“Get the hell away from her!” Chase yelled furiously, bolting around me to reach Ashley. Once at her side, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her into him, wrapping one arm around her protectively. Sliding a hand into her hair, he lifted her face to meet his. “He touch you?”
“N-no,” she stammered, wide-eyed.
A smile formed on my father’s face as he watched them interact.
Chase may not have realized it, but he’d just shown a weakness, something the bastard cataloging his every move wouldn’t hesitate to exploit.
Red bled into my vision at the thought.
Needing to get him away from my family, I charged forward and wedged myself between him and the inside of my apartment, blocking his view.
I won’t give him fuel…
Not when he’ll use it to burn us all.
Standing chest to chest, I glared at the monster whose blood ran through my veins with every ounce of hate and rage that lived in my gut, festering like an infected wound.
“I don’t know why you’re here,” I said, my voice deceptively calm, “and I don’t give a damn either. But I’m warning you now, if you don’t turn around and take your sorry ass back to whatever hellhole you climbed out of, you’ll regret it.”
The sadistic bastard smiled. “I’m not leaving until I talk to my son.”
I smiled right back. “You don’t have a son. Now turn around and walk away before things get a lot uglier than they already are.”
His eyes never deviated from mine as he chuckled. “Chase, stop hiding in your brother’s shadow and come on over here, son,” he said, ignoring the warning I’d given him. “You and I need to have a little chat about our future.”
His eyes twinkled the same way they used to before he took a belt to me, and I knew whatever he said next would send me over the edge. “How about you bring your pretty little girlfriend over here too? I’d love to get to know her a little better.”
Any control I still possessed snapped.
Ashley and I weren’t close, but the more time I spent with her, the more I cared about her. She was quickly becoming the little sister I’d never had, and I would be damned if I let my father pull her into the viper pit that Chase and I had spent our entire lives fighting to dig our way out of.
Shoving my forearm into my father’s throat, I pushed him backward, pulling the door closed behind me. My little brother hollered something from inside the apartment, but I had no idea what he said.
Didn’t care either.
My focus was on eradicating the threat before me.
“Stay with Ashley and Heidi, Chase!” I yelled back through the closed door as I shoved my father across the breezeway and toward the brick wall opposite us. “Don’t you dare come out here!”
The words I spoke would’ve sounded dramatic to most, but to him, they wouldn’t. He knew what our father was capable of, and I hoped like hell he had enough faith in me to know that I’d handle it.
Please stay inside, I prayed.
With one last shove, my father’s body slammed into the brick wall behind him. His skull and shoulder blades bounced off the wall, knocking the air from his body.
Satisfaction spread through me.
Refusing to give him the chance to suck in a much-needed breath, I thrust my arm into his throat harder, cutting off his oxygen supply.
His eyes filled with desperation as he clawed at my skin, drawing blood and likely leaving more scars, but I didn’t give a fuck. At that moment, the only thing that mattered was keeping Chase, Ashley, and the woman who was my entire heart, safe.
“I told you what would happen if you showed up here,” I snarled, adding more pressure to his neck. “You must have a death wish, old man.”
Despite the panic that welled in his pupils, his face contorted in rage.
“Tell me,” I taunted. “How does it feel to be on the receiving end? To know that no matter how hard you fight, you’ll never escape the person hell-bent on hurting you?” The poison that lived inside me thrummed through my veins, making its presence known. I latched onto it, letting it fuel every ounce of hate I possessed for the man who’d spent my entire life trying to break me. “Does it make you feel weak, Dad?
He lifted a leg and tried to kick me.
The move was in vain.
I easily dodged him. “Sucks to be at the mercy of another, doesn’t it?” I leaned closer, dipping my face to within inches of his. “I told you that if you showed up here, you’d be leaving in a body bag. I meant every fucking word.”
A capillary in his eye burst.
It was a warning, a clear sign that if I didn’t release him now, there would be no turning back. I had no intention of killing him, not really, but I planned to scare him so badly he wouldn’t think of ever coming back.
The tactic likely wouldn’t work.
But if we were lucky, he would fade into the woodwork for a month.
Maybe two.
“I should kill you,” I whispered, the sound of my pulse filling my ears. “It wouldn’t be hard. All I would have to do is hold on a little longer. Then, when your heart no longer beats, all I would need to do is toss your body into the swamps off Route 9. Nobody would even miss you, and fuck knows, I’d sleep better at night knowing the Devil is dead; that he’s burning in hell while his corpse rots in a place that no one will ever find it.”
Teeth gritted, I leaned more of my weight into the chokehold, uncaring of the cyanosis beginning to stain his lips.
“You came here after I told you not to. You tainted my home with your filth, and now you’ll reap the consequences. I don’t give a shit if—”
I snap my mouth closed when a soft hand landed on the center of my back.
I recognized who it belonged to immediately.
My Angel…
“Ty, let him go,” Heidi whispered, her voice steady.
I didn’t let go.
‘I can’t…” My voice cracked. “He needs to pay. After everything he’s done…” Horrible memories, along with the pain that accompanied them, bombarded me, one after the other. “He’ll never stop.” Each word was the truth. “Not unless I make him.”
Heidi pulled in a breath. “We’ll make him stop. Together,” she said, moving to stand at my side. Wrapping her fingers around the arm that was still pressed to my soon-to-be-unconscious father’s throat, she continued. “I want you to stop, Ty. Right now. This is something you can never come back from.”
I glanced in her direction.
“Let. Him. Go,” she demanded, her eyes filled with a mixture of panic and fear. “I can’t lose you because of him.” Her chin trembled. “Not when I just got you.”
I can’t leave her…
Her words were all it took for me to release my hold.
As twisted as it was, I enjoyed watching him fall to the floor in a heap of useless flesh and bones that needed to be broken one a time. Holding his neck with both hands, he panted for breath, fighting to pull in the oxygen that his tar-filled lungs likely screamed for.
“You okay?”
Palming each side of my face, Heidi jerked my head back in her direction, needing a clear view of my lips. The breezeway was quiet except for my father’s heaving breaths, but I knew the echo would make it hard for her to decipher the words I was about to speak.
Not wanting to spew my vitriol all over the most important person in my life, I attempted to swallow down the familiar darkness that consumed me. Lifting my hands, I signed and simultaneously spoke the words, I’m fine.
Her lips thinned into a straight line. “Good, because once I pick my heart up from my feet, I’m going to jerk a knot the size of Texas in your behind.” Disgust flashed across her features as she glanced down at my father. “If I weren’t so scared of prison, I’d murder him after I was done with you.” Her eyes met mine again. “But orange isn’t my color, and they don’t serve tacos in the big house. At least not from what I hear.”
I blinked before moving my hands once more. You’r
e as crazy as—
“Somebody want to fill me in as to why one of my officers is on the ground, sporting a red neck, and gasping for breath?” A heavily accented voice boomed, cutting me off. “Or should I just hazard a guess of my own?”
Pulling free of Heidi’s hold, I dropped my hands and turned, coming face to face with Anthony, Ashley’s dad. He and my piece-of-shit father worked at the same police station, and though they didn’t get along, they still knew each other.
Seeing him caused my anger to flare again.
As hard as I tried, I couldn’t understand how he could work next to someone so evil without putting a bullet in his back the first chance he got.
The truth was, someone should have killed him years ago.
“He’s half drunk, Tony,” Heidi answered, surprising me. First, because she’d managed to make out the words Anthony had spoken, and two, I was so used to smelling alcohol whenever my bastard father was near, that I hadn’t noticed his stench. She had. “He came over here pounding on the door like a raving lunatic and said some horrible stuff to Ashley when she answered thinking it was you.”
I didn’t know whether Heidi had talked to Ashley before coming outside; therefore, I had no idea if she was telling the truth or not.
Didn’t care either way.
The only thing I cared about was if I’d be going to jail or not. Unlike half the cops in Toluca, Moretti followed the letter of the law—most of the time, anyway—and would arrest me if we couldn’t convince him that what I’d done was in self-defense.
Which it wasn’t.
At all.
Shit.
“Ty handled it before Chase had the chance to.” Heidi grabbed my hand and laced her fingers with mine. “As protective as he is over your daughter, that wouldn’t have ended so”—she looked down at my father, who was still gasping for air—“well.”
Anthony jerked his head toward my apartment door. “Both of you go inside,” he said slowly, giving my girl a shot at reading his lips. “Sergeant Jacobs and I need to have a little chat.”
The steely threat lining his voice didn’t escape me.
“We’ll go,” Heidi said, standing tall, “but first, I have a question.” Anthony remained silent, waiting for her to continue. “How in God’s name can you allow such a disgraceful human being to be a police officer? Speaking as a public servant myself, I find it both maddening and horrifying that a gutter rat like him”—she pointed at my father—“is allowed to wear a badge. Toluca PD needs to do better.”
“It’s not my call, sweetheart,” Anthony replied, sternly. “Trust me on that.”
Tugging on my hand, my woman shook her head. “Let’s go inside,” she whispered. “I’ve had about as much as I can take for one morning, and I’m afraid if we stay out here one of us will end up doing something stupid… ya know, like killing somebody.”
“Heidi, wait.” She froze at the sound of Anthony calling her name. Lips pursed, she swung her furious gaze back in his direction. “I know all about him,” he said, his voice low. “Trust me, the first chance I get, he’s gone.”
His answer appeased Heidi some. “Good,” she said, huffing out a breath. “Because if you don’t do something about him fast-like, then I will.”
Anthony quirked a brow. “Yeah? And what will you do?”
The smile that spread across my woman’s face was filled with dark-intent. “First, I’ll call Grandmama, and then I’ll call your wife. I’m sure they’d both love a part in handling him.”
“You stupid little slut,” my father hissed in between gulps for air. “No one handles me. Especially not some grey-haired hag who has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.” His malicious smile returned. “Maybe I should give the old bitch a good shove.”
More than ready to put my booted foot in his face, I ripped my hand free of Heidi’s.
She wasn’t having it.
Grabbing a handful of my shirt, she held me still. “Don’t you frickin’ dare,” she said, refusing to let me move. “I know you want to kick his teeth down his throat because I do too, but neither of us are going to do it.”
“Heidi—”
“We are better than him, Ty,” she interrupted, cutting me off. “I have no idea what he just said, but what I do know is that violence isn’t the answer right now, even if I want it to be.”
I said nothing as I stared down into her gorgeous blue eyes, my mind and heart at war with one another. The poison that I’d inherited from the very man who laid less than ten feet away demanded blood and swift retribution, while my heart and the love I possessed for the woman standing next to me screamed for peace.
“You are nothing like him,” she whispered, reading the shit thoughts running through my head. “And this is where you prove it to yourself.”
“How?” My voice sounded as lost as I felt.
“You walk away.” Her answer was simple; the action she suggested wasn’t. “You come with me, and you leave everything behind you. The anger, the hostility.”
“It’s not that easy.”
And it wasn’t.
As much as I loved and wanted Heidi by my side, I couldn’t push away thirty years of hatred in a single second.
“I know,” she replied, understanding clear in her eyes. “But this is the first step.”
“Yeah? And what’s the second?”
“Absolution.” My brow crinkled. “I know the things you did in the past still eat you up inside, so I’m going to help you fix it, and with every wrong you right, we’ll chip away the guilt that burdens your soul until you're free. But first, you need to do this. You need to turn your back on him”—she pointed down at my father again—“and every vile thing he personifies.”
“Baby…”
Releasing my shirt, she once again took my hand in hers. “You deserve to be happy, Ty, and I swear to the good Lord above that I will fight to erase every bad memory he inflicted upon you and replace them with ones that are a whole lot sweeter. But for me to do that, you have to turn your back on the anger he instilled in you and sever the tie binding you to the one thing that hurts you the most… him.”
At her words, an emotion I wasn’t accustomed to unfurled in my chest.
That emotion? Hope.
“You can do this,” she softly added. “Just come with me.”
The war inside me continued to rage.
But in the end, my heart won.
I lifted my hands once more. I’m coming with you.
The tears that formed in Heidi’s eyes were almost my undoing. “Tony, you got this?” I asked, more than ready to get her back inside.
“Got it covered,” he answered, his voice gruffer than before. “You two go inside.”
A peal of cruel laughter rang out. My father’s raspy voice, one which I wanted to permanently snuff out, followed. “Damn, boy, I knew you were weak, but I didn’t expect this. All it took for you to turn stupid was a piece of pussy. A mouthy, disabled piece at that.”
Every muscle in my body tensed as he popped off at the mouth, taunting me. A growl reverberated from my chest, and the hold I maintained on my control began to fray.
“Ignore him. He’s just trying to get a rise out of you.” Heidi’s sweet voice kept me grounded, giving me something to focus on other than the rage that built in my chest, readying itself to rip me apart from the inside out. “Remember what I said. It’s time to walk away.”
Like a fork in the road, two paths laid ahead of me, each leading to its own destination.
The first called for me to turn around and proceed to throw my father the beating he damn well deserved, an action which would land me in jail; while the other consisted of me walking away from the man who’d ruined my childhood and permanently scarred both my body and soul.
Only one allowed me to keep Heidi.
For me, it was an easy decision.
I’ll always choose her...
Until my dying breath.
“Let’s go, Angel,” I
said slowly while nodding to my apartment door behind her. “Moretti can handle the trash.”
Approval shined bright on her beautiful face, almost knocking me on my ass. “Good choice, Casanova.”
She winked, released my hand, and turned around. Without saying another word to Anthony, she twisted the nickel-colored knob, pushed my heavy apartment door wide-open, and stepped inside.
Like the lovesick fool I was, I followed.
Twenty-Three
Heidi
I don’t want to be here…
Seated in the front of Ty’s truck, I stared at the shelter with trepidation. As much as I loved my job, I didn’t want to be there.
I wanted to be back at Ty’s apartment.
After the events of the morning, combined with the truths he’d laid bare the night before, all I wanted to do was climb back into his bed, and curl into his waiting arms.
But that wasn’t an option.
I had to work a twelve-hour shift, and he had to check into the station for one of his own. Twenty-four hours would pass before I’d see him again, and I was unsure how I’d handle it.
It was insanity because in the blink of an eye, I’d gone from keeping him at arm’s length, to wanting to spend my every waking second by his side.
Our relationship was moving at warp speed, and most would’ve thought it to be a problem, but I didn’t. I’d wasted too much time fighting the tension that existed between us and denying the truth that my heart had known all along.
That truth? Ty Jacobs was mine.
Mine to love.
Mine to cherish.
Mine to protect.
And right or wrong, he was mine to fix.
Thinking of the life he’d lived, and the things he’d been forced to endure made my chest ache from the amount of anger that roared inside me like a bonfire raging out of control. Knowing that the source of his pain still had access to him increased my rage tenfold.
Thinking about the things his father had said, let alone done, made me want to murder him with my bare hands.
How my guy and Chase had survived, much less grown into decent—even if they are a little crazy—men was something I’d never understand. One would think growing up under a monster’s roof would damage a person beyond repair.
Every Wrong You Right: A Redeeming Love Novel (Book 6) Page 17
