Page 70 of Dirty Deeds

“She’s not your wife anymore. She’s not your anything.”

But she’smyeverything.

With that realization at the forefront of my mind, I step to him. He raises his hands, ready to strike, but I beat him to the punch, hiking the tire iron over my shoulder and swinging it toward him. It smashes against the side of his head, and he stumbles back, dropping to the floor. The sound of Danica’s shrill scream rings through the cabin as the tire iron slips from my hand.

I stare at Brent, waiting for him to show some sign of life, but he remains perfectly still, blood oozing from the side of his head, trickling down to his ear.

Fuck.

I crouch over him, pressing my fingers to the side of his neck.

“Is he dead?” Danica shrieks.

I try to focus enough to find a pulse, but between Danica’s cries, and the sound of my own pulse thrumming in my ears, it’s nearly impossible.

Then I feel it.

It’s faint, but it’s there.

I reach into my back pocket and pull out my phone. Since my father was the last call I received when I click send it automatically calls him. He picks up on the second ring.

“Jesus Christ—”

“I need you,” I blurt, my tone frantic.

Glancing over my shoulder, my eyes connect with Danica’s. She stares at me in shock, her bottom lip quivering.

“I may have just killed Brent Matthews.”

CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO

DANICA MATTHEWS

One minuteI was laying on the floor, praying for help, and the next Enzo appeared. I didn’t know how he found me, nor did I care. He was there and for the first time since Brent attacked me in the kitchen, I had faith that things would be okay.

I realize now how unbelievably foolish and naïve that sounds.

Brent had snapped long before Enzo stepped foot on the boat. There was no reasoning with him. He was a man with nothing left to lose, and those type of men are desperate. They are reckless.

They act with no regard.

There was no way me and Enzo were getting off that boat in one piece. I was destined to lose him; I just never saw it playing out the way that it did.

“Hold still,” Enzo orders softly.

After he clocked Brent in the head with the tire iron, he called his father. I don’t know what Wolf told him to do, but I went from staring at Brent’s perfectly still body to being pulled to my feet by Enzo and ushered off the boat. He helped me into his truck and now he’s trying to untie the zip ties from my wrists with a pocketknife he found in his glovebox.

I flinch as the knife nicks me, but then my hands are free. I bring them around, inspecting the tiny cut before bringing my eyes back to Enzo.

“You need to get out of here,” I tell him.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Ignoring the ache in my wrists, I reach to cradle his face in my hands. Our eyes lock and an overwhelming sense of sadness envelopes me. I wanted so much for us. I wanted to be the woman who loved him. The one he trusted to put the work in. Someone he could build a life with. I wanted the dream.

But I won’t be the woman who drags him down.

I won’t be the woman who destroys his life.

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