Page 35 of The Butcher

In a rush, he appeared at the top of the stairs on the next floor. “Jesus fucking Christ, are you insane?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely.”The cigar was still in the corner of my mouth, the smoke drifting to where he stood at the top of the stairs. “Now get your ass down here, or I’ll blow these goddamn stairs and watch you break your neck.” I pulled the grenade from my pocket, the pin still intact—for now.

He looked like a deer in the headlights, about to lose his lunch from the sheer panic. But he made the right decision and came down the stairs with haste before he faced me. “What the fuck?—”

I punched him in the face, and he fell back and hit his head on the bottom step.

“Get up.”

He winced as he raised his head and checked the wound with his palm, getting blood on the skin. “You could have killed me.”

“I know.” I kicked him. “Get up.”

He growled before he got to his feet and faced me, blood dripping down his neck and into his shirt.

“You didn’t tell her.”

He actually had the audacity to look angry when he realized she’d come back to me the second he was gone. “She’s still my wife, asshole.”

There were so many fucking things I wanted to say. So many ways I could prove that she was mine and shewantedto be mine—in no uncertain terms. But I respected the hell out of that woman. Would rather let him win the argument than betray herprivacy and dignity. “I warned you what would happen if you didn’t tell her.”

“I was going to when she agreed to work on the relationship, but now that she’s out, it doesn’t matter.”

“It does fucking matter,” I snapped. “Be a man and tell her—or I will.”

“Why would I hurt her?”

“So she knows she made the right choice—and she never has to look back and wonder. So she knows that her marriage failed because her husband was a piece of shit cockroach, not because she wasn’t enough. So she knows she deserves a hell of a lot better than a punk-ass bitch like you. That’s why you’re going to tell her.”

He continued to bleed, continued to stand there and look angry—like I was in the wrong.

“You think I won’t kill you?”

His eyes narrowed.

“Because I will.”

“I didn’t betray the code.”

“The law is always up for interpretation—and I’m the sole interpreter. Causing undue harm can have a lot of different meanings. And I’d say you’ve caused Fleur a lot of unnecessary harm. These are your two options. You can tell her what you did, not on the phone, but straight to her goddamn face—or I’ll tell her and hand you over to the boys in the catacombs so they can make you their next satanic sacrifice.”

“You’re fucking crazy?—”

“You have no idea, asshole.” I pulled the cigar out of my mouth and tossed it on his rug, where it continued to burn. A smirk stretched across my face. “You have a week to grow a new set of balls.”

I knew she was at work, so I stopped by Silencio after getting shit done. Her tits were perky as hell in her little top, and she had long hair in a high ponytail that gave her an oomph of attitude that was hot as fuck.

A guy seated at the bar had eyes for her too, because when she turned around to grab a bottle from a high shelf, he stared straight at her ass.

I would have done the same if I were him, but she was my woman as far as I was concerned.

She came back to where he sat and poured him his drink. “Can I get you anything else?”

“A phone number would be nice.”

She chuckled—actually chuckled like it was fucking ridiculous—and her brush-off was so ice-cold I didn’t even need to do anything.

His face went pale. I could see it in the mirror. He shut up and drank from his glass, his face red from his bruised ego.

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