26. Halo

Ihear him shout Arianne's name, and I've got to admit, it grinds my fucking gears.

"Say her name again, and I'm gonna rip your fucking tongue out."

Patrick holds up his hands. "I got no beef with you, man," he says. "This is between me and my wife."

I take my time walking over to him, Arianne's words of caution ringing in my ears. After all, the fucker's still holding a gun. "You pull that trigger, even in warning, and you aren't walking out of here. Ever."

"Then just give me my wife." His hands shake, the gun with it. I like that he's on the verge of shitting his pants.

I think about the number of times Arianne must have felt the same. About the way she jumped that first night at my house when she thought I'd be mad that there were friends over, and she was eating food, and the table wasn't cleared up.

I think about the way the glass shattered at her feet and hurt her all over again. He was hurting her still, even though they were apart.

"Here's the thing, she isn't going with you. So, what we have here is a stand-off, only there's a fucking lot of us and only one of you. And I'm assuming, since you are a gutless, wife-beating wonder, that you haven't had the balls to tell anyone Arianne has been missing, let alone that you were coming here today to get her back. I'm gonna need you to make a call, Patrick. If you want to leave here alive, you need to put that fucking gun down in three seconds. One…"

There's indecision in his eyes. The urge to play the big man and the reality that he's outnumbered. He's fighting it. He slowly makes his way around the car door, away from where Bates, Catalina, and Niro are walking slowly toward him.

"You got six bullets max in that thing, so make a good choice, Patrick. Two…"

I see the red dot of a sniper rifle on the side of Patrick's temple, which means Saint or Spark is in position somewhere to my left.

"Okay," Patrick shouts, dropping the weapon onto the seat. "Okay."

As soon as the weapon hits the fabric, I smash my fist into the side of his face. "You ever point a weapon in my direction again, I'll kill you, you fucking cunt."

"Sh-she's m-mine." His words are stuttered.

I place my fingers to his nose, and he presses back hard against the car. I follow and lean close. There are some things that not everyone is meant to hear. "Smell that? I had my fingers knuckle deep in her pussy about an hour ago. Didn't wash my hands because I love the smell of her on my fingers; it's a reminder of how hard she came. Heard you had a problem doing that for her."

He tries to move his head from left to right to get away from the scent of Arianne, but I don't let him.

"Open your mouth." I don't look at Arianne. Not yet. Even if she knows what I'm doing.

"What?" he asks.

"Stop playing the fool. I said, ‘open your mouth.'"

He does as I ask, and I withdraw my gun from its holster, placing the barrel between his teeth. When I know the solid barrel of my Glock is going to stop him from closing his jaw, I humiliate him by wiping the front and back of my fingers on his tongue.

When I'm done, I remove my gun and force his jaw closed. "That's the last time you're gonna taste her. So, fucking enjoy it."

I see the moment he makes the decision that his life isn't worth shit. His eyes narrow. I see his hand form into a fist. And I let him hit me.

Muhammad Ali was the king of the rope-a-dope. Letting his opponent tire himself out with offensive punches which then gave him the opportunity to deliver one of his masterful blows.

His theory was, if you let them lay a punch on you and you don't respond, it gets in their head that nothing they do can hurt you. And honestly, I'm not sure anything could cut through the blanket of anger I'm wearing right now.

"You just signed your death warrant," I say.

I punch the fucker so hard, his eyes roll back in his head like a slot machine. He wobbles, then slumps to the ground.

"Come here, Arianne," I say, once I'm sure he's down for the count.

I reach out my hand, and she steps over to me and takes it. I like the feel of her fingers in mine. They're narrow, slender.

"When he beat you, what did you wish would happen?" I ask.

She looks up at me with trust in her eyes; I'm not sure I've earned it. "That he'd stop."

"You ever think about fighting back?"

She nods. "God, all the time. If I share this with you, you promise you'll never tell anyone?"

I nod. "I'm a fucking vault, Arianne."

She lifts onto the tip of her toes, puts her hand on my shoulder, and brings her lips close to my ear. I tip my head closer to hers. "One night, when he passed out drunk, I was lying on the bathroom floor, and I prayed for a knife so I could stab him through his heart."

Her words, softly spoken with hints of embarrassment, remind me of how innocent my girl…Ari…is.

I turn, my lips so close to hers that I give her a sweet kiss. "Kick him," I say.

"What?"

I tip my chin at Patrick, who is slumped on the ground. "Kick him. You have a chance to pay him back for every single blow. He'll have no idea it was you. He wakes up, I'll knock him out again."

She shakes her head. "I can't do that. Even if I want to."

I cup her cheeks. "One day, you're gonna need to make your peace with all this. He's the aggressor; you're the victim. Eventually you'll be a survivor, but only once you've processed everything he ever did to you. And you're gonna wish you'd had revenge. Take it now, sweetheart. He can't hurt you."

Patrick groans, and so I step back and kick the fucker under the chin, after which he passes right back out.

"It's that easy, kitten."

She looks around. "Everyone's watching."

"Yeah, because they're here to cheer you on. Every one of them would swap places with you and finish him off."

Arianne gasps. "You aren't gonna kill him, are you?"

"Do you want me to? Because I'd kill him in a heartbeat for you if you asked."

Her hair swings in her pigtails as she shakes her head. "I don't want to kill him, because I wouldn't want to put that on your conscience."

I huff a laugh. "Kitten, it wouldn't even register. There are deaths on my conscience, but he wouldn't be one of them. In the pluses and minuses of my life, killing him would be a positive."

She raises an eyebrow. "I think he perhaps needs to feel like I did."

"Yeah?" I step back. "Have at him."

Arianne takes a deep breath, then kicks him like she's trying to kick a football down a field. Right in his ribs. There's a cracking sound.

Then she hops around on one foot. "Motherfucker, that hurts."

I grin at her choice of expletive as I grab her arm and hold her steady. "Feel better though?"

"Much."

I take a knuckle duster out of my cut pocket and hand it to her. "Put this on."

"What is it?"

My sweet little innocent. All doe-eyed, holding my knuckle duster as if it's gonna bite her. I take it from her, then slide her fingers through it. "It'll add to your punch. I think you should make his face look like yours."

"I shouldn't want to do this, but…"

"But what?"

"I hate him."

I step behind her. "When you punch, lead from here." I pull her fist back to her shoulder. Then I drag the unconscious sack of shit to his feet. "Ready when you are."

And I swear to God, I get a boner when she licks her lips and grins at me before doing exactly as I told her.

Patrick's head flails as she does it over and over again until she's running out of breath and steam.

Like a wolf pack, my brothers and Catalina have started cheering with every punch she lands. Encouraging her to hit harder.

Blood pours from his nose; I'm pretty certain she broke his orbital bone. And when she's done, I let him fall to the floor.

I take his weapon from the front seat, check the safety is on, remove the magazine, then put it in my pocket before I return the gun. Then I slip my knuckle duster off Arianne's fingers. They're bloodied and bruised. "We need to get you cleaned up."

"Is that how you feel?" Ari asks.

"What do you mean?"

"When you do something like that." She smiles shyly. "It was oddly invigorating."

I laugh at that. "You're braver than you know, kitten."

"Thank you," she says. "I would never have been brave enough to do that on my own."

"I've got your back, Ari. Always." I take her hand and lead her toward the clubhouse.

Switch looks at her hands. "Looks like I'm cleaning you up again."

King pats her on the back. "Impressive hook, Ari."

Once she's cleaned up, I'm gonna take her to my room and do the kind of shit I like to do in there to her because watching her punch the lights out of Patrick made me all kinds of hard.

"We've got cleanup," Niro says, his arm over Cat's shoulder. "We'll shove him in his trunk, drive him out somewhere, then open the trunk so he can climb out when he comes to."

"Thanks, brother."

"Impressive," Catalina says to Arianne.

Ari is too good for me, for all this.

So, I make a decision. I'm going to give her an out. I'm going to find her a place to live and enough cash to leave. So that if she stays, I know she's staying because she wants to. Not because she has no other choice.

And I'm gonna pray she picks me.