21. Milo

TWENTY-ONE

MILO

My hand clamped down tighter on the steering wheel, my jaw locked in agony as I took the twisting mountain road. Night eclipsed me on all sides and pressed down in a crushing weight from above. The edge of the dense, thick forest that hugged the pavement barely lit in a blur as I passed.

I had no destination in mind. I just had to get the hell away from the regret that was tearing me limb from limb.

Away from the draw I could feel calling me back to where I’d walked out on Tessa like a total prick. No better than the fucker she’d finally gotten free of. Touching her like she was meant for me when I knew better than getting her involved in the dumpster fire that had been my life.

Getting her involved.

I scoffed.

What bullshit.

I’d sucked that girl in so deep I could feel her seeping into the fractures, bleeding into the cracks. Finding her way into the places I had to keep her from, though I’d been the fool who’d invited her in for a front-row seat.

Today, she’d gone and wrecked all my reserve.

I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, but she’d gotten up and taken an active role.

She’d spent the day with my children like they’d become the most important thing in her life.

Made them feel alive and whole and cherished.

Safe.

And fuck, I guessed it was me who wasn’t feeling so safe right then.

Every barrier and wall I’d constructed had been damaged. One more chink in them and they’d crumble at her feet.

My stomach fisted, and my dick pressed at my jeans.

I could still taste her on my lips. Could still smell her on my fingers. Could feel her all the way down in that spot that longed to be filled.

Every cell in my body was knotted in want.

That was bad enough.

But it was my stupid heart that was angling in a direction I couldn’t let it go that had nausea curling through my stomach.

How in God’s name could I know something was so damned wrong, so at odds with every promise I had made, and crave it like it might be the only thing that could sustain my next breath?

Guilt hurtled through my bloodstream, and I scrubbed a palm over my face like it could wake me from the nightmare.

Keep me from the demons that hunted.

Their howls in my ears screaming of what I’d done.

Thought maybe they’d physically manifested themselves in the glare of the headlights that blinded me from behind.

It’d taken me a minute to notice they’d come closer and closer with each tight turn my old truck had taken up the narrow, winding road.

A road that was normally deserted this time of night.

Squinting, I glanced in the rearview mirror, trying to get a take on who was riding my tail.

All I could make out was a large SUV.

Black.

Indistinct.

I slowed a bit to let the asshole pass.

Instead of going around, they edged even closer than before. Right up on my ass, so close that if I tapped my brakes they’d likely collide with the back of my truck.

A slosh of adrenaline dumped into my veins, and I inhaled around the disorder that began to pound.

Heart beating heavy.

Stoking this dread I felt slither through me as I looked out the side mirrors to gauge what was up.

Had seen enough trouble in my life to know when something was off. When evil had come to collect.

Karma had a way of rearing her ugly head in the moments you’d begun to hope for something different. When you’d been fool enough to hope for something better after you’d already carved out the consequences years before.

Your destruction written in time.

I’d been the fool to go and let hope spark like sunshine in my mind.

Warmth to my life.

I tapped my brakes.

Fucker drifted into the other lane, and he gunned it, coming up to my side before he slammed back on his brakes and whipped back behind me.

“Shit.” My heart sped.

Violence whispered in my ear. I tried to stuff it down.

Focus.

Whoever this piece of shit was, he was here for me.

No question about it.

It wasn’t too hard to guess who wasn’t my biggest fan right about then.

Had known when I’d knocked the bastard out there’d likely be retribution to pay, but I’d gladly pay it a thousand times if it got Tessa safely out of that house.

If it showed her that she had someone there fighting for her, too.

Wanted her to know she wasn’t alone, and she didn’t have to stay there and take his bullshit anymore.

I just didn’t know how far he would push it or the lengths he would go.

No question that the dickhead was slime. Hell, he was the sludge at the bottom of the barrel.

All shiny and pretty on the outside, completely foul on the inside.

I increased my speed, taking the next curve fast, my old truck roaring in the night. The dashed line in the middle of the road blurred into one stripe as the forest swished by on either side.

He accelerated. The glare of his headlights became blinding.

My entire body jolted forward when he knocked into my fender, hard enough for the impact to rattle through the truck, but not enough to send me into a tailspin.

Violence throbbed and pulsed, boiling up from the chasm where I tried to keep it contained. Where it seethed and swelled and festered and became something every bit as disgusting as the dickhead eating up my tail.

My heart thundered as I struggled to keep my mind clear.

He rammed me again. Harder this time. Enough that the back of my truck swerved with the impact.

And there was nothing I could do.

Aggression broke free of the barriers, jumping into my veins like a mask. A cloak of violence that couldn’t be contained.

Slamming on my brakes, I skidded off to the side of the road, though there wasn’t enough room to get my truck completely off. I braced myself because he was so close I knew there was no chance that he could stop himself.

He crashed into me hard.

Metal screeched and tore, and my truck was forced forward, both of our tires squealing as we came to a shuddering stop.

I didn’t hesitate.

Didn’t think.

I was out of my truck and striding toward the blacked-out SUV that had careened to a stop sideways about ten feet behind me.

I only paused long enough to dip my hand into the bed of my truck so I could grab the bat I kept bungeed to the side.

I stormed that way, lifting it and smashing it into his windshield.

Asshole was going to learn fast he’d fucked with the wrong person. He didn’t have the first clue who he was dealing with.

Because I felt myself slip over the edge.

Control gone.

Tripping me back to the place where there was only violence and brutality.

Where vengeance meant survival.

Where savagery meant you had another day.

Darkness enclosed like a heavy blanket. The glare of the vehicles’ headlights that speared at odd directions was the only glow that broke the night, so there was no making anything out, thanks to the broken windshield and the tinted glass.

“Come on, motherfucker.” I drew the bat down on his hood. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Both front doors plus the back driver’s side opened, and three men climbed out.

Masked and wielding pipes.

Menace in their stance and bloodlust in their bones.

“Shit,” I mumbled under my breath.

Wasn’t like I had never been outnumbered before. On the receiving end of a match that hadn’t been stacked in my favor.

Maybe I was the fool who’d thought this prick would come alone, that he’d stand up and fight his own battles.

Clearly not the case. Should’ve anticipated he was a straight-up pussy.

I went for the driver, swinging my bat wide the second he cleared the door. He dodged it, but he went to my right just like I knew he would. I threw a punch that direction, clocking him in the jaw.

He stumbled left and slammed into the opened door of the SUV.

The fucker behind him came at me. He swung his rod.

I jumped back as the metal whizzed through the air, the end of it missing me by an inch.

He kept swinging, forcing me back, while the third came around the front of the SUV to box me in.

Before I could get around to head him off, the guy behind me swung.

His rod cracked across the middle of my back.

Pain splintered down my spine, fracturing out like a web of agony.

A guttural roar ripped up my mouth.

It only amplified the fury.

The need to destroy.

I spun, swinging at the same time, slamming the asshole in the ribs.

A wail tore out of him, and the fucker bent in two.

I whirled back around, going for the second, only the first was back on his feet.

The two of them enclosed on my left and right.

As soon as they got close enough, I swung the bat, hitting the guy on my right in the shoulder.

At the same time, the one on the left got in a brutal hit to my side.

Another, then another.

Agony blasted through my bones.

I let loose.

Throwing fists.

Kicking.

Fighting with all I had.

I nailed the piece of shit on the left and sent him flying back before I spun and slammed two fists into the face of the fucker on the right.

Grunts and a barrage of curses filled the air.

I fought the three of them with all I had.

Blood poured as skin busted open.

Bones cracked.

“Fuck you, you piece of shit,” I roared, never backing down.

Because I was fighting for Tessa.

But I was losing hope that I was going to come out on top.

I had plenty of experience, but this?

It was a coordinated attack.

The men trained.

Hired.

Of that, I was sure.

Karl, that sleazy fuck, had taken his offense to the extreme.

The men took the blows, and they returned them as savagely as I gave them.

I doubted much they were anticipating the fight they were gonna get, though.

Surprised at what they stepped into.

They weren’t getting out of this unscathed, but I was losing footing.

Strength.

Each blow nearly dropping me to my knees.

A crack landed at the side of my head.

A flash of metal.

A strike inflicted with purpose.

Just hard enough for pain to go splitting through my brain and to drop me to the ground, but not hard enough to do me in.

I gasped for air, trying to get my bearings, to stand up and finish this.

But before I could get to my feet, one of the pricks ran up and kicked me in the gut.

I dropped to the pitted pavement, facedown, groaning in agony.

Two more strikes landed on my upper back.

Blackness clawed at the edges of my sight.

Consciousness faded in and out.

“Tell that asshole he’s a pussy for me, would you? Sending three of you,” I rasped, delirium setting in. I tried to stand again before I was dropped flat with an elbow to my temple. Then a mouth was at my ear, a low warning that tolled, cutting into the oblivion with a blade of wickedness.

“You didn’t think you were going to get off that easy, did you? Did you think he wouldn’t come to collect? And he will collect.”

Footsteps receded, and tires screeched as the SUV was thrown in reverse before it took off in the opposite direction as we’d come.

While I lay there in the middle of the pavement with harsh, agonized breaths wheezing through my throat.

As a true sort of terror took me hostage and dragged me under.

I staggered into the darkness of my cabin, groaning like a bitch and heading straight for the cabinet.

I pulled out a bottle of Jack, opened it, and chugged down three giant gulps, welcoming the fire that raced down my throat and landed in a pool of relief in my stomach.

Glass clattered on the countertop as I fumbled to set it down, and I clung to the neck of it while my head dropped forward.

I had my other hand pressed to my side like it could keep it all from hemorrhaging out.

“Motherfucker,” I rumbled, trying to catch my breath.

The pain didn’t have a thing on the rage that bristled and blew like a dark storm at the edges of my sight.

Uncertainty tugged me in every direction.

It couldn’t be.

It couldn’t.

I’d hunted that motherfucker for years.

He was dead.

Dead.

It had to be Karl taking things to the extreme, but it was the man’s parting words that kept repeating in my mind.

Torment twisted through my being, and it didn’t have a thing to do with the fact that I’d been beaten to shit.

Guilt laying siege.

My intentions skewed.

My reserves depleted.

It didn’t help that Tessa had my emotions all fucked up.

I chugged down more whiskey.

Delirium seemed like a mighty fine plan right then.

Every promise I had made screamed in my ear.

Always.

Always.

I stilled when I felt her approach from behind.

I almost laughed.

Of course, she’d come to me right then.

Taunting.

Tempting.

Tiny Tease.

I had no clue how to deal with her.

What to fucking say after the shit that had gone down tonight.

Wariness billowed through the air, and I could physically feel her hurt.

The hurt I’d inflicted.

But this was Tessa we were talking about, and rather than telling me to go fuck myself, there was something riding on the current that was kind.

Genuine.

Radiating all that sweet, sweet light that I didn’t deserve to feel.

The girl the sun rising on a darkened day.

God, I didn’t know if I wanted to weep and hold onto her with the little strength I had left or tell her to run. To get the fuck out of my house and never look back before it was too late.

Before I completely lost it.

Before she realized who I really was.

“Milo, are you okay?” she whispered through the lapping shadows, and I thought it was just then she realized I wasn’t in a good state.

She eased forward another step.

Energy snapped in the air.

She touched my shoulder. “Milo?”

I fumbled around to face her.

She gasped, and both hands flew to her face. “Holy shit! What happened to you? Oh my God! Oh my God!”

She started flapping her hands all over.

Spastic.

Frantic.

“Oh no, Milo.”

In a frenzy, she blinked. “I’ll call an ambulance. Right. Yes. An ambulance.”

She started to dart back for her room.

“Don’t you dare.”

She whirled around, shrieking at the same time, “You’re bleeding!”

She had no idea the blood I’d shed.

“I’m fine.”

A frown curled her adorable brow, and she slowed, swallowing, still looking like she might pass out at the sight of me. “Who did this?”

“It’s fine,” I grumbled.

She opened her fingers enough that she could peek at me through them. “It’s not fine. Please tell me Karl didn’t do this.”

Funny how she didn’t want it to be him, and I was praying it was.

That asshole would be so much easier to deal with.

“Don’t know. Three guys jumped me.”

“Oh, God,” she whimpered, and she looked around like she was searching for an answer before her attention returned to me, her voice curdled with disbelief. “Please let me call an ambulance.”

I lifted the bottle. “I have everything I need right here.”

I tipped it to my mouth, my sights set on draining it.

Oblivion.

It’s what I needed.

That or her touch, and that was something I’d be a bastard to take.

I’d already proven that earlier.

I let the bottle fall to my side, dangling it by the neck.

From where she stood halfway across the room, I stared at her silhouette.

At her care.

At this woman who was going to do me in.

It didn’t matter that one of my eyes was almost completely swollen shut. That I could hardly make her out. She was the most gorgeous thing I’d ever seen. “Just go, Tessa.”

Worry split through her features. “Do you really think I’m going to walk out on you, Milo? Do you really think that’s who I am? Because I don’t walk out on my friends, not when they need me.”