Havok: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance - Riley Rollins Page 0,47
sticky. It's a fucking mystery to me how he isn't dead. He looks like a lamb that's been to slaughter.
"What the fuck happened here?"
"The girl," he says, mumbling, "She hi... hit..." His head slumps down, chin to his chest. I tiptoe through the bloodstains on the carpet, then give him a hard smack on the cheek with a cupped hand. His head snaps back up with a start.
"She stabbed me with the IV," he says. "Got the jump on me." He nods toward the IV pole, now laying askew on the floor next to him.
Damn, she's a fighter. She's just fighting for the exact wrong thing.
I bellow, turn toward the wall, and put my fist completely through the plaster. My knuckles scream in pain, the sharp material digging away at my skin, making me bleed. But I don't fucking care.
"You useless son of a bitch," I say. I yank my hand out of the wall, and ball it up into a tight fist. "You had one job to do."
"My fuckin' job is a veterinarian," he says, glaring at me, still holding his palm against his bleeding scalp. "Not an enforcer."
"Pussy," I say. I spit at his feet.
I fucking know how the Bratva operates. And I know how people act in these situations. She's going to go back to West Ark where she's vulnerable, and they're going to find her. She's going to be dead, and after they find out I kept her here, I'm going to be dead.
Right now I just want fucking revenge. "Stay here," I say. I storm out of the room and go downstairs to my office, where my file drawer is still hanging open. The brass knuckles catch my eye. I haven't had a chance to test them out in ages. I grab them and slip them on my right hand. The brass is cool, hard, and unbending even against my tightest grip.
It's going to feel fucking great to put this through Earl's skull. To finish the job that Penny started.
I head back upstairs, into the bedroom. Earl is trying to stand, staggering to his feet.
Penny could be anywhere by now. Visions run through my head of her walking innocently along the street and being accosted by one of the thugs I work with. It boils my bones, turns my blood to acid. There's enough rage inside me to collapse a man's skull right now. Or five men. It wouldn't fucking matter.
"Aw, geez, Vlad, what the fuck are you doing?" Earl's eyes lock onto the shiny brass in my right hand. He gives up on standing, and falls to his knees again. "Don't do this," he says.
"Shut the fuck up," I say. I close my eyes, staring at the blood red colors on the insides of my eyelids. "Lay down. Nose to the ground. Hands straight out."
"Aw, geez, no," he says, starting to blubber.
"Oh, yes," I correct him. I get another urge to scream, to release the anger inside me, and I don't hold back. "Lay down, fucker," I say, screaming in his face. He complies.
I raise a boot and press the heel against his neck. The wound on his scalp is gruesome, and I can see what I think is bone through the mass of mangled skin.
"I'm gonna put you out of your misery, you piece of shit."
He's openly whining and crying now. "I fucking did what I was told," he says, snorting up snot.
"You let me down, Earl," I say. I bend down, putting my face close to his. "There's no forgiveness for failure. You know that."
He's losing it, whining and making noises that should only come from the animals that he treats in his vet clinic.
I raise my brass fist high above my head, tensing my muscles and preparing to hammer death down upon him.
Then I stop. This is fucking sick. Earl's an idiot, but he's not worth the fucking energy it would take to drag his body out of this house. And as furious as I am, he's not at fault for this. He didn't fail Penny. I failed her. Just like I failed Irina. My worst fear is repeating itself.
I slide the brass knuckles off my hand and chuck them hard through the window, shattering the glass. They fly out of the room, landing somewhere in the garden outside.
"Get the fuck out of here, Earl," I say.
He pushes himself up off the ground. "You sure?"
"No," I yell in his face. "So fucking get lost before I change my mind."