Page 209 of Joker

There it is.

The vile little hook he’s been waiting to sink.

Logan shifts slightly, reading me. Probably calculating whether he needs to pull me back.

He doesn’t. Not yet. Because I’m still in control.

Barely.

Cal mistakes my silence for uncertainty and keeps going. “She’s always been good in bed when she’s crying,” he says conversationally. “That’s the problem with women like her. They break pretty, so men start confusing damage with devotion.”

The room goes very, very still. Not silent. Still. The kind of still that exists right before something dies.

I feel Logan move half a step. Not to stop me. To get out of the way.

Smart.

Because the second those words leave Cal’s mouth, whatever leash I had on myself slides off clean.

I don’t lunge. I don’t yell. I just cross the distance in three hard steps and put my fist straight through the side of his face.

It lands beautifully. Full knuckle. Jawline. Enough force to spin him halfway sideways before he crashes into the edge of the table and knocks the lamp onto the floor.

He recovers faster than I’d like. He comes up swinging, aiming for my ribs and then my throat, fast and dirty enough to tell me he’s used to men who underestimate him.

I’m not one of them. I block the first punch, take the second on my shoulder, and drive my knee into his stomach hard enough to fold him.

He grunts. Real pain now. Good.

I grab the back of his shirt and slam him face first into the wall before he gets his breath fully back. The frame rattles. Drywall cracks. He spits blood onto the floor and still somehow manages a laugh that makes me want to tear his spine out.

“There you are,” he coughs.

I hit him again. This one lower, across the kidney.

He drops to one knee and twists hard, catching me with an elbow to the ribs that actually lands clean enough to sting. Then he’s up and driving into me with all his weight, taking us both through the cheap dining table with a crack of wood and a rain of dust and splinters. Pain flashes bright across my back.

Ignored.

He scrambles for the gun at his waistband. Mistake.

I catch his wrist, slam it once against the floor, then again harder until the weapon goes spinning under the couch. He lands a punch to my cheekbone that snaps my head sideways and makes the room flash white for half a second.

I grin at him. Blood in my mouth.

Murder in my hands.

Wrong man, you pathetic bastard. He sees it too. For the first time all night, real fear flickers behind his eyes. Too late.

I drive my forehead into his nose. Cartilage gives with a wet crunch. He shouts this time, one hand flying up, blood spilling instantly.

I use the opening. Hit him in the throat. Then the sternum. Then the jaw again. No wasted movement. No showboating. No lesson dragged out for its own sake.

Just brutal efficiency.

He gets one more decent hit in, catches me at the temple with enough force to make the cabin lurch sideways for a second. Then I bury my fist in his ribs and feel one of them go.

His breath leaves him in a broken sound.