Damaged Grump (Bad Chicago Bosses)

Barry’s tearful eyes flick to me, his arm stretching out weakly.

“R-R-Roland!” he calls like he’s trying to yell through solid mud.

Later, I’ll have time to pray for what I’m about to do.

I don’t need a speck of cocaine to commit a murder right now.

I charge forward, baring my teeth.

“Get the hell away from him!”

I mean to break every bone in Hadyn’s body on impact, but I fall short at the last second.

Haydn’s head snaps up. He tightens his fist on the rope knotted around his knuckles, making Barry gag.

It’s like he just yanked my own invisible leash. A warning that if I take another step, he’ll slaughter my brother right in front of me.

Vance Haydn looks at me for a long, savage second before his smarmy face contorts into a crazy leer.

His shallow blue eyes are cold, cruel, inhuman.

“You don’t get to make demands right now, Birdshit,” he growls. He lets up on the rope so Barrett can breathe, rasping and choking. I don’t think for a second it’s a reprieve—he’s just drawing it out to make us all suffer. “How’s it gonna feel? How’s it gonna feel to lose him a second time?”

“Not happening,” I grind out.

I have to stay calm.

The shield of armor that lets me face down anyone without losing my composure. I need it now to control this shitshow. To figure out some way to free Barrett from Haydn’s clutches so I can take that bastard out.

Slowly, I edge inside—not toward him, but toward Callie, sidestepping so that when I make my move, I’ll keep my body between her and Haydn. I can’t let him use her as a second hostage.

“Killing Barrett won’t bring your stolen fortune back. It’ll just add murder to the world of hurt you’re in,” I growl.

“And? He’ll still be dead. You’ll still be miserable. You deserve it, after everything you’ve done, you fucker—” Haydn trails off into a gibbering voice of unhinged fury, only to break into a disgusted growl as Barrett wriggles and sobs and kicks at him. Hadyn’s grip tightens. “Hold still, you fucking simp.”

Those hard eyes flick to me.

Even as I creep closer to Callie, he circles around to keep facing me, until his back is to the door.

“Last fucking chance,” I warn. “Drop it. Step away. Leave them alone.”

“Or what? I would’ve been happy to make you suffer losing your toy pussy. But your brother, he’ll do. He’s easy.”

Before I can snap off a retort to buy time, before the rage rolling through me takes control, Barrett lets out a pleading, heart-wrenching whimper. His shaky desperate fingers stretch toward me.

“Rollie...R-Rollie, the knot w-won’t...stay...”

My entire fucking life nearly gets punched out of me in those four words.

The knot won’t stay.

It all comes together and clicks in my brain like a vault slamming shut.

The contract wasn’t the only thing Barrett’s been trying to tell me all this time.

The day he tried to kill himself. The noose. The knot that slipped.

He wasn’t the one who’d tied that knot at all.

And Vance Haydn’s as sloppy a murderer as he is a man.

“...you,” I struggle out, the word as dry as the Sonora desert in my throat, my entire body reverberating. “It was you. He didn’t hang himself.” Behind me, Callie gasps, but my entire focus is on the miserable excuse of a skid mark in front of me. I’ve never wanted to slaughter someone more in my life, never wanted to feel splintering bone and hear pure suffering so bad. “You tried to fucking kill him...you made it look like a suicide.”

Haydn’s grin is nasty, satisfied.

He reaches into his pocket, fingers something weighty inside. The outline suggests a gun.

This is it.

The moment when I realize I’ll have to trade my life to take Haydn’s, to stop him from murdering anyone else.

“You always were a slow one, Birdshit. This time I’ll finish the job—and get rid of another pain in the ass. Three bodies or one, doesn’t matter to me.”

“Then you’d better make it four, fucker,” a voice says from behind Haydn. “There’s no damn way you’re touching my daughter again.”

Alvin Landry swings his guitar by the neck like a baseball bat, smashing that slugger across the back of Haydn’s head.

His grip loosens as he topples to the side.

Barry goes flying out of his grip, crashing to the floor, inhaling harshly.

Haydn slams into the wall—and then into me as I throw myself at him.

Every ounce of protective fury in my veins propels me forward like a missile as I plow my fist into his face and send us both crashing to the ground.

It’s like he doesn’t even feel the blow to the head after the initial surprise.

He’s so hopped up on coke that the pain just pisses him off more, and his entire massive bulk slams into me.

We fall into a rolling tangle, tearing at each other like wolves, thrashing and punching wildly in the small space.