Page 54 of Ravaged
“You may think I don’t deserve to be called a father, but at least my ex-wife and I had Teagen because we wanted her. Not because she was the product of some hourly-rate mistake.” He turned to Gerard. “No offense, Boss.”
Derek and Wil looked at me, their balled fists, ready to fight. Axe jabbed the gun into the back of Oliver’s head, causing Oliver to lose his balance. He stumbled to regain his footing.
“There’s no use wasting your energy on a low-life,” I said in a growl. The brothers lowered their defenses.
“We’re the same,” Oliver said, locking eyes with me. “You’re trying to profit off of your father’s mistakes. I’m simply here, profiting off of my own. Are we really that different?”
“That’s enough, Oliver,” Gerard said. He flicked a hand to the side, instructing Axe to use his skills. “Thank you, Axe.”
Axe pressed Oliver’s shoulder forward. I waited at the side, letting the two of them go past. Oliver stopped in front of me.
“Move,” Axe said, tapping the hard gun into the back of his skull, but Oliver stayed still. He looked up at me.
“You raped my daughter,” he said in a harsh voice. “You beat her. Bruised her.”
Those words stung, but I sneered. “You heard her. She wanted my dick in her ass.”
Oliver swung back and aimed both cuffed fists at me, one completing a hit.
And that was the final straw.
I railed into him, beating my fists into his face, and he laughed as I punched his eye, his nose, blood flying from his nostrils, crimson streaked his lips as I knocked into his teeth. Wil and Derek pulled me off of him, and Axe hauled Oliver up by the shirt.
“I told you,” Axe said in a quiet voice, “any steps out of line, and it’s more of your digits. You don’t want to know what happens when we’ve run out of fingers.”
Oliver was quiet, and the two of them disappeared into the house. My hands were red, my knuckles sore. Guilt surged through me, making my throat tight. I had almost done it again. Almost ruined another woman’s life. I might not have cared about Oliver, might have hated his guts, might have thought he shouldn’t be allowed to live, but Teagen loved her father and saw more in him than was possibly there.
I couldn’t hurt another woman like that. But I almost had. My rage was uncontrollable.
Because my emotions, when it came to her, were out of control.
I turned to Derek and Wil. “Thanks,” I said. I shook their hands.
“The man is a prick,” Wil said.
Derek huffed. “I wanted to beat the shit out of him myself.”
I nodded to Gerard, who returned the gesture, then I headed back to my bedroom to check on Teagen.
She startled when I opened the door, the blankets in a bundle around her body.
“What happened to your eye?” she asked in a groggy voice. I touched it. It was puffy. Sonofabitch actually got a good one in on me. “Your hands.” She sat up, inching towards me. “You’re bleeding.”
“He’s bleeding,” I said. I went to the bathroom. My eye was swollen. My knuckles were irritated and sore. Blood was splattered across my chest and on my face. I unbuttoned my shirt and threw it in the shower. The water from the sink was dark red, until I washed off his blood and it turned clear again. The cold liquid was refreshing, but it didn’t change the fact that I had hurt her father. That I had enjoyed it.
When I came out, Teagen was standing by the door. “What happened?” she said.
“What are you doing?” I asked, my voice louder than I had intended. “You should be in bed.”
She grabbed my hands and looked at them, then went under the sink and found an instant ice pack. She broke apart the chemicals in the bag, then held it to my eye.
“I hit your father,” I said. She switched her position, holding the ice pack to my hands, then back to my eye again. “I could have killed him. If Wil and Derek hadn’t pulled me off of him—”
“But you didn’t kill him,” she said. She rubbed a soft thumb across my cheek, the cuffs keeping her hands together. “You let him live.”
“Don’t you get it?” I asked. I pushed away the ice pack and grabbed her hands. “I wanted to kill him. I still do. Is that the kind of person who deserves an ice pack? The kind of person you want to care for?”
“You took care of me,” she said. “Now I’m taking care of you.”
