Chapter 21 #2
This isn’t just anger—it’s every year of betrayal, every scar she carved into my soul, every lonely night and shattered hope crashing down all at once.
The world shrinks to the pounding of my heart in my ears, the hot rush of adrenaline, and a desperate, ruthless need to make her pay—for every God damn thing she took from me.
“Why the fuck didn’t you pull her off?”
“Seemed like she earned it, if you ask me.”
“Damn! Somebody better call Maddox—he’s going to owe her twenty bucks and a box of Whoppers after that one!”
“Shut the fuck up, Merc!” Henry growls from above me, voice low and deadly.
I blink, and the fog starts to clear. The anger, the chaos—it all crashes back in.
My mother stormed into the bar, venom dripping from her words as she bragged she was glad Daddy was dead—an echo of betrayal that still cuts deep.
I choke on the memory, the taste bitter and raw like swallowing broken glass.
“Where is she?” I rasp, eyes fluttering open to find myself sprawled across the leathery couch in Crow and Crew’s office.
The place is trashed—a chaotic mess that mirrors the storm inside me.
Chairs lie overturned, one cracked and splintered near the wall.
A shattered bottle leaks dark liquid, pooling like blood on the threadbare carpet.
Papers litter the floor—some torn, others soaked through, stained with ink and sweat.
The harsh fluorescent light flickers overhead, casting jittery shadows that seem to twist and pulse on the cracked, peeling walls.
“What the hell happened in here?” I croak, my voice raw as I take in the wreckage surrounding me.
Merc leans against the doorframe, that infuriating shit-eating grin still plastered across his face like this kind of chaos is just another Wednesday.
“You are what happened, Champ,” he says, chuckling as he shakes his head in disbelief. “You went full beast mode on that walking cigarette.”
I want to hate how amused he is, but part of me can’t deny the fierce satisfaction burning behind my rage. How dare she walk back in here all these years later spewing her venom everywhere. Well, not on my motherfucking watch bitch.
He smirks, rubbing his jaw like it’s a damn badge of honor. “When I tried to pull you off, you clocked me—hard.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll survive. Then Henny showed up, had to manhandle your ass back here before you went completely cuckoo.”
I swallow hard, the weight of what just went down settling over me. The rage, the fight—it wasn’t just for me. It was for every scar, every broken piece left behind. Even now, as the bruises start to bloom on my knuckles, I know it was worth every damn second.
“Wipe that God damn smirk off your face, Louisiana Rose,” Henry growls, voice low and lethal—like he’s barely holding back everything boiling under the surface.
Wait—if Henry’s here…“Where’s Dallas?” I manage, breath still ragged.
Without hesitation, he yanks me to my feet, his grip rough and unyielding. “Funny how you’re only just now starting to fucking think about him,” he spits, dragging me through the bar.
The words land hard—and ugly.
I bristle. My jaw tightens because I know he’s right, and I still want to argue. Defend myself, demand I’m always thinking of Dallas, but I can’t because he’s right and I hate that he’s right.
I wasn’t thinking of anyone when I launched myself across the bar at her, just the heat behind my ribs and the way it felt to finally let it out.
Mercy’s shout trails behind us fiercely, “That’s not fair Henry! Give her some fucking credit! She could have done a lot worse.”
Any other time I would have stopped to acknowledge the way the little manwhore had my back, but his words barely register.
The noise around us blurs—the clinking glasses, the murmurs, the distant laughter—but all I can feel is the cold bite of Henry’s hand locking onto my arm, pulling me closer to the storm waiting just beyond the door. My skin prickles under his grip, the tension in the air thick enough to choke on.
“Stop fucking dragging me around like a rag doll!” I snap, voice sharp and trembling as soon as we hit the cold night air. I yank my arm free, breath catching in my throat as I wrestle to break loose from his relentless hold.
Henry doesn’t turn around. His broad back is tense, shoulders squared like a bull ready to charge, chest rising and falling with ragged breaths.
His hair stands on end, wild and unruly, like the anger thrumming beneath his skin.
Without looking at me, he points toward his SUV with a hard edge. “Get in the fucking car.”
I cross my arms tight over my chest, digging my heels into the cracked pavement, stubborn and fierce. “And be manhandled some more? No fucking thank you.” My voice is cold, defiant, but underneath it all, a storm of frustration and fear rages—torn between wanting to fight and wanting to surrender.
He spins on me in a heartbeat, the suddenness of it snatching the air right from my lungs.
Then—impact.
My back slams into the SUV, metal unforgiving and cold. The jolt travels up my spine, blooming sharp and immediate across my ribs.
His body crowds mine.
His breath is hot against my cheek, his chest barely an inch from mine, the space between us suddenly charged, tight, suffocating.
I freeze—just for a second. My heart kicks hard against my ribs, as if it doesn’t know whether to brace for a kiss or a blow.
Then I remember who’s standing before me and I damn near laugh at the absurd thought.
He might throw me up against a wall, sure. Might press in close until I can feel every inch of him, until my breath catches and my knees start to give. Might pin my wrists over my head, mouth dragging down my throat just to remind me who’s really in control.
Might make me beg—without ever saying a word.
But hurt me?
Not a fucking chance.
Because that’s the thing about Henry Wilder, he’s brutal, but never cruel.
“Louisiana, I’m not asking,” he growls, voice low and dangerous, like a predator warning its prey.
The words rumble through me. Not just in my ears—but in my bones.
I should be afraid. Maybe I am, a little. But it’s not clean fear—it’s tangled up with heat, with anger, with a sick, aching need to push back just to see how far he’ll go.
I tilt my head forward, refusing to shrink. Closing the distance until our noses nearly brush, my breath steady even as my pulse riots beneath my skin.
“I said no,” I whisper, voice like steel under strain.
The tension between us thickens, suffocating and electric.
Suddenly, without warning, his hand slaps the side of his SUV right beside my head. The metal rings out beneath his palm, the sound sharp and hollow, echoing into the night.
“I just spent the last hour panicked out of my fucking mind,” he says, voice low but shaking at the edges. “Then I get here and it’s not just that your mother’s back in town—it’s you, going full God damn Rambo on her.”
He’s breathing hard, jaw locked. His eyes stay fixed on mine, too wild to be cold.
“Did you even see the pistol?” he goes on, his voice a little louder now. “Tucked into the back of her pants. Did you even fucking think, Louisiana?”
The word hits like a fist to the sternum—pistol.
I blink, slowly, like maybe I didn’t hear him right. But I did. My body goes cold.
I hadn’t seen it. Not the glint of it, not the weight in her waistband, not the shape of danger tucked just out of sight. All I’d seen was her face—her smug, lying mouth, her eyes that looked at me like I was still some small thing to be broken. That’s what I hit. That’s all I hit.
If she’d pulled that gun—
If she’d—
I feel my stomach twist, slow and ugly. My knees weaken without moving. I can’t breathe right. The image lurches through my mind—blood, mine, on the sticky bar floor. The look in Sophie’s eyes. Henry kneeling beside my body, too late. Dallas watching them drag me out under a sheet.
I can’t move.
He laughs, but it’s a cold, bitter sound, scraped raw. “No. You didn’t. You didn’t think about that little boy. About Sophie. About me.”
I feel it now—the weight of it, pressing down on my chest like lead.
He’s not wrong. I hadn’t been thinking. I’d let rage swallow me whole, let it carry me out where nothing existed except the heat of her voice and the ghost of every time she’d left me bleeding.
I thought I’d done the right thing. I thought maybe, just once, I could be the one to land the first blow.
But I hadn’t seen the gun.
Now all I can see is what could’ve happened. What almost did.
My breath is shallow. My arms are heavy. I look at him, and I know he sees it—the shift. The quiet kind of panic that settles in once the fire burns out and leaves only the smoke behind.
“Henny…” My voice is hoarse, cracked somewhere down the middle. I don’t even know what I was going to say.
Before I can finish, a large, rough hand clamps around my throat, crushing my words and stealing my breath like a tightening vise.
“For once in your life, just shut the fuck up, Louisiana.” His voice is cold, hard—a command that leaves no room for argument.
His thumb presses against the hollow of my throat, right over the frantic thrum of my pulse. He feels it—knows I’m alive, knows I’m scared, knows I’m not backing down. His fingers don’t squeeze harder…but they don’t let go either.
His jaw is rock hard, tight enough to crack, and we just stand there—breathing each other in like we’re both on the edge of combustion.
His chest heaves with rage, but there’s something else behind it—something darker. Hungrier. And God help me, I feel it too.
I should be backing down, apologizing, running. I should be shaking—reeling from the fact that the woman who bled me into this world strolled back into my life with a pistol tucked into the back of her jeans like it was just another day.
But I’m not.
No, I’m standing here with adrenaline roaring in my ears and every nerve ending lit up like a fucking wildfire. All I can think is I want him to break me open. I want to sink my teeth into that fury. I want to feel everything he’s been holding back—all of it.
I want the anger, the fury, the grief. I want to feel it. All of it. I want him to take everything he’s been burying and throw it at me so I don’t have to keep carrying mine alone. I want to lose myself in the chaos of Henry Wilder and deal with the fallout later.
His eyes rake over my face like he’s trying to decide whether to kiss me or kill me.
I swear to God, if he touches me, I’ll let him do both.
He steps closer, closing the sliver of space between us, his breath hot against my mouth. The air crackles. My pulse pounds.
Still gripping my throat like he owns it, he yanks open the back door and shoves me inside—rough but controlled, like he’s barely keeping himself from unraveling. The door slams shut behind me with a final, echoing thud.
I’m still catching my breath, heart pounding like war drums, when the back door opens again. Henry leans in, jaw clenched, eyes darker than sin.
“What now? Are you going to bark orders from the front seat?” I sneer, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
He doesn’t answer.
Instead, he grabs my wrists—fast, firm—and before I can process what’s happening, I hear the unmistakable click of metal on metal. My arms jerk as the cold bite of steel snaps around them.
“What the fuck—are you seriously cuffing me right now?”
He leans in close, lips brushing my ear. “You want to act like a criminal, Louisiana? Then you’ll get treated like one.”
The cuffs are snug, the metal biting in just enough to remind me I’m not in control anymore.
But it’s not the cold press of steel that makes my breath catch—it’s him.
The way he leaned in close, voice dark and low, brushing the shell of my ear like he owned the right to speak straight into my blood.
You want to act like a criminal, Louisiana? Then you’ll get treated like one.
It shouldn’t have hit like it did. Shouldn’t have curled itself around the knot already twisting in my gut, pulled tight by everything I’ve said and done and wanted. But there it is—still echoing, still clinging to my skin like the heat of his body never left.
He slides into the front seat a moment later, tension radiating off him in waves.
His hands grip the wheel like he needs it to anchor him, knuckles pale, shoulders high and tight with something sharp.
His chest rises and falls, slow but heavy, as if he’s trying to wrestle himself down from whatever edge I dragged him to.
Still, I can’t shut up.
“Let me the fuck out, you big bastard!” I snap, the words tumbling out like sparks. I twist against the cuffs, not to escape, not really—more just to feel something, to make sense of this burning in my chest.
He doesn’t turn. Doesn’t flinch. Just shifts his gaze to the mirror and meets my eyes with that maddening calm he gets when he’s two seconds from snapping. His lips curl into a wicked smile.
“That’s one.”
I still. Just for a moment.
“One what?” I bite out, even though my voice isn’t quite as steady now. “You keeping score?”
The metal divider between us looms larger all of a sudden. Cold. Impersonal. Like I’m a stranger to him now. Like I pushed one step too far.
I yank at the cuffs, hard. The steel scrapes my skin, a flash of pain I welcome.
“One, two, three—bitch, get these cuffs off me!” The words tear from my throat, half fury, half something hungrier. Louder than I mean for them to be. Not a demand so much as a dare
His laugh is low, guttural. It slips through the car like smoke, thick and slow and full of something wicked.
“Keep it up, brat,” he growls, eyes flicking to me in the mirror, sharp and glittering. “That ass’ll be purple by the time I’m done with you.”
“Fuck you,” I snap, squirming against the cuffs biting into my wrists. “You’re not touching me, or that damn nightstick’s going straight up your ass.”
His mouth curves in a wicked grin that’s pure sin. “We’ll see about that, little viper.”
My blood boils and sings all at once.
God help us both.