’s ex bristled.
“You and I,” he said, turning his attention back to Laurie, “we were supposed to be married. You owe me money. Money that you took away from me by breaking up with me. That money should have been mine, and I’m going to get it.”
As he spoke, a deranged gleam filled his face. His eyelids were just a little too wide, his pupils were dilated, and his breathing was slightly heavier—all the telltale signs were there. What I couldn’t figure out was why he was so obsessed with her money.
“I’m not paying you anything,” Laurie said. “So get lost. No, better yet, get a therapist because you’ve clearly lost your mind.”
“I have not!” Eric shouted, lifting a hand.
His goons closed in around us.
“You really, really don’t want to do that, boys,” I said, shielding Laurie by pushing her closer to the wall, keeping her at my back. “Trust me on that.”
The leader glanced at Eric, who motioned to keep closing on us.
“You’re going to pay me,” Eric said, staying behind his men. “One way or another. I’m not going to suffer just because you decided you let a different dick fuck your mind up.”
My growl rumbled the pavement and froze all five of them in their tracks.
“Do not speak to her like that ever again,” I warned. “Do I make myself clear?”
Eric glanced nervously at the leader of his thugs. But it wasn’t an encouraging look. I noted the questions in his glance. Eric wasn’t giving an order. He was … seeking one? That made no sense. I filed it away for later. Something strange was going on. But what?
“Let’s just deal with this,” the leader said, taking charge as he reached for his firearm.
“Remember what I told you to do?” I said to Laurie.
“Yes.”
“Go!”
Laurie dropped flat with a shriek. I stalked forward, watching as the leader’s arm slowly drooped back down until the barrel of his pistol was pointed at the ground, his bicep refusing to contract.
“I warned you not to do this,” I growled as the water flowed out of his muscles and those of his men.
“What the fuck is going on?” the leader barked, backing away.
I moved faster than he could follow, grabbing his forearm and twisting it, breaking the radius and ulna with one sharp move. Then I stepped on his foot, crushing the bones there, before spinning and dropping him to the ground unconscious with a carefully placed and restrained elbow to the temple.
It would have been child’s play to kill him. Humans were really rather fragile if I let myself go, but that wasn’t my intent. My intent was to hurt them bad enough that they wouldn’t be threats but not enough to warrant, say, police intervention.
Moving quickly, I disarmed the rest of the men. I broke a few more arms, one jaw, and two ribs on the most athletic of the thugs when he tried to fight me with his other, somewhat working arm.
I casually tossed them into a pile against the wall, ignoring their screams of pain as broken bones were jarred on impact. It took me all of ten seconds to do. Eric hadn’t even had a chance to recover and move.
“Okay, pretty boy,” I said, pulling water from his legs as I strode up to him, and he tried to back away.
“What the fuck have you done to me?” Eric asked as his legs refused to work, locking up.
“Far less than you deserve,” I snarled, knocking him out with a single punch.
I darted in and caught his head as he fell backward, stopping his skull from smashing against the concrete and likely causing severe brain damage. Then I unceremoniously hauled him to the trash bin and threw him in.
By the time I returned to Laurie, she was on her feet, looking around.
“How did you do that?” she asked.
I sighed. “We all have a past,” I said. “Come on, let’s get out of here. I’m sure someone called the police. I don’t want to stick around and wait to deal with that. Do you?”
“No,” she agreed. “I don’t.”
But she didn’t follow me toward the car. Instead, she moved to the pile of thugs.
“Uh, what are you doing?” I asked as she started rifling through their pockets.
“Finding out who the fuck these guys are. They don’t work for Eric. Did you catch that look he gave them? Something’s going on here, and if they’re going to come after me, I need to know who they are. You might not always be around to protect me.”
“What do you intend to do with that?” I asked as she found a wallet. I wanted to tell her I would always protect her, I would always be there, but I didn’t want to lie, so I remained silent.
Laurie stood, a determined look spreading across her beautiful face, showing a hardness I didn’t know she possessed.
“Take it to my father,” she growled. “They might not stop with me. My entire family needs to be on alert, and we need to find out who the fuck they are. We don’t take kidnapping attempts very well in the Stiller family. Come on. Let’s go.”
I watched her go, a grin spreading across my face.
Damn. My mate was badass.