Page 32 of Insidious Heart
Quiet, little dove. I got you.
She doesn’t nod, doesn’t even move, but I know she understands. Stevie knows I’m here to help and the questions dancing in her eyes—why? and how?being the most obvious—will wait until this is handled.
I reach down and pull the knife from my boot as I quietly inch toward them, Joker deciding now is a great time to talk.
“I told you I’d make you mine, Stevie. Told you time and time again. But you didn’t fucking listen and now you have to pay.” He slaps her again, then drags his hand over her throat, down toward her breasts, one of which is exposed through a large rip in her shirt, and when that fucker moves to touch more of what is mine, I snap. “You are so—”
I drive my knife into Joker’s side as I wrap my right arm around his neck and yank him away from Stevie. I squeeze his throat as I pull the blade out, only to stab him again right in the kidney. I stab him a third, then fourth time while Joker claws at my arm, but when he should be ready to pass the fuck out from my choke hold, he cranks his arm forward then sends it back, fucking elbowing me in the face instead.
“Fuck!” I bark as my vision dances.
Joker spins away from me, clutching his side while he gasps for air, an angry look on his scarred face. “Who the fuck are you?”
I blink several times before my eyes land on a terrified Stevie, my little dove still against the desk and in too much shock to move. She’s relatively unharmed, and though I’m relieved, it doesn’t do Joker any favors that I can see his handprint on her flawless cheek.
And that’s why I don’t respond with words.
No, I just lunge at the fucker and send my knife right into the soft flesh of his beer gut.
Joker’s blood bubbles out of his mouth as he meets my eyes, but instead of fear or any other emotion I expect to see, I’m met with a blind rage that almost matches mine.
This bastard is determined, I’ll give him that.
Which is why I’m not surprised at all when I push the blade in all the way to the hilt and Joker still manages to get his hands around my throat and starts to squeeze.
Motherfucker is trying to strangle me with an eight inch blade sticking out of his gut.
And it’s working because I’m starting to see spots. Even as I start pushing back against Joker, using my strength and my body to get him toward the wall. If I can, then… then I…
A crash and a grunt has the grip on my throat loosening and as soon as I’m able, I stagger back a few steps and start gasping for air.
Motherfucker is a deadman.
Especially when my vision clears in time to see Joker turn on Stevie, who’s standing there holding pieces of her jewelry box in her shaking hands.
Did she just…
My eyes barely come into focus as several things click.
Stevie’s jewelry is scattered all over the floor and she’s hanging onto the broken pieces with trembling fists. The jewelry box is all but destroyed and her knuckles are white from how tight they’re clenched on the remnants of wood.
Joker is still somehow on his feet but he’s dazed, and even though he’s trying to hold his guts in at his side, he’s still going after her becauseStevie hit him over the head with an heirloom in order to help me.
This girl swallowed her fear, fought through her shock, grabbed the nearest object she could find, and used it to fuckingsave me.
And that is the exact moment my adrenaline surges for all of the wrong—and a few of the right—reasons.
I push off of her dresser, lift my knife and in one swift move, I stab Joker right through his spinal column at the base of his neck.
With a subtle twist of my wrist, I wiggle my knife to make sure it’s in far enough, the bone and cartilage separating from the nerves with a satisfying scrape. So satisfying in fact, that when I yank my knife free and Joker falls to the ground like a sack of potatoes, I chuckle down at him.
“Dumbass,” I grunt as my chest heaves.
I’ve never had someone fight me like that before, and I can honestly say I didn’t fucking like it. It proves how sloppy I could get with a distraction like Stevie around and…Stevie.
My eyes dart from the pile of shit on her floor to my girl, and what I see? The gorgeous carnage, the morbidly sexy little creature before me? Goddamn, it turns my cock to stone.
Her cinnamon and honey hair is a mess, her bright blue eyes are wild. Stevie’s cheeks are stained with tears and blood, the spray that shot out of Joker’s mouth a gruesome constellation on her sun-kissed skin and dotting the scar on the right side of her face I hadn’t noticed before. The front of her t-shirt is ripped open to the hem, her left breast exposed, her pretty pink nipple peaked and smeared in blood. Stevie’s chest is pumping as hard as mine is, and even though her stare is locked on the lifeless bastard that attacked her, her hands have stopped trembling.
