Page 91 of Outlaw

His eyes flared with hate and jealousy, overtaking the fear.

“You made my little girl cry.” I shook my head and made a tsking sound. “No one does that,” I told him, taking another step closer.

He reached out a hand to hold me back, and I grabbed his forearm and twisted until the sound of the bone cracking sent a smile to my face. His muted wails only had me forcing the abnormal bend further while the continued snapping sent a balm over me.

He began to go limp, as if he might pass out from the pain, and I dropped his arm. He fell back, and his head bounced off the headboard, but his eyes remained opened.

“You didn’t touch her, so you get to live. This is your only warning. If you are caught within a thirty-mile radius of Branwen or Stevie, I will hang you up by your wrists and slice you into pieces while you bleed out.”

I closed in on him, wrapping my hand around his neck and squeezing. “And if you tell the police, I’ll know within minutes, and you won’t see another sunrise.”

Tears ran down until the cloth, jammed in his mouth and wrapped around his head, soaked them up. He was trembling from not only fear, but also the injury to his arm, which, I wassure, was breathtakingly painful. He wouldn’t be able to fix any teeth for a while.

I grabbed the cloth tied around his head and tore it off.

He let out a gasp.

“Go ahead and scream. See how long I let you live,” I taunted him, wanting him to make that mistake.

“Ah, Linc, now, you’re just trying to get him to give you a reason to kill him,” Hale said from the other side of the room.

“Sh-she was my fiancée,” he stammered.

“That was a lapse in judgment,” I replied. “One she corrected.”

“Wh-why ar-are you do-doing this? You barely know he-her.”

I grinned. “That’s where you’re wrong. She was mine long before she was with you.”

Forty-One

Linc

Luther was sitting at the table, drinking from his cup of coffee, while holding Maui. My gaze swung from him to Jayda, who looked surprised to see me. She must not have gotten the memo that I was back.

“Good morning,” she said. “Wasn’t expecting you. I’ll get your breakfast going. Let me finish these up real quick before Stevie comes down.”

“Oh yeah, Linc is back,” Luther drawled over his cup.

She rolled her eyes and continued what she had been doing.

“What are you making for Stevie?” I asked.

“Chocolate chip waffles.”

“I’ll just have those too,” I told her.

She paused and looked at me as if I had grown two heads. “You will?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Sounds good.”

I went over to make my coffee and could feel her eyes following me. So I was going to eat something different for breakfast. What was the big deal?

“He cracked the bones in the ex-fiancé’s arm last night and broke his nose. Then left him in a puddle of his own blood, knocked out cold on his bed,” Luther told her. Sounded like he had talked to Hale.

“Ohhh,” Jayda replied, as if that made sense.

“Whose got blood on theyuh bed?”

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