Page 109 of Single Mom's Daddies
I grab him by the front of his vest, spin him, and slam him chest-first into the window casing.
He growls, elbowing me at the base of my sternum. I stagger and cough to get my breath. He kicks low, takes my knee. I drop, swing at his ankle, knock him sideways.
We’re both bleeding. Both breathing hard. But neither of us is stopping.
I taste copper. Feel it drip from my lip. Smear across my teeth. My fists are sticky, raw. Skin torn. Knuckles split. Joe’s blood and mine mix between our blows, splattered on the broken tile beneath us.
He circles wide now, slower, chest rising and falling like bellows. “You’re getting tired. You should give up.”
“You should have never come here,” I snap back, circling to mirror him.
He lunges. I block the hit to my ribs but take one to the cheekbone that rattles my vision. I retaliate with a cross that lands hard, snapping his head sideways. He staggers.
“Still think you’re the king of Milwaukee?” I ask.
Joe spits a glob of blood on the floor between us. “I’m the only one who remembers what it means to rule this town.” He lifts his chin, that jagged scar twisting when he smiles. “You forgot what fear smells like. But I’ll make sure you remember before the end. When you see what I do to your girl.”
I rush him.
He meets me with a shoulder, ramming me into the wall again—but this time I grab him before he can pull away and twist,dragging him down with me. We land hard, the wind knocked out of both of us, limbs tangled. He claws for my face. I slam my forearm into his throat.
“Who sent the black rose?” I snarl into his ear. “Was it you?”
His grin splits wider, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. “Scared her good, didn’t it?”
I rear back and punch him so hard he chokes.
I want to end him. I want to crush his skull against the floor and drag his corpse behind my car for all to see. I want him to feel the weight of every horror he has ever brought onto others. The fear my children feel right now. The terror in Saffron’s eyes when I told her I love her and shoved her into the panic room.
But I could torture him for months and he wouldn’t feel that kind of fear. Joe Costello doesn’t feel anything.
I grab his collar, lifting him from the floor halfway. “Why do bother, Joe? You don’t give a shit about anything. What’s in it for you?”
He wheezes and coughs, rolling to his side, blood running from his nose and split lip, soaking into his collar. “Pride.”
“That’s a shitty reason to terrorize a family?—”
He laughs and spits blood at me. He misses. “You think I give a shit about your family?”
“Enough to attack us.”
“You don’t get it, and you never fucking will.”
I drop him, and he clunks back onto the floor, laughing. He pushes up on one elbow. “You think this ends with me?”
“It fucking will,” I growl.
He laughs again—shaky, hollow. “The mafia will own Milwaukee, if it’s me or some other guy.”
That makes me laugh. “They don’t give a shit about Milwaukee, Joe. Just like they don’t give a fuck about you. If they did, they would have sent reinforcements after the last time you started your bullshit.”
His eyes go wolfish. “You Orlovs think you’re better than the rest of us. You think because you’ve got an estate and a nurse on staff and a bunch of fucking paintings, that it makes you clean?”
“You sent men into our home,” I hiss. “You came for our children. We would have never done that to you. So, yeah, we are fucking better than you.”
“Nikolai murdered my brother,” he says, eyes flashing. “He shot him in the stomach. He bled out slow, you piece of shit! He was in agony?—”
“Good.”
