“Maybe I should have sampled her for myself, while I had the chance. Fine, you have your deal.”
Ink didn’t bother demanding he hand over the evidence he had on Baron. He knew the other man wouldn’t just have one copy. They’d have to think of another way of getting their hands on it. For now, he just needed the boys and Betsy safe.
“Good,” Ink replied. It took all of his control not to attack the smug jerk. It killed him that he had to make a deal with him. It would be so easy to kill him. But Spik
e had warned him against rash actions before they came to this meet. They didn’t know how the old man would react or where the evidence on Baron was.
So the prick got to live for another day.
Ink turned to Spike and Reyes once Forrest and his men had left. Movement to his right caught his attention as Jason approached. His rifle was over his back.
“Prick. I fucking hate him,” Ink seethed.
Reyes lit up a cigarette. “Never would have guessed.”
Ink turned to him, looking for a fight. “It’s not enough, having an agreement with him. It’s not enough. Not after what he did to Betsy.”
“No, it’s not,” Reyes said calmly, cooling his ire. “He’s evil. He preys on the weak. What do you want to do then?”
“I want to fucking destroy him,” Ink growled.
“Then that’s what we’ll do.”
22
“That asshole. I wanted to end him. The way he looked at me. So smug. Fuck!”
Betsy slid in behind Ink where he sat on the bed, her movements hesitant as she started to massage his neck and shoulders. He had to calm down. Last thing he wanted to do was scare her with his temper.
“I know,” she whispered. “But you did the right thing. We can’t kill him. That would open a can of worms.”
She hated it as much as he did. That they couldn’t destroy Forrest and his father. That they got to walk free. But this was the best way of making sure Ink and the boys were safe from Forrest.
“Sorry, brown eyes. Didn’t mean to come here, mad and spitting shit. You know I’d never hurt you, right?”
“Ink, I know I might seem fragile. And stupid. But that doesn’t mean I think you would hurt me.”
He spun around so quickly that she slipped forward. But that suited his purposes just fine. He dragged her onto his lap then grasped hold of her chin, forcing her to look up at him. He gave her a stern look.
“I have never thought you were stupid. And I hear you say that about yourself again, I’ll put you over my knee. I won’t tolerate you putting yourself down, Betsy. We’re gonna work on that confidence.”
She opened her mouth and looked like she was going to say something before she grimaced. “Rex called me stupid all the time. Said I didn’t have the brains to be anything more than a housewife and a fuck bunny and I wasn’t good at either of those.”
Damn. He wished that asshole was alive so he could damn well destroy him.
He pressed her face against his chest. He knew he needed to calm down. He should have waited to come for Betsy.
“That bastard got off on making you feel less than him. He could see your strength and he was scared of it. That’s why he battered at you constantly. To keep you down so he could feel big. But a real man doesn’t need to make others small. A real man knows that women are the stronger sex. And when he finds one who is tough and resilient yet sweet and kind, he knows he has fucking gold.”
Her breath hitched and he worried for a minute that she was crying. She latched her arms around his neck, holding on tight.
“What did I do to deserve you?”
“Brown eyes, you deserve far more than me.”
But he intended to wrap her up in him. His safety. His care. His dominance. That she didn’t know where she began and he ended.
Might be a sneaky, asshole move. But she’d be treated as the fucking queen she was. Or a princess when she needed to be.