Page 58 of Your Worst Fear
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 aboutfeelings. 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 approachsilently. 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?—”
