Page 35 of Oh, Hell No

Perry’s face moved back until he was looking at me again. He then eyed the blade in my hand.

“She worried about you. Asked about you. Was fucking terrified that we’d kill you,” I told him. “Yet you knew we had taken her. I had taken her, and you did nothing to save her.”

He gulped again. “She was innocent. I knew you wouldn’t hurt an innocent woman.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You knew?” I asked. “Did you know who we were? Who had taken her? Who you had stolen from?”

He said nothing as his body shook and his bloodied bottom lip wobbled. “Yes.” His one word no more than a whisper.

Taking the tip of the blade, I ran it down his cheek slowly. Heclosed his eyes, breathing fast and quick.

“And you thought that the Mafia had morals? That we wouldn’t harm a female?”

His breath hissed as I broke the skin over his bottom lip and opened it for him, watching it ooze red.

“TELL ME!” I roared when he didn’t respond.

“I knew,” he said, struggling to talk with his damaged lip, “you wouldn’t hurt her because of the way she looked.”

My brows drew together. “You bargained your sister’s life on her pretty face saving her? Did you consider that one of us could have taken that hot little body and raped her?” The thought of anyone doing that, however, did not help my current state of mind. It only pushed me closer to the crazy line.

He said nothing.

I sliced down his other cheek in one violent strike, which caused him to cry out and jerk against the ropes.

“DID YOU?” I shouted in his face.

He closed his eyes, and a tear rolled down, turning pink, mixing with the blood, then finally a watery red as it fell from his chin. “Possibly.”

If I hadn’t been so close to him, I wouldn’t have heard it.

The tremor that coursed through me made everything around me begin to slowly fade as my vison tunneled. Some lethal beast broke free inside me with a slaughterous craving as I raised my hand that held the knife.

I heard something in the background, but I didn’t care. Every thump of my heart urged me to take his life. Pulverize him until he was no longer recognizable. He didn’t deserve the lungs in his chest that allowed him to breathe. I could cut him open and take them out with my bare hands.

The loud shouting as arms wrapped around me from behind managed to bring me back. My vision cleared, and I heard Linc’s voice as he demanded I calm the fuck down. I blinked, thenfocused on Perry, who watched me as blood came from the new wounds across his chest. They were in the form of anX. Slashed one way and then the other. I was holding the bloody knife, but I didn’t remember doing it. The cuts weren’t deep enough to be deadly. He would only be scared. Permanently.

“Fucking hell!” Linc said, sounding relieved that I was no longer swinging my blade. “What the hell, Oz? I’ve never seen you lose your shit like that. You need to leave. Cool down. This is done. He’s being handed over in the morning, and now, I need to call Doc to come stitch his ass back together tonight.”

I nodded, and he dropped his hold on me. Not sure I trusted myself to look at the fucker hanging there and not finish what I’d started, I turned and walked out, leaving my weapon on the shelf as I went. I didn’t say another word, and I didn’t stop until I was almost to the Escalade I’d taken to Louisiana. I’d not taken the time to drop it off and get my Hummer.

Stopping when I reached the driver’s side, I placed both my hands on the window, my palms flat, and dropped my head, taking several calming breaths. I stayed that way until my heart stopped racing and the unhinged feeling was completely gone and no longer lurking on the edges.

What the fuck had happened in there? I didn’t know. I was always laid-back and calm when it came time to torture someone. My emotions never came into play. Hell, I hadn’t known I had any emotions so intense and deranged.

I needed sleep. I needed to go home. Get a shower and sleep. That had to be it. I was sleep-deprived from this week. Then, tomorrow night, I would get drunk and fuck. Several times.

I would feel like myself again.

“You want to tell me what that was in there?” Linc’s voice called out.

I dropped my hands and turned around to face him several feet away. The tip of the cigar in his mouth was the only light outhere, except the moon.

I shrugged. “I’ve had little sleep this week.” I gave him the only excuse I could think of.

He took the cigar from his mouth. “Not buying it. What is going on with you and the woman? You fuck her?”

My body tensed, and that new, disturbing shit inside me started to stir again. “Nothing is going on. I never touched her,” I snarled. Except the time I’d slammed her against the fridge. And tonight, when I’d carried her inside her apartment and tucked her in bed.

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