“Open up.” Preston Iverson called from the opposite side of the storm door.
Jackson gave him no other response than a slow blink. Preston was nothing more than a tiny dick in a suit sucking air into his lungs that he wasn’t worthy of breathing.
“Maddie visited me. She’s a little distressed and a lot confused. Seems my dear Ryn has been sharing some things that she should not be sharing. I have this feeling you put her up to it.”
Jackson gave him another slow blink.
Preston pressed a photo to the glass storm door. Jackson squinted, leaning forward a fraction. It was a photo of a barely recognizable Ryn with a lacerated lip, one eye swollen shut, and her cheek mottled in hues of blue and purple.
He met Preston’s eyes. The little penis in a suit smirked then held open his suit coat to reveal the gun in his inside pocket.
“I’d let me in, jerk-off.”
Christmas came early that year for Jackson Knight. He was wrong—the universe’s answer to his desperate need was not Luke. It was Preston Iverson.
Jackson opened the storm door and stepped back as Preston came inside, pulling his gun from his inside pocket and pointing it at Jackson.
“You think you can fuck my wife’s body and my daughter’s mind and get away with it? You think you can just waltz into town with no fucking past and take what’s mine?”
“What’s going on?”
Preston looked at Luke, moving the gun back and forth between them. “I didn’t know you had company. Who’s this guy? Your lover?” He laughed. “Buttfuckers.”
Jackson raised a single brow. “What are you going to do with our bodies after you shoot us?”
“I’m going to weight your asses down and dump you in the river.”
Jackson nodded. “Is that a good spot? Is the river deep? Has it frozen over yet?”
Preston pointed the gun back at Jackson. “Why the fuck do you care?”
It happened in a blink, less than a blink. Jackson grabbed the gun out of Preston’s hand like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
Preston’s eyes widened as he held his hands up. “Take it easy. I wasn’t really going to shoot you.”
“You were.” Jackson emptied the clip and tossed it left, then discarded the gun to the right. It skidded to a stop at Luke’s feet.
Preston eyed both the gun and the clip as if he stood a chance of retrieving both.
“You’re not going to shoot me?” Preston asked.
Jackson shook his head. “Sorry. I’m a bit more hands-on.”
“What does that—fuck!”
Jackson started with Preston’s nose, his knuckles relishing the feel of crushing bone. “I have a pressing need to attend to…” he landed a fist in his right eye, followed by his left, then a quick upper cut to his jaw that sent him crashing to the floor “…but after seeing that picture of Ryn, I think I can spare an extra sixty seconds to make sure you feel everything you ever did to her.” Jackson bent down and grabbed his head, ramming it into his knee, busting out several teeth. Preston gasped and groaned. A click sounded behind Jackson.
“That’s enough.” Luke pieced the gun back together and held it at Jackson’s back. “Let’s just call the police before you kill him.”
“You won’t shoot me, Jones.” Jackson broke several of Preston’s ribs with his foot.
“Argh! Fuck!”
“Stop!” Luke demanded.
Jackson retrieved the photo of Ryn from Preston’s pocket and handed it to Luke. “This is Ryn and this is Ryn’s ex-husband.” He grabbed Preston’s arm and twisted it around his back until it snapped. The tortured animal’s cries continued.
“He did that to her. If you need to pretend it’s Jessica, then go ahead. Just keep looking at it and tell me when to stop and I’ll stop.”
Bone after bone broke. It really wasn’t Jackson’s MO to torture someone unless he needed information from them. Preston was an exception. Luke never said another word. Even after Jackson gave the final blow that ended Preston Iverson’s life, Luke didn’t move. He stared in silence at the photo.
Jackson turned, slightly winded, but also a bit more relaxed. He rested a hand on Luke’s shoulder. “Good news, buddy. Thanks to our unexpected visitor, I do believe you’re going to live.”
He brushed past Luke, pulled on a shirt, and grabbed his bag. “Let it go, Jones. I can hear your thoughts. Look at the picture again. I didn’t kill a man, I saved a woman.”
On his way to the kitchen, Jackson snatched the picture from Luke’s hands. They didn’t move—he didn’t move.
“Tell me, what would you do to save the woman you love?” He grabbed a Red Bull from the refrigerator and popped the top.
Peeling his gaze from the limp body, Luke focused on Jackson. “Anything.”
Jackson nodded then took a swig, content with Luke’s commitment to his sister. “I don’t know where she is, but I know she would not have missed AJ’s funeral. Knox isn’t answering me.”