Page 68 of Unruly

“I need everything you can find on Zachariah Mercer,” I say, voice flat. “Fast. Especially where he lives right now.”

There’s a short pause. I can hear her sitting up, probably already reaching for her laptop. “This about that Colt’s sister? He told me y’all were fucking.”

“Just get me the address, Miranda.”

She sighs, but there’s no real judgment. “Full background … all that is going to take time—a couple days at least. But I can get you a current address tonight. Give me twenty minutes.”

“I’ll take the fucking address.”

“Okie dokes.”

The possessiveness is a live wire under my skin. I can’t have her; I don’t deserve her. But that fucker doesn’t get to keep his hooks in her either. Not while I’m still breathing.

My phone buzzes, and Miranda’s text comes through with an address in a nicer suburb outside of Dallas.

I’m already shifting the truck into drive before I finish reading the message.

The drive is long and dark, the highway lights blurring into streaks as I push the truck harder than I should. Grief and rage twist together until I can’t tell them apart. Grandpa’s gone—really gone. And instead of helping hold the ranch together like a man should be, I’m out here, driving to another man’s house in the middle of the night because I can’t stop thinking about Halle.

What am I? A twenty-two-year-old fuck-up who gets drunk and makes scenes and needs her to drag his ass home like some broken kid.

She told me to leave her alone. Fine. I’ll leave her alone.

But Zachariah Mercer doesn’t get access to her either.

I pull up to the address Miranda sent me a little after midnight. Nice neighborhood. Big house with perfect landscaping and an SUV in the driveway. The kind of place that screams “I have money and I’ll use it to make you miserable.”

I kill the engine and sit there for a long second, knuckles split from the earlier fight with Rhett, chest tight with everything I can’t fix.

Then I get out of the truck, walking to the front door. I pound on the door with my fist until the porch light flips on and Zachariah Mercer opens it, looking every bit the smug asshole I expected—tailored shirt, watch that probably costs more than my truck, hair still perfect, even this late.

He squints at me. “Who the fuck are you?”

“You Zachariah Mercer?”

“Yeah. And you are … ?”

“The guy who’s about to make sure you stop fucking with Halle Dawson.”

He leans against the doorframe like he owns the world. “Ah. One of her little side pieces. Cute. You here to play the hero?”

Side piece. The words ignite something ugly in my chest. I’m not a fucking side piece. And you’re the asshole who keeps trying to drag her back into your hell.

That does it.

I shove him hard, slamming him back against the doorframe with a dull thud. “I don’t know everything that happened between you two, but I know you’re still hurting her. And that stops tonight.”

Zach shoves back, eyes blazing. “She’s still my wife, you piece of shit. You think you can just fuck my wife and then come here, making demands? I built that life for her. She belongs to me.”

I land the first solid punch to his jaw. He gets one off on my ribs, but it’s weak, so I grab him by the shirt and slam him against the wall, hard enough to rattle a picture frame off its hook.

“She deserves to be happy,” I growl, my forearm pressed against his throat. “She deserves to breathe without you hanging over her like a fucking shadow.”

He laughs, blood on his teeth. “She’ll come back; she always does. You’re just a temporary distraction.”

I hit him again. Harder. The sound of my fist connecting with his face is satisfying in a way that should probably scare me.

I get him on the ground, knee on his chest, one hand fisted in his shirt.