Page 56 of Quiet Protector
“When?” I’m not authenticating her claims, I can see the truth in her eyes. I want to know the exact moment Liam’s worry was founded.
I pledged to protect his daughter.
I swore an oath to keep her safe.
I fucked up.
Then I almost fold in two when Melody whispers, “Joey’s summer party.”
“The night you were upset because I wasn’t there for you.” I’m not asking questions. I am slotting the pieces of the puzzle together, one painful piece at a time. “That’s why you left. He’s the reason you left me.” The whiskey in my gut gurgles when I’m hit by another revelation. “You didn’t cheat. You said you had slept with someone because to you, it wasn’t a lie.”
Melody’s voice is as low as my heart is sitting. “I knew you wouldn’t let me leave unless I gave you a reason to hate me.”
“Melody…fuck.” My fist breaks through the drywall at my side when the anger steamrolling into me becomes too much to bear. I failed her. Me. The man who pledged to keep her safe. That’s unforgivable.
As is Madden’s crime.
“BJ, wait!” Melody shouts when I throw open the emergency fire exit door next to the elevator. “Let me go, Julian,” she screams at him when he thwarts her attempts to follow my frantic gallop down the stairwell. “This has nothing to do with you. I need to be there for him!”
It’s for the best he keeps her away. She knows I’m going to kill the man who hurt her. She doesn’t need to witness it. Furthermore, I’m shocked she can look me in the eyes as it is. I don’t want anything to taint that when I switch from a law-abiding citizen to a murderer.
By the time I’ve reached the foyer of the hotel, I’m sweating profusely, and my anger is at an all-time high. Everything now makes sense—Melody’s decision to move across the country, her inability to say a proper goodbye to Joey, her response to Olivia’s bogus claims I had abused my position to force her to sleep with me.
God, it must have killed Melody reading Olivia’s witness statement. It would have made it seem as if Madden’s assault is never-ending.
That’s why I must end him, or Melody will never be at peace.
“Madden!” As I barge through the throng of people making their way from the ballroom the gala was held in to the hotel’s entrance, I unharness my gun. I’m so worked up right now, I doubt I’ll need it, but I’d rather be prepared.
“Madd—” My second shout clogs in my throat when I spot him under the awning of the hotel, waiting on the valet.
“You’re dead,” I mouth to him when he swings his head my way.
He thinks he is safe since he’s standing next to our mother. He’s dead fucking wrong. I’m out the door in an instant, the crowd no match for my determination.
Just as I break through the group of partygoers separating us, Madden darts down a side alley. I’m not surprised he’s running. He’s a coward. All cowards run.
I’m nipping at his heels before he’s halfway down the piss-scented passageway, and even quicker than that, I toss him up against the brickwork. Once he’s landed onto the stained concrete with a thud, I punish his ribs with my shoes.
“You raped my girlfriend, you fucking piece of shit!” Three good kicks have him coughing up blood and gains us an audience. I don’t pay them any attention. There’s no one in this alley but me and the piece of trash I’m about to exterminate. “Bet she wasn’t your first victim, either, was she?”
With him gargling more than talking, I drag him to his feet before pinning him to the brickwork by his throat. My already dangerous heart rate skyrockets when he has the nerve to spit the blood in his mouth into my face. “Just because a bitch feels guilty after straying, doesn’t mean she was raped.”
Madden’s lungs rattle when I yank him forward before throwing him back. The crack his head makes with the brickwork is lyrical gold to my ears, but his wheezy breaths steal every sense of normality I have. “She despised everything about you.”
“Until she realized you couldn’t give her what she wanted.”
Thump, crack, motherfucking bang.I steal his words by breaking his ribs. “You wore my cologne. You shaved your beard.” My grip on his throat tightens as I snarl through clenched teeth, “Why the fuck would you do any of those things if she wanted to be with you? You wouldn’t have. That’s why I know you raped her. You raped her like you did Annie and Gemma, and God knows how many other women. You’re a fucking rapist!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what the fuck, BJ,” Madden stutters in panic when I remove my revolver from its harness to pinch the barrel with his temple. “You need to step the fuck back and remember blood always comes before water.”
“You’re not my family.”
My eyes bounce between his as the world fades to nothing. I don’t feel the begging eyes of my mother or hear her frantic gasps. It’s just him and me. The lawbreaker and the vigilante. The rapist and the protector. Two men on the verge of death, but only one will go straight to hell. My journey will be slower, more painful, only occurring once I’ve fixed all the mistakes I’ve made.
Madden’s will be now.
“You’re a dead man.”
