Page 64 of Tex's Angel

“How did Clara not mention something like that?”

“Probably because he ended up getting arrested and was sentenced to twelve years in prison.”

“That sounds excessive,” I say. Domestic violence perps usually got five years max, unless actual bodily harm occurred. Personally, I thought any man or woman who beat on their partner deserved to be locked up and the key thrown away, but I ain’t no judge.

“He’d been arrested for a bunch of other crimes involving other counts of spousal abuse, uttering threats, verbal assault and battery. He was deemed a clear and present threat, and it was back when three strikes was a thing.”

I do some quick math in my head. Clara’s twenty eight now, she would have been around twenty-one in college. “Let me guess. This dude got an early release for good behavior?”

“That’s exactly what happened. His name is Daniel Davis, and he was released three months ago.”

“Hey, that actually makes sense. He would have spent the first month stabilizing his living situation, getting a job, and meeting with his parole officer. Once all that shit was out of the way and everyone thought he was reintegrated, he would have had more freedom to stalk Clara.”

Wade tells me, quite seriously, “I’ve never been a man to follow his gut on anything this important, but I’m convinced this Daniel Davis is our guy.”

“Did you send this information to Siege and Zen?”

“Yeah, and Zen has several addresses on him and his family. I’ve got the long-stay hotel he’s supposed to be staying at, an address for his parents, addresses for all his siblings, and one that stood out to me as more of a possibility than the others.”

“What one is that?” I ask with bated breath.

“His grandparents owned a hunting and fishing lodge at San Marcos Lagoon.”

“Send me the address of the lodge, I’m with Rigs and Rider. The three of us are gonna head that way right now. I can’t take a chance that Davis is gonna hurt her while we’re waiting for other to arrive.”

“Tex, this is a really bad idea.”

Instead of arguing with him, I say, “Tell Siege to send back up.”

All three of our phones ping with the location and we head out.

Chapter 27

Clara

I’ve now been at the mercy of this man for coming up on six hours. If I hadn’t seen the old photographs on the wall, I don’t think I would have recognized him. Gemma had been my best friend at college, she got extra credits working in the library and because I hung out there so much, we’d gotten talking. I’d seen her one afternoon with a black eye, she’d tried to make some excuse about walking into a door, but I wasn’t buying it. She was seeing Daniel, who on the two occasions I’d met him, was clearly trouble on two legs. Her injuries kept getting worse until one night she came to my room. She was black and blue, I’d told her that it couldn’t go on, that she needed to get away from him. She refused to call the police. So I did what I could, I found the name of a refuge where she could stay for the night and took her there.

I’d almost put it all behind me until that winter break, he came to my parents’ house. He must have followed me home. He was clearly high on crack and dangerous. Luckily, my dad managed to call the police, and he got arrested. Last I’d heard he’d been locked up for twelve years.

I’m assuming he’d gotten released on good behavior and had spent his time in jail fantasizing about revenge.

Now, I was quietly contemplating all the ways not to piss him off while I plot my escape. Before I can come up with a plan to get the hell away from his man, he unlocks the door to the room he’s holding me in and jerks it open.

I can see that he’s had himself a shower and changed into clean clothing. His dark hair has been washed and pulled back in a short ponytail at the nape of his neck. If villains could be considered attractive, he would be the cream of the crop. Sometimes, I think it would be so much easier if you saw people’s real character on their faces. I could see why Gemma had fallen for him, but looks are only on the surface, and I knew what lay beneath that attractive exterior. His shoulders are relaxed, and the stress is gone from his face. To be honest, he seems refreshed and ready to exact his revenge.

Which isn’t looking good for me.

“You ready to play, bitch?” he snarls.

I try for sympathy, hoping that if I act contrite then he might change his mind. Or at least let his guard down and give me a chance to run, “I’m sorry you lost the woman you loved. I wasn’t thinking about the impact her leaving would have on you when I helped her get away from you.”

He leans down, grabs the chain between my cuffed wrists and pulls me to my feet. I gaze up at him to see the anger blazing in his eyes. “You know what pisses me off the most about finally getting a nice apology from you after all this time?”

“No. Tell me? I want to understand.” I tell him this because although I think he’s batshit crazy, I still want to understand what’s going through his mind. Is it just revenge or something more?

Tugging me through the bathroom door and down the hall, he takes me to the living room and shoves me down into a wing-backed chair. Bending down, he stares at me. “It pisses me off, that back in the day when I was trying to talk to you, beingrespectful, treating me like a human being and apologizing for what you did to me would have been enough to make it all stop. Back then, you didn’t think you owed me any kind of apology and refused to acknowledge my suffering. Instead you sicced the police on me, and I wound up spending eight fucking years in a super max prison over shit you could have ended with a simple apology.”

“I’m sorry about that too,” I tell him, trying to bite back my anger about his version of events. His version where talking to me and being respectful involved him holding a knife to my throat while the police had to tase him.

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