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“Please. Wade, don’t… I’m scared,” she admits, looking like she’s gonna cry again. I don’t wanna be the cause of her tears, but at the same time, I can’t have the man who hurt her out there livin’.
I step back toward her and cradle her face in my fury-fueled trembling hands.
“You ain’t ever gonna have to be scared for another day of your life,” I tell her, kissing her forehead before I rush out the door.
“Wade?” Maisie looks worried when she comes out of her bedroom. “Garrett just called, where’s Leia?”
“She’s in the bedroom, and she really needs you. Take care of her until I get back,” I tell her.
“Wade, Garrett said to stay here. Don’t go doing anything stupid.”
“I’m done with doin’ nothing, Maisie.” I rush down the stairs and head out to my truck, then kicking up dust I skid off the yard and go in search of Caleb Mason.
I don’t know if he’ll be home as I drive up the track to his house, but if he ain’t I’ll wait for him. All I can think about is how scared she must have been. That lowlife cunt was prepared to hurt her when he thought she was carrying his child, it’s too bad for him that it turns out she’s carrying mine.
I see his car parked up in front of the house and slam on my brakes, swinging the door open and getting out the truck. I don’t bother knocking before I storm through the front door and Caleb seems oddly calm when I disturb him from relaxing in his armchair with a glass of red wine. He’s got some classical shit playing loudly from the speakers in the ceiling, and he lazily picks up the remote and turns it down when I march toward him.
“I wondered how long it would take you to visit.” He takes a sip from his glass before placing it down. “Have you come to offer your congratulations?” I head straight for him, grabbing him by the front of his shirt and lifting him onto his feet.
“What kinda man are ya?” I seethe, tempted to shake the life right out of the scrawny bastard.
“The kind who knocked up the woman you're in love with, I guess.” The cunt thinks he’s clever, and judging by how relaxed he is, I’m guessing he also thinks I’m not gonna hurt him.
He’s wrong, and I prove that to him by moving around his body, grabbing the back of his head and slamming him, face-first into his fancy glass coffee table. I watch him writhing around on the floor like the pathetic creature he is, the broken glass beneath him crunching as it cuts into his skin each time he moves.
“I let you hurt her for too long, I stood back and I watched. No. Fuckin’. More.” I kick my boot into his side, then use it to press his body into the broken glass a little more. The agonized moans he makes don’t bring me nearly enough satisfaction, not when I think about what he’s done to Leia.
“Not so fuckin’ powerful now, are ya?” I grip the back of his collar and drag him across the floor toward the stairs. The vision of her tumbling down ‘em makes me want to crash his skull against it, but that could kill him in an instant, and this fucker needs to suffer a little first.
“Let me tell ya somethin’ you don’t know.” I prop his broken body up against the stairs and watch the blood pour from his face, there are shards of broken glass embedded into his skin, and one of his eyes has already swollen shut. I hope there’s a piece stuck in his fuckin’ socket.
“That baby Leia’s havin’ ain’t yours. It’smine,” I tell him, narrowing my eyes at the son of a bitch as he takes in the last words he’s ever gonna hear. “Turns out I put it inside her before you were even married.” Caleb shakes his head back at me as my words sink in.
“I’ll tell ya somthin’ else too. I’ve been fuckin’ her, right here in this house while you’ve been at work. I ate her out on the kitchen table where you eat your breakfast. I fucked her on it too. I made her forget all that nasty shit ya did to her. The kinda shit I warned ya about. And now, it’s time for you to pay for it.” I raise my fist ready to smash him in the face.
“Wade!” Garrett’s voice comes from behind me. “Wade, ya gotta stop.” I turn around and see him standing by the front door.
“No. This has gone too far.Iletit go too fuckin’ far.”
Now ain’t the time for my brother to be showing up and being the voice of fuckin’ reason.
“Wade, you gotta start thinking a little more like me now. I just spoke to Maisie on the phone again, she told me ‘bout the baby. You're gonna be a dad, just like me.”
“Not if this fucker had had his way.” I look down at Caleb, who’s staring at Garrett like he just became his savior.
“You wanna see that kid grow up, don’t ya?” Garrett cautiously steps a little closer to me, like he can sense I’m on the edge of cracking this asshole's skull.
“‘Course I fuckin’ do,” I growl back at him,
“You wanna see that through pictures stuck to a prison cell wall, or d’ya wanna be there for it? Teachin’ him or her how to rope cattle, and watchin’ ‘em play in the pastures while you got your girl in your arms and the sun goin’ down behind the mountains?”
The thought of that puts a lump in my throat, but not a scared one. One that makes tears form behind my eyes, and my chest swells. I always ran in the other direction if a girl so much as hinted at needing commitment outta me, but never with her. Leia Walker has always been my fuckin’ endgame.
“What d’ya suggest we do, Garrett? Let this fucker live? He raped her, he beat her… he…” I pause when I think about what he could have done to that baby she’s got inside her, and how I wasn’t there to protect them.
“I never thought I’d ever say this, but Isuggestwe start thinkin’ a little more like our old man.” Garrett diverts my attention to the rope he’s got looped around his shoulder, and when his eyes look up at the oak beams above his head I start to figure what he’s thinkin’.
“We got a body, we got a weapon.” He takes a plastic zippo bag outta his pocket that contains the gold letter opener that Leia used to kill her father.
