Page 59 of Love Him Like Water

“Can you stay here?” I asked. “Watch the door. Maybe check on Lore. I don’t want her to be alone.”

At that, Cinna’s arms uncrossed, her tension easing a bit.

“Sure,” she agreed, nodding. “Go get that motherfucker.”

With that, we took off, crisscrossing Brooklyn, scanning the streets, talking to people hanging around, connecting with other capos, soldiers, and associates.

It was closing in on dawn and I was losing hope at finding this fuck before needing to crash for a few hours.

Then, the call came through.

Elian.

“I got him,” he said in my ear, then rattled off an address.

I showed up to one of the backrooms we kept for just this sort of situation, finding Elian standing there, body ramrod straight, a bit of blood on his shirt.

From, it seemed, the nose of this asshole who was sitting on the floor, face defiant.

Until his gaze landed on me.

“Whoa whoa whoa,” he said, immediately throwing up his hands. “What’d I do, man? Don’t want no smoke with your crew.”

“No?” I asked, jaw going to stone. “Then you shouldn’t have put your fucking hands on my wife,” I growled, watching as confusion turned to realization and then, finally, fear.

And that shit was intoxicating.

Elian moved to stand in front of the door, tapping on his phone, likely calling off the other capos, telling them they could go find their beds and get some rest.

While I started sinking my fists into this fuck’s face, thinking of the blood on Lore, the bruise that was going to be ten times worse by the time I got home to her. Imagining her on the ground, terrified, crying for help, for mercy.

Mercy she didn’t get.

Mercy I didn’t show this bastard who’d made her hurt, who’d made her cry.

My vision was still tinged red when, suddenly, Elian’s hands were grabbing me, pulling me back.

“Get the fuck off,” I growled, trying to yank away.

“If you want him to be a walking warning sign, you gotta stop now, or he isn’t going to make it.”

My vision cleared and I came back to the moment, feeling the sweat trickling down my back, the wetness of blood on my knuckles, could smell it filling the room, see it smattering the floor and the walls.

Elian was right.

This fuck, whoever he was, was unconscious on the floor, so bloody and swollen you couldn’t even make out his features anymore.

Next to his face on the floor in a small pool of blood was his lip ring which, at some point, I must have ripped out.

“Right,” I said, sucking in a deep breath, feeling my heartbeat hammering in my chest from the effort of the beating. “Right. Thanks,” I said, cracking my neck, then turning toward the door.

Elian could move the fucker onto the street.

He would clean up the mess.

I had to go home to my wife.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

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