Page 101 of Right in Front of You

“Molly.”

Nick breathed out in relief. “Thank God. Because that’s who I wanted to ask to be the maid of honor.”

“Well, as your best man, let me do my job and ask her for you. I’m sure she’ll say yes under my persuasive gaze.”

“Just when I thought you’d changed.” Nick patted me on my back.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I’m teasing you. Take a chill pill, as Mackenzie would say.”

We laughed. I spent the next hour catching up with the guys. The rush of adrenaline that swam through my veins was undeniable. It was that same adrenaline that pushed me to save lives. The energy in the room was overpowering. There was so much of it that it threatened to spontaneously combust dead center of the firehouse.

When it was time to go home, my father gave me an official welcome back letter. Now I had to break the news to Molly. Would she hate me? Would she ever consider moving here with me? It would be a long commute for either of us, and I was willing to make the sacrifice. But what I really wanted was for Molly to fall back in love with our town the way she had fallen in love with me. And the only way she could do that was if her father was out, for good.

As I drove my old-yet-new car out of town and back to the city, I noticed someone walking along the road, on the further side of the trench, right by the fence guarding Mrs. Gladstone’s farm. I pulled to the side and turned off the ignition. The sun had already set, and the little glow it still spared wasn’t enough to see well.

“Hey! You need a ride?” I called out.

He didn’t answer.

“Hey, did you hear me? Are you walking back to the city? I can give you a ride.”

He turned in slow motion. It took a moment for each of us to realize whom we were staring at, and when I did, I pushed the car door open, jumped out and ran at him at a speed I didn’t know I was capable of. As expected, Ron Fowler turned around and took off.

I leaped over the trench and pushed my feet to the limit. I couldn’t let him get away. “Stop!” I yelled. “Stop you fucking asshole!”

Instead of stopping, he jumped over the fence around Mrs. Gladstone’s property and kept going.

“Stop or I’ll shoot!” I picked up a stick to hold in my hand, and pretended that it was a gun.

He halted, then turned around in slow motion. His face was shadowed with darkness and vengeance. What was he vengeful for?

He stood, waiting for me to approach. I held my hands out, pointing the stick at him, and as soon as I was close enough, I dropped it and took a swing, much harder than the one Molly told me she’d thrown at him. This time I aimed for his cheek, and when the sound of cracking bone echoed, a feeling of purpose filled me. Fowler fell to the ground, grimacing, and mumbled something about me paying for this. I jumped on top of him, one leg on each side, and threw punches as he tried to shield his face. I swung one arm after the other. Blood spilled from underneath his eye, cheek, chin, and his broken nose.

“Carter, stop!” I heard Daisy’s voice in my mind. “You can’t kill him.”

I held back my next punch and said under my breath, “You deserve to die.”

While I didn’t want to kill the bastard, I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t get all the hate I had for him out all at once. There was too much of it. Enough to kill him. I threw another punch and felt something knock the wind out of me.

“Carter!” Daisy’s voice rang in my ears again.

She was right. Death would have been an easy out for him, but he had to pay for what he’d done — in prison. Tooth for a tooth and eye for an eye; I had no doubt his cellmates would help me out.

By the time I pulled away, I couldn’t recognize him. Given that compression sleeves covered most of my arm and hands, I didn’t even notice that my knuckles were bruised. He spat blood, along with a couple of teeth, to the side.

“Not a skinny-assed boy now, am I?”

He smirked, ignoring me. “Did you like fucking her?”

“What? Don’t you ever think of her that way again. Not in any way, even as your daughter. You don’t deserve her to be part of your family, and you don’t deserve to live,” I growled, but he sneered.

“Yeah, she likes it from behind, doesn’t she? Did you know I had her that way that night as well? That’s why her knees were scraped.”

Fuck! Didn’t we do it on her knees the other day? How did Fowler know about us?

“I can see it on your face. You’re wondering if she was thinking about her first time when you fucked her. I can guarantee you that she did, because I did her good.”

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