Page 33 of Hate Me

He scrambled in the chair, but he could barely move with that gut wound. Dragging himself in here had been all the energy and mobility he’d had left remaining. “You’re… you’re gonna kill me too?”

My eyes darted out the door at the bar and all the carnage I’d wrought.

The death I’d dealt tonight.

So much death.

I felt that aggravatingly nagging sensation trying to rise up and draw breath.

Remorse.

I growled low in my throat and shoved it down deep where it couldn’t touch me.

There was no place for that anymore.

No weakness.

No mercy.

Only conviction and deliverance.

Lethal fucking justice.

I fisted the guy’s shirt and jerked him to me. “You caught a lucky break. I need a messenger.”

“Messenger?” he croaked.

“Contact Jett. Tell him Skylar Bennett is coming for him.”

“What have you done?”

I pulled up short as I crossed the threshold into my bedroom, the lights turning on and temporarily blinding me after navigating my way through the old house in the darkness for the last few minutes since I’d snuck back inside.

And there he was, sitting on the foot of my bed, glaring at me, definitely none too happy.

Jeremy Wheeler.

Ex-military.

Former private security.

My bodyguard for a time.

And nowadays, my housemate.

He sat there on my vibrant-blue sheets, his arms folded across the chest of his teal long-sleeve tee. His legs were clad in his go-to black camo pants, giving way to a pair of well-worn combat boots.

“You hid the evidence well, I’ll give you that,” he said, shoving a hand through his short curly black hair, as he ran his gaze over me in a pair of distressed blue jeans and a strappy cobalt-blue tank. Yeah, I’d washed up at that bar before I’d left, then changed out of my Onyx attire in the car before I’d driven back here.

He pushed off the bed and sank his fingers into my blue and silver waves. “Couldn’t get it all out of your hair, though. Nah, that will require a shower or two.”

I looked to see him fingering some bloodied strands. Even with my bright-red wig, it had still gotten blood in my real hair beneath. Well, there had been a lot of it.

I batted his hand away. “It’s not your concern.”

“Not my concern?” he ground out.

“That’s right,” I said, brushing past him and heading for my nightstand.

---