Goddamn, I was growing hard watching her.
She pressed harder on his dick, and he screamed in pain. “Tell me you understand, motherfucker,” she demanded, and he nodded his head furiously. Oh yeah, he understood. She removed her foot and said, “Good.”
When she turned to look at me, I raised my brows. “You finished?”
Her chest heaved and she blew out a breath. “Yes.”
I jerked my head towards the car. “Wait for me in the car.”
I waited for her to protest, but she didn’t. For once, she did what she was told and left us alone. I waited until she was settled in the car before reaching down to pull Gary up by his shirt. “You sorry sack of shit. Never did know how to treat a woman right, did you?” Memories of his past behaviour flooded my mind, and I had to restrain myself from doing some serious damage.
The pain Layla had inflicted was stamped on his face but he put on a show of being unaffected. He spat on the ground at my feet and sneered, “Ricky always did say you were a fucking pussy where women were concerned. Seems he was right.”
Ricky Grecian.
Will I ever fucking escape him?
“There’s such a thing as treating a woman right, asshole. Sadly, men like you and Ricky haven’t got a fucking clue how to do it. If you come near Annie again, I will personally make sure you never have the ability to fuck with anyone again.”
He stared at me. Probably weighing which step to take now. “I’m not fucking interested in her anyway. Fucking cunt wouldn’t open her legs for me.”
Blood roared in my head, and it threatened to explode with anger. My muscles tensed, ready to knock him the fuck out. I wanted his blood, fucking craved it for what he’d said and the way he’d treated Annie and the women before her. I dug my fingers into his shirt and gripped it hard. Pulling him to me, I roared, “Women weren’t put on this earth for your fucking pleasure, motherfucker. If I so much as hear a whisper that you’re up to your old tricks, so help you god.” I maintained my hard grip on him for a few more moments before shoving him away from me.
He stumbled backwards but when he got his bearings, he stalked back towards me and got in my face. “You should watch your fucking back, Blade. Ricky’s got plans to take you out, asshole, and I can’t fucking wait to see that day. He should have done it years ago after you kicked him out.”
The crunch of bone I heard when my fist connected with his face was the most satisfying sound I’d heard all day. I backed it up with a couple more punches until Gary was sprawled on the grass, his face a bloody mess. Standing over him, I growled, “Ricky can plan shit all he likes, but he doesn’t have the backing he’d need to take me out. And you’re wrong about one other thing: I shouldn’t have let him walk away all those years ago.”
I stalked to the car before I allowed my inner demons out to finish him off. He had no idea how close he’d come to death today. Possibly the only thing holding me back was Layla. Judging by her reaction to my blood-covered shirt when I slid into the seat next to her a moment later, she may not have cared.
Her gaze focused on my shirt. “I see you sorted him out.”
I waited for her to shift her eyes to mine before answering. “Yeah, I sorted him out.”
“Good,” she said, and reached for her belt, clipping it in. “Now take me the hell home. I don’t want to spend another fucking minute in this dump.”
I couldn’t agree with her more.
***
After I dropped Layla off back at her bar, I turned the car towards my mother’s house. I wanted to check in on her, make sure she hadn’t caved and let Marcus back in. On the drive there, I called Merrick.
“I want everything you can find about Layla Reed,” I said when he answered.
“I’m one step ahead of you.”
“You’ve got it already?” I asked, surprised he’d beaten me to it.
“Still gathering it, but yeah, almost done.”
“Anything interesting so far?”
“Her family is Reed’s Mining.”
“Fuck.” She wasn’t kidding when she said she came from money. Her family was at the top of the social ladder. Everyone in Australia knew Reed’s Mining.
“She dropped out of the public eye when she was eighteen, though. Cut all ties to her family and no one knows why. It was all very hush-hush at the time, but what seems odd is that her cousin, Annie, also dropped out at the same time.”
“Where does Annie fit into all this?”
“Their fathers are brothers. They inherited the company together from their father.”
“Something happened that concerned both of them, yeah?”
“That’s my guess. It must have been bad, because Layla walked away from it all, both the family and the money. You ever hear of someone walking away from that kind of money?”
No one walked away from millions unless they had a damn good reason.
“Never.”
“I’ll keep digging, see what we can come up with,” he promised.