Page 119 of Romeo

The call I made to Nav earlier had filled in the blanks Fiona couldn’t. Dennis Coleman, twenty-six, single, worked at the local hardware store and owned a small house outside town. Nav had also found a few other things I doubted Dennis would’ve volunteered over coffee.

I’d learned patience in Louisiana. The bayou punished anybody stupid enough to hurry. You watched. Waited. Learned patterns before you disturbed them.

Club life had only honed that skill.

Dennis made himself predictable before he ever knew someone was watching. I’d driven past the hardware store earlier and seen his car in the lot. There was only one road he was likely to take home.

So I waited.

My thoughts kept wandering back to Fiona. The look on her face when I kissed her forehead that morning had nearly ruined me. She’d wanted more—I knew that much. Probably should’ve felt smug about it.

Instead, it scared the hell out of me how badly I’d wanted to give it to her.

Not because kissing her was some line I could never cross. But because once I crossed it, I knew myself well enough to understand stopping would become a whole lot harder. Fiona deserved time to decide what she actually wanted.

Dennis Coleman apparently didn’t understand that concept.

At five-fifteen, his beat-up sedan pulled away from the hardware store, and I followed. Two cars between us through town. Three when traffic allowed it.

Dennis never looked back.

His house sat outside Rosewood on a narrow road where the properties spread farther apart. Small, one-story place with peeling paint and an overgrown yard. No close neighbors made it convenient, so I parked a block away and waited another twenty minutes. Just enough time for him to get comfortable.

Then I pulled a mask over my face and walked to the house.

The front door gave on the first kick.

Wood cracked around the frame, and the door slammed against the interior wall. Dennis appeared in the kitchen doorway, his face white with fear. “What⁠—”

I reached him before the rest of the words left his mouth.

My fist caught his jaw and dropped him hard enough that the back of his head struck the floor. Blood immediately ran from his nose. I grabbed the front of his shirt and hauled him upright against the wall.

“You don’t listen real good, do you?”

“I didn’t... I didn’t do anything.”

I slammed him against the wall again. A framed picture beside his head fell and shattered.

“You made her uncomfortable.” I tightened my grip. “You. Kept. Asking. When she said no.”

“I was just⁠—”

My forearm went across his throat, cutting off his excuses.

“Let me tell you something about me, Dennis.” I leaned closer. “I might be a laid-back Cajun swamp rat, but I can lean forward real quick when I need to.”

His hands clawed at my arm. I eased the pressure enough to let him breathe. If he was going to learn a lesson, he had to be conscious.

“Fiona belongs to me,” I said quietly. “And that means anyone who makes her uncomfortable, anyone who touches her, anyone who so much as looks at her the wrong way—they answer to me.”

“Please...”

My fist buried itself in his stomach and he folded and dropped to the floor. For a moment, the only sounds in the room were Dennis trying to breathe and pieces of broken glass shifting beneath my boots.

This could’ve been over at the coffee shop.

He could’ve listened when Fiona said no.