Cannon (Carolina Reapers 5)

My stomach lurched, threatening to send my dinner up.

“Walk the fuck away.”

He clucked his tongue at me and tucked his thumbs in his jeans, going close enough to his belt that my head immediately filled with the sounds of my own screaming when he’d last used it on me. “You’ll regret this. I swear to God, I’ll make you regret it.”

“I regret every moment I spend in your company.”

He shook his head slowly and turned around, then began walking up the block, away from us. “It was nice to meet you, Mrs. Price.”

“I can’t say likewise,” she muttered behind me.

As soon as he was out of sight, I loaded Persephone into the car, going so far as to buckle her seat belt for her. Nothing was getting to her. Nothing. Not even me.

“Cannon,” Persephone started as we pulled into the driveway, breaking the strained silence that had been our constant companion on the drive home.

“Don’t,” I snapped, pulling the car into the garage.

“I just—”

“No. Not with this. Not with him. You have no idea what that man is capable of or what he’s done. Do you know how many scars these tattoos cover up? How many burns and cuts I’ve masked with all this ink? Don’t you realize there’s a reason I don’t like people to touch me?”

Her mouth softened, but before she could speak, I climbed out of the car.

“Cannon!” She caught up to me in the kitchen. “How can I know any of that stuff when you don’t talk to me about it!”

“You knew he beat my mother. I told you that.” I threw my keys on the counter.

“In really vague terms, yes, but you never told me that he killed her.” She moved toward me, then thought better of it and stayed on the other side of the island. Good. It was dangerous to be close to me when I felt like this.

“She packed the car and told his drunk ass that she was leaving him. At least, that’s what we think happened in the house. Then he stumbled out to the driveway and got into the driver’s seat, shouting that she wasn’t taking his kids anywhere, and when she ran after us, he accidentally hit the gas instead of the brakes and hit her.” God, I could still feel the abrupt motion of the car, the sound of her screaming.

Persephone gasped, her hands flying over her mouth as her eyes flared in horror.

“Accident my ass, right? But Lillian and I didn’t know what happened inside, so we couldn’t prove that he did it out of anger, and it wasn’t some accident like his slimy lawyer professed. The man did fifteen years for murdering my mother. Fifteen. That’s it. So, I’ll be damned if I give him a dime of what I’ve earned. He can rot in hell for all I care.”

I pushed away from the counter and walked away, heading straight for our bedroom. No amount of shooting or skating in the basement was going to wash him away. I felt the dirt of it all on my skin, impossible to see, but oily to the touch.

My clothes hit the floor in a scattered path as I walked to the massive shower. I turned on the water, then shed everything else until I wore nothing but the art I’d chosen over the scars I’d had no say over.

When the water steamed, clouding the air of the stone-walled, doorless shower and the rest of the bathroom, I stepped under the heavy spray, letting it scald me to the point of pain, begging for my nerve endings to come alive and kill the numbness. When I’d burned enough of him away, I turned, letting the water singe my back.

At least he was in Charleston, which meant he wasn’t near Lillian. I’d have to call her later and warn her that he’d reappeared, but she never held the same appeal for him that I did—she didn’t have the money he always needed. She was safe.

Persephone wasn’t. Not while she was still married to me. He was right. That was the real kicker. She was in danger every moment she stayed near. She was so breakable. So fragile. What the fuck would happen if I snapped one day the way he did? My heart stopped at the thought of anything happening to her.

The bathroom door opened, and Persephone walked in. Her steps were slow but deliberate. She had that look on her face she wore when she needed something done and wasn’t going to leave the locker room until we’d all agreed to whatever her plan was.

I watched silently as she pulled her hair up into a knot on the top of her head, then pulled down the zipper of her dress that ran down her side. The blue silk fluttered to the floor, leaving her in a matching set of underwear that almost made me flip the handle and change the water to freezing. Every line of the woman was so fucking flawless that all I could do was stare as she reached behind her and unsnapped her bra, then shrugged out of it.