“Done. But if you piss off my wife, I’ll castrate you.”
“Her friend likes me. I’m charming.” He turned into the hospice’s parking lot and parked on the side of the building.
“Good. Use it on whoever stands in my way.” Come hell or high water, Chet was dying by my hands today.
Grant smirked. “What’s all this charm for if it can’t keep a distraction up for longer than ten minutes?”
“Shouldn’t be that long.”
With only one nurse at the front desk when we walked in, Grant made sure all her focus was on him. She took our ID’sand hardly checked either of them while Grant made small talk, making her blush even as we asked what room Chet was in. As Grant lifted his sleeve, showing the extent of his artwork, I slipped away down the hall, following the numbers along the doors.
212
212
2-1-fucking—
There it is.
I slipped the gloves on and clicked the door shut behind me as I scanned the room for cameras, then propped a chair beneath the handle.
And then I saw him.
Chet Walker, in the flesh.
As I stood at the foot of his bed, my teeth ground together, my pulse hammering in my ears. Monitor’s beeped, the breathing tube rammed down his throat making slight wooshes, giving him life he didn’t deserve. All the effort to keep an abusive, offensive man alive, yet where was the effort on behalf of this town when he got every opportunity to do so much wrong to my little Ly?
Nonexistent.
No one else cared when she skipped town after graduation. No one else questioned why. There’d been no case, no police searches. Fucking nothing but me and my truck on the roads every day and night that I got.
I pulled the knife from my pocket and used the tip to move his blanket aside. His wrinkly eyes fluttered, and although this had to be an in-and-out ordeal, I wasn’t aiming for subtlety when it came to him feeling my presence.
No.
I wanted him to hurt like he hurt my precious wife.
I wasn’t a doctor, but I was pretty sure not being in a coma anymore meant he could do just that.
Checking the chart beside my thigh, I flipped through and found the diagnosis—brain cancer. The chart also listed several hemorrhages and tumors, a handful of other things that stemmed from the diagnosis that should have taken him out in his state, and the list of meds and sedatives he was currently on. On another page was my wife’s name, her number, and the date of her last visit.
The day she ran back to that shithole.
“So this is why she came back,” I murmured, chuckling into the void. “She came back because you were dyin’ and she finally felt like she could live here and be free again. And now you’re tryin’ to take that all away.”
I let go of the clipboard and dragged my knife up the length of his exposed leg. Not enough to leave a mark, but enough to make him aware, his lids fluttering rapidly in response.
“You thought you could touch her.” I shifted the bottom of his garment with the blade, revealing his shriveled dick. “You thought you could have her,” I said through gritted teeth as blinding rage started to build.
I rolled my head from shoulder to shoulder, then placed the tip of my blade near his balls. I leaned in closer, hovering over his face. The breathing tube whooshed, expanding his chest. “You don’t even deserve the death I’m givin’ you. You should rot in a casket under the ground, alive, until all the air in your lungs turns toxic, filling your tiny fucking box slowly with your last breaths until you suffocate.” I dragged the blade up toward the tube. “If you were out there, beyond these walls, I’d make it happen. Then, just as you’d lose consciousness, I’d pull you back up and repeat the process, over and over.”
I gripped the tube, his eyes shifting back and forth behind his lids like heknewwho’d come for him, though I’d only seen him once. So, I reminded him.
“I’m CarvermotherfuckingRoland. I’m Lyra’shusband. The one who punched you all those years ago. The one who should’ve ended you that day—” The sharp, sudden pang of realizing why his jeans were undone that day brought bile to my throat. I forced it down. “But I won’t make that mistake again.”
I pushed the blade into the tube and sliced into it, and didn’t stop until more air went through the cut than to his lungs. When his chest didn’t expand with the next whoosh, I threw the blanket back over him and whispered in his ear, “If you survive this, you know what future awaits you.”
As his monitor started to beep, I removed the chair from the door and strode out, pocketing the gloves before the cameras in the hall could see. Then I cupped my hands and hollered for help, playing the victim right as a longer beep sounded from his room.
