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Riggs’s roar echoed through the whole neighborhood, and it not only left me shaking, but Marcus as well.

“And don’t fucking show your face around here again! Not unless you can talk respectfully to and about my girl!”

His words were clear and finally made Marcus walk away, but as we stared him down, we didn’t expect his next move.

It happened so quickly that I could only see what happened when Marcus was already in his car, ready to drive off.

Riggs was bent over with his hand covering his face, blood dripping down his arm.

“Oh, my God!” I cried out, placing both hands on his head to make him look up.

Marcus had bent down to grab a rock on the side of the pathway and threw it at Riggs like an asshole.

Well, that was fucking unnecessary.

“Let me see,” I said quietly, and Riggs lifted his head with his hand still covering his nose.

“He could’ve hit you,” he muttered.

As much as I appreciated him worrying about me, I needed to fix his nose because the blood running down his hand was a lot.

“Let’s go to the bathroom. I’ll clean you up,” I told him as I locked the door and helped him down the hallway while I made sure not to make any of the blood drop to the floor.

“I’m gonna kill that fucking bastard. He’s sick and needs help.”

“Let’s worry about him later. Sit,” I told him, and he sat down on the small bench in the shower so the blood wouldn’t stain the dark gray tiles.

“Keep your head low. Don’t want the blood to flow into your head,” I advised, and while he let the blood drip, I grabbed a washcloth to wet it and clean up his face.

“He’s gonna pay for what he’s done,” Riggs muttered. “Bastard has been an aggressive piece of shit all his life.”

To me, Marcus never seemed like an angry person, but seeing him hurt his own brother changed my mind about him.

It wasn’t okay, and luckily Riggs’s nose wasn’t broken.

“If it helps any…you look pretty badass with that wound across your nose.”

His skin was ripped over from one side of his nose, across the bridge and all the way down to his nostril.

Not sure how one single stone could cause such a wound, but it must’ve been the force Marcus had thrown it with.

Riggs laughed and shook his head as I carefully cleaned the blood off his skin. “At least we got something out of his attack.”

I smiled and kissed his forehead, hoping to make it all better. “You won’t need stitches. It’s not deep, just a horrible part of your face.”

“I have band aids somewhere in the cupboards. Strips that will hold a cut together. Just put some of those on and I’m all better.”

I nodded, but couldn’t refrain from another joke. “You won’t be able to give me head tonight.”

“Are you sure about that?” he asked, his brow raised high and his eyes serious as ever.

No, I wasn’t sure about it. Not anymore.

I pressed my lips together tightly and made him hold on to the washcloth. “I’m gonna look for the band aids,” I said quietly, and quickly moved to the sink to look through every cabinet in the bathroom.

Riggs’s low chuckle made me shiver in the best way possible, and I hid my burning cheeks while I continued to look for what I was trying to find.

“Check the drawers too,” he suggested, and sure enough, I found a pack of band aid strips made especially for cuts.

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