Chapter 19
Henley
Grace’s chattering teeth beside me only pissed me off more. Not at her, but at Tyler. She was cold because we were out here waiting for him. Naturally, it was his fault my little killer was uncomfortable.
“I told you to sit in the truck,” I gritted out, sliding out of my jacket to drape it around her shoulders.
“And I told you I don’t want you doing this alone,” she snapped back, though it held little bite with the shivers wracking her. She melted into my black Carhartt, hair tucked beneath it. I had to admit, she was adorable.
I crossed my arms, not feeling the cold whatsoever. The anticipation of making this asshole pay for ever thinking of Grace with anything but good intentions had my blood boiling.
“Scared I’m going to get hurt, little killer?” I asked, too stiff to even lean against the brick building behind us. Grace, on the other hand, was pressed against it like she might curl up and sleep right here.
She huffed, breath pluming white in front of her. “No. I just don’t… He’s an ass, okay?”
I turned my head to look at her, curious. “Don’t what?”
She shimmied her shoulders beneath the jacket, glancing at me sidelong. “Nothing.”
I stared, waiting for her to spit it out. She kept glancing at me, and I knew my patience was getting under her skin.
She faced forward, a defeated frown on her face. “I don’t want him to try to get you to hate me.”
Something in the vicinity of my mouth cracked, and I wasn’t sure if it was a tooth or the bone in my jaw. “He says a word about you, he’s dead.”
“He’s dead anyway,” she pointed out, knowing my intentions. We were more meant for each other than I had originally thought.
“He can decide how painfully by the bullshit that comes out of his mouth.” Maybe I’d cut off his fingers and feed them to him one by one. Or slice his tongue at the base and shove it down his throat.
One glance Grace’s way told me she still held some doubt.
I stepped in front of her, planting both hands on her cheeks. My thumb ran along her cheekbone, brushing a few stray strands of black hair from her skin. “Nothing he can say will change how I feel about you.”
Her eyes shone in the distant streetlight. “How do you feel, Henley?”
That was a great question. With an answer I wasn’t sure I could put into words. How did you speak about love when love had never been shown to you? Austin and Booker were like family, sure, but we never talked about feelings. Those were heavy and came with emotions I wasn’t taught how to handle.
How did I tell her my heart pinched every time she was around? How I couldn’t not press her buttons and push her limits? How every time she looked at me, my chest hurt?
Was love supposed to be pain in the sweetest of ways? Willing torture? Walking into fire?
If so, burning had never felt so blissful.
Behind me, the door to the club opened. My hands slid from her cheeks as I turned to find Tyler exiting the building. Music flowed out, then was suddenly cut off as the door slammed shut. Beneath his hood, he lit a cigarette, completely oblivious to who stood in the dark alley across the street.
I looked back at Grace to find a deflated look on her face, her eyes downcast. I decided I’d tell her later, after I gutted her ex.
Nothing said romance like killing the man who used to date my girl, right?
“If you want to stay in the truck—”
“No,” she cut me off, gaze moving behind me. I didn’t like when she didn’t look at me. I wanted her full attention all the time. “Let’s just go.”
My lips pressed into a firm line before deciding to tackle this later. I intertwined my fingers with hers beneath the jacket, keeping her body slightly behind mine as we crossed the street. Her limbs seemed to loosen a bit as my grip on her tightened and my thumb stroked the side of her hand.
Tyler’s back was to us as he walked, proving just how stupid he was. Because of that, it wasn’t hard to approach silently. I dropped Grace’s hand when we got close to swap it for my gun. And when the butt of the gun met his temple with a hard thump, he dropped to the ground like a fly.
God, this man was pathetic.
Déjà vu struck me as I stood in the middle of my storage unit, staring at a slumped-over Tyler tied to the chair. So many others had been in that same position this week, it was nearly laughable.
Was I what people considered psycho? Probably. Did I care? Not at all.
Grace stood against the wall, arms crossed and a blank stare on her face.
Every time her eyes flickered to him, something inside her shuttered.
It wasn’t repressed emotions, but more like the light that shone bright inside her would flicker in his presence.
Whatever he’d done to her, I wanted to know, simply so I could make him hurt a little more before death.
I didn’t have the patience to wait for Tyler to wake the fuck up, so I grabbed his finger and snapped it. He woke with panicked breaths and a muffled yell behind the cloth in his mouth.
“About damn time,” I muttered, studying the knife in my hands like it was far more interesting than the fuck face in front of me.
Tyler’s eyes flicked behind me. Knowing who he was looking to for saving only had my grip tightening on the handle of the knife. I yanked the cloth from his mouth, and he instantly began spewing bullshit.
“You think you’re getting shit from me, you’re delusional.” He tried to lean to the side to get a better view of Grace. “Tell him, Grace. He’s insane! He’s—”
Grace’s sigh filtered in behind his voice. “You’re such a crybaby, Tyler.”
Tyler’s eyes widened a fraction before redness took over his face and a vein bulged in his forehead. “I’m the crybaby? Need I remind you how we met—”
Something whizzed past me, and a second later, Tyler’s scream filled the room. I looked down to find a blade lodged in his thigh.
I smiled. My little killer was a good shot.
Grace came up behind me, running a finger along my back as she sidled up next to me. I tucked her under my arm as she eyed the blood seeping through his blue jeans.
“The position looks a little off,” I noted, cocking my head to the side.
“Hmm,” Grace hummed. “You’re right.” She gripped the hilt and twisted, likely destroying all sorts of vital parts of his leg. My little killer didn’t carry around small knives.
Sweat trickled down Tyler’s face and neck as he gritted his teeth in a sad attempt to muffle his yell. “You fucking bitch!”
Grace pasted on a fake pout. “Oh, come on, Ty. I know you have better than that.”
He glared up at her, panting. “You don’t want him to know the real you, Grace.”
I tried to ignore what he’d said, knowing he was only trying to get under my skin. But a part of me was intrigued. Was it the ruthless side of her he thought I didn’t know? Because that part only made me hard as a fucking rock.
She yanked the knife from his leg, bringing it down again higher than before, in the soft inner part of his thigh. His head flew back with a groan of pain.
“I already know what I need to know, Ty. You stole from my girl, and now you’re on a one-way ticket to having your body parts spread across the entire state of Idaho. Where did I say I would start? Your tongue?” I unsheathed my knife and reached for his jaw.
He tossed his head back and forth, frantically screaming, “Wait! Wait!”
I paused, impatience threatening to let the blade slip and land in his temple. “What could you possibly say to get yourself out of this?”
“D-do you know how we met?” Tyler asked quickly.
I blinked, bored. “I don’t care to go down memory lane. Now, where were we?”
“In an alley!” he shouted as I gripped his jaw tighter. I was fully prepared to open his mouth and shove the knife down his throat to get this over with quicker, but his next words gave me pause. “She was being attacked!”
Behind me, Grace was silent. I didn’t look back at her, despite my mind putting the pieces together. She’d said when she was attacked, a man had seen her kill someone. That same man had gotten her stuck in this fucked-up job.
Which meant…that man was Tyler.
“I knew that,” I lied. “Tell me something new or shut the fuck up, Tyler. You’re boring me.”
He laughed, and my nostrils flared in irritation. “You didn’t know. Grace never told you.” His laughs grew damn near hysterical. “I bet that hurts, doesn’t it? Knowing the girl you’re fucking is a goddamn liar?”
Without thinking, I shoved the knife in his shoulder. His screams weren’t even remotely satisfying, but this next part would be.
I straightened and grabbed Grace’s hand, leading her over to the folding table sitting on the side of the room.
Her ass bumped it, screeching the feet across the floor an inch as I pressed her against it with my body.
She looked up at me with wide, sorrowful eyes, quiet as a fucking mouse.
Tyler was really getting in the way of me demanding she tell me everything, but I wanted him to hurt in more ways than just the physical.
“He knows where you two are,” Tyler spit out. “The second I saw her in the club, I alerted his team. He has my location.” A cough wracked through him, wet and bloody. “He’s likely tracking it here now.”
Without second thought, I yanked her shorts down to her knees and perched her ass on the table. I’d deal with the rest later. I had to do this. Had to take her, right here. If I didn’t feel her pussy choking my cock within the next minute, I’d lose it.
Her eyes shimmered, a sheen of moisture coating them, but I was too fucking confused to care. I pulled out my cock, fisting it before lining it up with her entrance.