Page 58 of Ruthless with a Rogue
He stepped back, his hand trembling as he dropped the shears onto the cart.Bruiser stepped up to him, cloth proffered.Derek wiped off his hands, eyes never leaving the convulsing man bound in front of him.A glass of whisky appeared in front of him, and Derek took it gladly.He threw back the alcohol, let the burn consume him, adding fuel to the fire within.
“Untie him,” he ordered.
Ryker and Bruiser made quick work of the bindings, and Pennington collapsed into a heap on the blood-and-vomit-covered dirt floor.
“Hold him up for me.”
Derek rolled his shoulders, stretching his neck from side to side as the men lifted Pennington, the bastard’s head lolling back and forth, chin to his chest.Derek flexed his hand.He tilted Pennington’s head up, the man’s pain-glazed eyes unable to focus on Derek.
“Today is the last day you harm a woman,” Derek said softly.
He balled his fist.Visions of Livy when Derek walked into his private rooms flashed.The red mark on Livy’s cheek.His pulse pounded in his neck.Bruises in the shape of handprints around her wrists.His nostrils flared.Her torn bodice.His fist flew.Cracked into Pennington’s cheek, sending the man’s head snapping to the left.
Xavier yanked the swine’s head back by his hair, setting Derek up for another blow.
Rage erupted from Derek with every ragged breath.This world.It was full of such evil.Men like Pennington.Men like Derek’s father.And so few had any protection against it.Derek’s fist sliced through the air.It collided with flesh and bone, and Pennington flew backward into the wall, the hit so hard it’d dislodged him from Xavier’s and Ryker’s hold.He crumpled to the ground.
Derek dropped to a knee, yanked the man to him by the ankle, straddled him, and pulled him up by his waistcoat.Sank his fist into the man’s face again.
Derek’s intoxicated father’s face rushed forward.
He threw another punch.
His father’s hand fisting his hair, slamming his head into the wall.
This man had made Livy feel just as Derek had growing up.Made her feel pain.Helpless.Fear.
Never again.
Derek roared.The crunch of bone echoed around them.He couldn’t see.He couldn’t hear.He was back in that study.Scrambling away from his father, but never fast enough.Fabric slid through his fingers, and a muted thud reached his ears.His arm arced through the air.Over and over.Fist smacking flesh, cracking bone, something moist misting over his face, wetness slicking over his knuckles.
Derek finally registered hands on him, pulling him off Pennington.He stumbled backward, breath exploding from his lungs, ribcage struggling against the force of the expansion.The cellar gradually came back into focus, Pennington slowly coming back into focus.Or what had been Pennington.
“He’s gone.”Ryker’s murmur penetrated Derek’s bloodlust.
Derek stared at the bloody mass on the floor.
He was gone.
Something lodged in his throat, cutting off his ability to breathe.
It wasn’t fucking enough.
32
Derek
“AnnouncingHisLordship,LordDunmore.”
Derek walked past Rogers, the Sinclair family butler, into the breakfast room.He was barely cognizant of bowing to the dowager and approaching the table.He dropped like an anvil into the chair next to where Dorothea sat at the head of the breakfast table.He winced at the sore pull of the muscles in his right arm and back.
And then he sat silently, staring at the burgundy table linens, his vision wavering in and out.
After his rage had subsided, a cold numb had stolen over him.His mind was sluggish, but his body jittery.He’d walked the streets of London aimlessly until dawn had lit the shadows.And he found himself in front of Ironcrest House.He was due to visit Dorothea this morning.Apparently, even as unmoored as he was, he knew he was supposed to be here today.
“I was surprised when Rogers said you were already breaking your fast.”Considering it was five in the morning.
Dorothea surveyed him, eyes narrowing on his hands before rising back to his face.“Good morning to you too.It’s these old bones of mine.I find myself waking up earlier and earlier as the aches and pains disrupt my sleep.”She tilted her head.“What is with the blood, Derek?Not exactly fit for the breakfast table.”
