Page 74 of Single Mom's Bodyguards
It’s one thing to know. To sayDavid was abusiveand let the word stand in for all the ugly things it could mean. She said he’d hit her. That could be a smack on the ass or…or what I saw in those pictures. Words can stay abstract.
It’s another thing tosee. And now I can’t unsee.
The rage builds in me like a rising tide, overwhelming, unstoppable. It fills every corner of me until I don’t know where to put it. My hands itch for a weapon. My pulse drums with the desire to hunt.
And the worst part? For the first time tonight, I’m glad Sean isn’t here. Because if he saw what I just saw, David Oswalt wouldn’t live to see another morning.
A door slams somewhere down the hall, and I’m alone.
The silence that follows is unbearable. It presses on my chest, thick and suffocating. My hands are still shaking, empty now, but I can feel the weight of the photos like they’re burned into my palms.
I can’t stop seeing them. Her face bruised. Her ribs black and blue. The handprint around her throat. The kind of damage that doesn’t truly heal—it stays, echoes through every breath after.
I thought I hated him before. I thought I understood what he’d done. But I didn’t. Not until I saw it in color, captured, undeniable.
The wordabuseis too small. Too polite. What he did was savagery. And he smiled through it, walked red carpets, played the doting father while she kept his secret to protect her kids.
My jaw aches from clenching so hard. My pulse is thunder in my ears. Every muscle in me begs for action—for violence, for destruction, for the satisfaction of ending him with my bare hands.
I want him gone. Not arrested. Not tried. Erased.
Annihilated.
24
HUCK
The dark doesn’t botherme. Never has.
Inside, it always feels like I’m cramped, like the ceilings are too low and the walls are too close, like I might break something if I breathe too deep. It’s not so bad in Bailey’s mansion, but tonight, I need space. Out here, the dark stretches wide. The night air makes room for me. I can walk the edges of the property and not worry about knocking over a lamp or denting a wall with my shoulder.
My boots crunch on gravel, the night bugs humming in the grass, the faint sway of trees above. This place is too clean for my taste—hedges trimmed into neat lines, security lights that blink when a leaf moves—but it’s still land. Still air. Still something bigger than me.
My flashlight stays off. Don’t need it. My eyes know how to drink in shadows, how to adjust until the outlines sharpen and every sound separates itself from the others. It’s instinct by now. Years of moving in the dark, finding threats where most men see nothing.
But it’s not the dark that has me wound tight tonight. It’s everything else.
Sean’s gone. He walked out an hour ago with nothing but a sharpstay putand left me and Wesley here to watch Bailey. That’s not like him. Sean doesn’t disappear, doesn’t leave holes in the line. He doesn’t play mysterious. And him pulling rank on us? That rattles me. We don’t run Orion like that. We talk, we plan, we move together. For him to cut us out—it makes my teeth grind.
And Bailey—she won’t let me do what I want to do.
If it were up to me, David would already be in the ground. Quick, clean, done. Bailey wouldn’t have to spend another night clutching cold coffee and staring holes into her dining table. She wouldn’t have to send her kids off with a man who uses them like weapons.
But no. She says killing him isn’t an option. Too much risk, too much fallout, too much…everything. I get it. Sort of. I don’t like it, but I get it. She wants it to be legal, above board, something that won’t come back to burn her later. Problem is, that means she’s still suffering now. And I don’t know how much longer I can keep my hands still when I know the fastest solution is the one she won’t let me use.
Then there’s Wesley. Quiet tonight. Too quiet. Wes is usually the one who talks too much, fills the silence with dry observations or some half-sarcastic complaint. But when I came back in earlier, he looked hollow. Eyes dark. He wouldn’t tell me why. Just shook me off, like a dog hiding an open wound.
Everyone’s not themselves. Sean’s gone rogue, Bailey’s breaking in silence, Wesley’s locked down. And me? I’m pacing thegrounds like a caged animal trying to trick himself into thinking he’s free.
I round the northeast corner of the mansion, thoughts scattered like the stars above. The security light flicks on above me, buzzing faintly. The pool glitters a few yards away, flat and black in the night. I pause, scanning the hedges. Nothing moves. No sound but the steady rhythm of crickets and the occasional bark of a dog in the distance.
I start walking again, slower this time, ears open.
That’s when I hear it.
Not much. Just the faintest scrape, like fabric against leaves. Too heavy for the wind. Too deliberate. I stop dead, breath held, eyes fixed on the bushes near the outer fence. There it is again—a rustle, low and controlled. Someone’s out there.
I move without sound, slipping into the shadows cast by the hedge. Every step is measured, deliberate, the kind of stealth that comes from years of hunting men who don’t want to be found.
