Page 14 of Overcast

I won’t allow it while I’m still breathing. She has been everything to me since I was ten-years-old. The reason why I try to be a better man. Someone she’s proud of.

We’re so incredibly close, the thought of her leaving this world without me makes me want to go on a killing spree.

And one of her attempted fucking killers...is lying right in front of me.

Which means I’m going to be the last person she sees before she takes off to hell.

Leaning over, I brush away blonde strands off her face. Hair I won’t be forgetting any time soon or ever in my lifetime. And even though I’m on the verge of just taking the easy way out and shooting this bitch in the head, I can’t help but appreciate her beauty.

Her hair being stained in red is going to look really vibrant off her skin and locks.

“Alright, time’s up.” Hauling her to lie on her back again, I’m hunched along her frame. “Last time, I’m asking—” I reach for my knife that is tucked in my back pocket. “—how long have you and Hollis worked together?”

“We don’t work—I’m not his co-worker,” she replies through globs of hair still on the other side of her face.

I don’t want to push them away this time.

I saw what she fucking looked like before I yanked her from her home and threw her in the trunk of my “co-worker’s” car. I’m not getting caught up in her shit nor her looks.

She touched my sister. So I don’t give a fuck if she’s the hottest thing in the world right now. She’s still going to perish by my hands.

“I watched you,” I seethe, feeling myself reach another stage of my temper. “I fucking saw you with my own two eyes.”

Her blues materialize something I can’t put my finger on, and I loathe this chick. I don’t know what kind of bullshit she practices—witchcraft or some devil-worshiping crap—but my body actually freezes at her contemplating me.

This isn’t a fucking game.

The safety of my whole world is at stake, and this woman bats her eyelashes at me, and I’m starting to act out of character.

Out of my element.

“I’ve never seen you before.” Her defiance sparks the fuse to my anger, and it explodes.

My hand flies across her face on instinct before even thinking about it, but I’m too in my feelings to give a shit.

I haven’t interrogated a woman in years. She’d already have a broken nose and some cracked ribs if it wasn’t for her sex. At this point, though, she’s lost the right to be treated differently for being a woman.

Male or female, she did what she did.

She almost stole from me. She acted, for whatever reason, against my sanity.

This naive act is old.

Her sweet voice is grating on my fucking nerves, and I’ve run out of patience and repeated questions.

I glance down at my watch again. “You didn’t see me because Hollis called you off Reagan Lockwood before I could reach you.” I loom closer to her on my knees. “And, sweetheart, I’ve been waiting to get my hands on you for over twenty-four hours.”

Fear—it flashes across her face, and I bask in it.

There goes that first layer of sweetness, and I’m waiting for the next one of desperation to start shining through. Next will be negotiations and then crocodile tears streaming down those creamy cheeks, searching for mercy that she never showed Reagan.

When she and Hollis began to dip out in his truck, and I had to drag my sister’s limp body out of the water.

I’m fresh out of free passes to give a shit.

Reagan was still breathing, yes, cursing under her breath that she wanted Huck. Her motherly instincts kicked in when the two motherfuckers who trespassed on my sister’s property were already on M-56 before I caught up to them minutes later, impatiently keeping a safe distance.

I don’t remember the ride, just the outcome.

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