Page 22 of Ruby Mercy

“That guy could be a psychopath. He shouldn’t be touching her.”

German leans in. “Need I remind you, you’ve killed people. I’ve seen it with my own two peepers. If anyone is a psychopath, it’s you.”

He isn’t wrong, but that doesn’t ease the rage simmering under the surface of my skin.

When the song fades away, Rayne keeps her arms around the man’s neck. They’re smiling at each other. She says something to him, and he nods a bit too enthusiastically.

Rayne holds up a finger and then slips away, heading for the bathroom at the back of the bar.

I stand up just as the waitress returns with my drink. She gives me a hopeful look, but I take my drink from her hand and wave her away.

“What are you doing?” German asks. He sounds nervous.

I toss the drink back in one gulp and smile pleasantly at him. “I’m going to make friends. Like you suggested.”

He curses under his breath as I leave, but he doesn't try to stop me. He knows I’m on a mission.

I cut across the bar, weaving between tables and people until I’m standing in front of the poor son of a bitch who is about to make a very difficult decision: give up the most gorgeous woman he’s ever seen… or die.

He startles as I approach, a friendly smile on his face. “Oh, hey there. Can I help you with—”

“You know that woman?” I ask, nodding my head towards the bathroom.

He follows my gesture and frowns. “You mean Rayne?" He runs a hand along the back of his neck. "Well, I guess I don’tknowher. I’m getting to know her. I want to know her."

“No, you don’t.”

He blinks at me. “I don’t? Like, is there something wrong with her? She’s not, like—haha, you know,dangerous,right? Am I about to be on a true crime show?”

“She isn’t the one who’s dangerous.”

But the idiot still doesn’t catch the threat. He glances nervously at the bathroom and ducks his head, his voice as low as possible so I can still hear it over the music. “She asked me to go home with her. I already told her I would, but… should I not do that?”

I clench my fist at my side, barely holding the reins of my rage. “You are not going home with her.”

How many men has Rayne taken home in the last five years? For all I know, I just walked into her favorite spot. Every man here could've had a taste.

Forget washing blood out of his clothes—German is going to be choking on the tide of blood in this room when I'm done. It'll be a massacre.

The man looks at the fury rolling off of me in waves and finally seems to realize something is wrong. He takes a step back, his forehead creased. “Who are you? Are you some crazy ex-boyfriend or something?”

I close the gap. He’s barely taller than Rayne is, so he has to crane his neck far back to look at me. “What you need to know about me is that I’m a man of my word. I never break a vow.”

“A vow? What are you—What vow?”

“The vow I’m about to make to you right now,” I snarl. “I vow that if you walk out that door with Rayne, you won’t live to see another sunrise. I vow that I’ll rip your spine from your torso and hang you with it.”

His face goes pale. “Who are you?”

“If you walk out of that door right now, then I’m no one you need to know. You’ll never see me again. But if you don’t… then, like I said: I’m a man of my word.”

I can see the questions burning in his eyes. It’s a human instinct, curiosity. But lucky for him, another human instinct wins out.

Survival.

Without another peep, the man walks past me and heads straight for the exit. He pushes through the door without even glancing back.

German shakes his head and swirls his drink lazily in his glass. He'll give me hell for this later, but I don't give a fuck.

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