“You’re right,” I say, my tone calm as I eye Cannon. “I’m not pissed off. That’d be an understatement.”
Two creases dent his forehead, speckled with an angry, dry rash. “What do you mean? She’s Frank’s daughter, Dante! I was doing you a fucking favor, you ungrateful—”
“A favor? You touched my girl, bruised her, cut her,scaredher, and you call that a fucking favor?!”
He retreats, his ashen skin turning paler, almost green. The realization of what will happen next petrifies him to the core. Rightly so. He jerks back, scooting away with the chair, but doesn’t get further away than a few inches. “Don’t do anything stupid! It was a misunderstanding, c’mon, I didn’t know! She’s all good, right? No harm done!”
Satisfied with his begging, I grip his neck, knocking his head against the concrete table in one swift motion.
Teeth fall out.
Blood splatters halfway across the table.
His jaw pops out of place.
Fuck, that must hurt. He screams, writhing and thrashing like a loose garden hose, but I hold him in place, pinned to the tabletop, so he won’t splatter my clothes with, most likely HIV-infected blood. Two others jump to their feet, starting toward me, hands balled into fists smaller than Layla’s. Cannon slides to the floor, covering his face when I let him go.
A foldable chair by the wall looks out of place, so I find it a new home, folding it across the face of the first guy approaching. His friend stops mid-step. Good for him.
It doesn’t pay to play the fucking hero.
“Dante, I didn’t touch her!” Loki raises his hands. “I didn’t do anything! He wanted to fuck her, but I didn’t touch her!”
Cannon lays on the floor, frantically trying to stop the nosebleed. His demented, howling whimpers worthy of a mental patient give me a headache, so I grip his neck and hit his head against the table again. He falls silent.
All the while, Loki is begging. I fucking love it when they cry, beg, and swear they won’teverdo anything to cross me again. I step forward, but he jumps on the chair and then onto the table like a circus monkey.
He thinks he’ll get away?
Good luck.
I don’t have time for this shitshow. I’m fucking late for my first date with Layla.
I grip Loki’s ankle, jerking him to the side. He dives, hitting the dirty floor head first. For a second, I think I broke his neck, but no. Not so lucky.
He rolls onto his back, arms folded across his face. “Please, stop. I swear I didn’t touch her!”
“You wanted to.” I yank him up by the collar of his t-shirt and smash his arm on the table, breaking both bones at once. “If I find out you so much as uttered her name, I’ll find you and kill you. Slowly. Painfully. Got it?”
“Never,” he squeals, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I swear, Dante! Never!”
“Good. Pass the message to Cannon when he wakes up.”
I turn around and march out of the building with Spades and his wide grin right by my side.
“That was fun.” He hands me a small towel and a bottle of water so I can clean the blood off my hands. “Better?”
“No.” I toss the towel back in the trunk, then light a cigarette. “Even if I killed them there, it wouldn’t turn back time.” I squeeze the bridge of my nose. “All day, I couldn’t stop thinking about what would’ve happened if Luca wasn’t there.”
“But he was. Stop overthinking, Dante. Get back home. Layla’s waiting for you.” He pats me on the shoulder, his grin more prominent now. “I’ll see you two at ten tonight. I want to meet the girl. She’s doing you good.”
That she is. So fucking good... my little pissy, feisty Star.
Twenty minutes later, I watchmygirl from the living room doorway. She hadn’t noticed me arrive, busy cleaning the mess she made behind the bar. Either a small bomb blew up, or Layla has two left hands. Ice cubes litter the counter among mint leaves, sugar, and spilled rum. She glances around with a deep frown. Failing to locate what she’s looking for, she picks the shards of used-to-be-a-glass with bare hands.
“Leave it,” I say, crossing the room. “You’ll cut yourself.”
“I’m sorry, I made myself at home a bit too much.”