Angel girl.
“You’re going to regret ever fucking with me,” Reed wheezed, hand fumbling under my skirt. “No one leaves a Dearborne.”
I kicked and screamed and wailed.
But he was stronger.
Crueler.
I was at his mercy.
That was a bad place to be when I knew he was merciless.
Twenty-Seven
Ian
I rammed on the brakes when I saw the Jaguar parked two houses down from Grace’s.
Awareness scattered across my flesh, a dark, black plague that pulsed with hostility.
That motherfucker was here.
The second I’d gotten word that the petition had been denied, I’d jumped in my car and headed over here.
Exactly like I’d promised myself I wouldn’t do.
I cut the engine and jumped out.
Adrenaline spiked, every muscle in my body curling with aggression as I moved up the sidewalk toward Grace’s house.
Trees and hedges surrounded the property, concealing the front.
But still, it was in the air—the taste of her fear.
I followed it, moving faster and faster with each step.
A scream broke in the air.
Grace.
That spike of adrenaline I’d felt when I first got here dumped like a vat into my system.
Brimming and overflowing.
I started to run, vision clouding with red when I rounded the hedge and found Grace caged against her car.
Bastard was plastered to that sweet body, grinding himself all over my girl. Hand under her dress while he tried to kiss her.
He was trying to kiss her.
Sweat slicked my skin, images flashing, my heart whipping and my spirit thrashing.
I sprinted for them.
There was no thinking it through. No calculating the risks or the consequences. I grabbed him by the back of the collar and yanked him away from her.
The asshole stumbled, so wrapped up in defiling the girl that he hadn’t even realized I was there.
Took him about two seconds to add it up.
“You fucking prick.” He came right for me.
I welcomed it.
The way his body slammed mine, the fucker wider than me, but he wasn’t close to being a match.
Pussy-bitch clean and polished.
He’d probably never even been the brunt of a schoolyard scuffle.
I let him take me to the ground, dick thinking he had the upper hand. He scrambled to get on top of me, and I lifted a foot and planted the sole of my shoe against his chest, sending him sailing where he thudded to the concrete.
Instantly, I spun, crouched before I attacked, on him in a second flat. My fists flew with all the fury I felt.
With all the hatred and the anger bottled inside me.
For Grace.
For those kids.
Memories spun as I pounded the fucker into the ground. Sight blurring at the edges.
My mother.
I pummeled his face. Strike after strike. Blow after blow.
My mother.
He was just like those pricks who’d used her. Kept her drugged and needy and bloody. The men who’d used me and my brother as punching bags.
Total disregard.
I was wholly game to disregard him.
Flesh split and blood gushed, and I could feel the splintering of bones.
Every part of me coming unglued.
Unhinged.
Screams were all around me. Hitting my ears.
That sweet, sweet voice begging me to hear.
The impact of it barely landed in the fringes of my manic mind. “Ian . . . please . . . stop. You have to stop.”
“Asshole,” I seethed. “I’ll end you. You think you can touch her?”
From behind, Grace curled her arms around my neck, her mouth at my ear, her presence penetrating through the haze of violence that blinded my heart and mind.
“Ian, you’ve got to stop. Please, stop.”
Another blow landed on his cheek.
“Please,” she begged again. “You can’t do this. Not like this.”
I sagged, slowing, my last punch landing limp. My vision flickered, and my heart pounded harder than it had before.
With something different.
Something bigger than I’d ever felt.
I sucked for a breath, the cold air drawn into my collapsing lungs.
I staggered to my feet. Prying myself away before I went for him again.
“Oh, God.” Grace pressed her hand to her mouth when she saw the mess I’d made of the piece of shit who was trying to destroy her life.
The piece of shit who was using her.
The piece of shit who was trying to take her from me.
He was coughing, gasping for air, groaning in pain. Finally, he peeled himself off the ground, staggering to one side and then the other, hand swiping across the river of blood dripping from one eyebrow and his chin.
He only managed to smear it all over his smug face that was now a little disfigured, nose bent and lip busted.
Blue eyes glared at me, blinking in disbelief, like he was having a hard time accepting that he’d just gotten his ass handed to him. Wondered if the fucker knew I’d only stopped because it was what Grace had begged me to do.
For her.
For her.
Every-fucking-thing had become about her.
I looked in her direction, my damned heart bleeding as badly as that bastard’s chin. Wanting to crawl all over her. Wrap her up. Hold and never let anyone hurt her again.
I’d almost been too late.
My stomach roiled with what would have happened if I’d waited for five more minutes.
My gaze ripped from the girl when he bellowed out a deranged laugh. “Oh. I see how it is. You’re fucking your attorney.” He wasn’t looking at me when he said it. “You think I don’t know who this punk is?”
Frantic, Grace shook her head. “No.”
He was back in her face in a flash. “You fucking slut . . . don’t lie to me. You’re fucking your attorney, aren’t you?”
I had half a mind to finish him. Take him out. Erase the threat from her life.
Didn’t give a shit what it cost.
I sucked it down, trying to latch onto the thread of sanity that was dangling somewhere in my brain, getting blown in the breeze, just out of reach.
I’d worked too hard to let this cocksucker ruin my life. And I wasn’t going to do something that would ruin hers.
“No, asshole, I came over here to have her sign the paperwork in response to the petition I filed at the courts today. And low and behold, what do I find, the same scumbag she just made a claim against, the man she stated she was afraid of, trying to rape her. Wonder how that’s going to look?”
It was my own threat.
Go on, asshole. Cry to the media that you got your ass kicked. I’ll have your reputation fried in the blink of an eye.
Incredulous laughter rocked from him, and he was shaking his head, looking away before he turned his attention back on me. I thought maybe the man staring back at me was every bit as hard as I was.
Stone.
Willing to do whatever it took for him to get what he wanted. “You actually think you’re going to go up against me? A pathetic, scrounging at the bottom of the barrel, wannabe attorney who thinks he’s a hot shot, thinks he’s actually going to go up against me? Funny how you’re the only attorney in town who was willing to take her case.”
I lifted my chin. “I took it because it was one I knew I could win. One that I will win. When I rip your fucking name to shreds in court, I’ll be the one all you piss-ass politicians who think they know what’s best for everyone want on their side. It was a calculated risk. After today?” I squeezed my fist that was screaming like a bitch. “I’m pretty damned glad I took it. It’s looking like a sure thing.”
He looked between Grace and me. The girl was getting rocked by quivers of unrest that speared through her body, her spirit in turmoil, that energy so fierce I wasn’t sure how I was still standing right there pretending like I was still doing this for myself.
He backed away, nodding. Knew from the expression on his face that it wasn’t in surrender. He pointed at Grace. “Warned you.”
Then he turned and stormed away.
Grace and I stood there in the breezy silence of the quiet neighborhood, watching him go.
The fact the judge had called Reed told me the law was not going to be our best asset.
This was going to be a harder fight than I’d first anticipated, and I’d already been sure it was going to be a shitshow.