Without turning to Lila, I bunched my fist around the chain and fixed my stare on the bloody, glistening mess of muscle and flesh that had once been Rufie’s face.
He rolled his head in semi-conscious side-to-side movements that caused the torn flesh on his cheeks to quiver. His lips moved. A weak wheezing sound scratched at the warehouse’s silence.
Head roaring, I drew a little closer to him. “Say it, Rufie,” I prompted. “Say Please don’t kill me, Trip.”
“I’m…” he whispered, the word choked with fluid, his eyes swelled shut. “I’m…gonna…to fuck…your bitch.”
I reared back, fist balled, colder than ice.
“You die,” I whispered back.
“Lucas!”
I froze at Ronnie’s shout.
“Lucas, stop.”
I lifted my stare from Rufie. Eyes gritty, burning, and stinging, I turned to her voice.
She ran towards me, a Doberman at her side.
Francis.
The dog’s name danced on my numb brain a heartbeat before Ronnie staggered to a halt a few feet from where I straddled Rufie.
“Lucas,” she said, her gaze on my face, my eyes. She said it. Not shouted it. Not cried it with horror, disgust, or fear in her voice. Said it. Like she was letting me know my coffee was ready.
I stared at her. The roaring in my head grew louder. My temples throbbed. Blood stung my eyes, trickled into my mouth. My muscles burned, an addictive energy demanding I continue. Beneath me, Rufie groaned.
“Ronnie.” Her name fell from me on a breath.
She took another step toward me. At her side, Francis mimicked her. Movement behind her drew my attention for a heartbeat. Fluffy stood a few feet away, a Glock in his hand. At his feet were the bodies of two Trinity members. Dead? Most likely just unconscious.
“Don’t do this, Lucas.”
I slid my gaze back to Ronnie, her request tearing at me. “You don’t know what he said he would do to you, babe. If I don’t kill him…”
She shook her head, her lips curling in a slow, gentle smile. So gentle. That was Ronnie. As feisty as fucking hell and yet so gentle. “You don’t have to kill him to keep me safe, Lucas. You know the best way to keep me safe? Spoon with me. Every night. In our bed.”
I swallowed, her words painting a picture in my mind of our bodies shaped together, my arm draped over her waist, her eyes closed, my lips pressed to her bare shoulder…
In my mind, Rufie stepped up to the end of my bed and, before I could move, sank his steel pipe into Ronnie’s side, killing her in my bed.
I shook my head, rage and terror and loss a glacier where my heart should have been. “I can’t protect you from what I once was, babe,” I said. Fuck, I felt sick. Sick and empty.
“I don’t expect you to, Lucas,” she answered. “I expect you to live with me. To love me. For a very, very long time. You can’t do that if you do this.”
A thick lump filled my throat. Rufie groaned again. The urge to mash his brains into the ground through the back of his head welled through me, intoxicating in its violent potency.
Ronnie smiled again and took another step toward me. Just one, but it was enough. Through the coppery taint of blood on the air, I smelt her. It may have just been in my head, but I smelt her. Breathed her in. The delicate scent of her soap, her perfume, her shampoo… Her. My girl. The last thing I remembered of her every night when I fell asleep with my arms curled around her…the first thing I registered every morning when I woke…
Ronn
ie. My life.
“Fuck…” Rufie mumbled, “…the cunt.”
I turned my stare to him.