“Just drive,” I snarled. I didn’t feel the pain in my hand, and I’d worry about it later. For now, I was going to take care of the motherfucker who’d taken pictures of my girl while she was naked.
He was a dead man. Not only had he seen Shaw without her clothes, then taken pictures of her like that, but as Ma explained, he’d then told Shaw if she wanted the pictures, she would have to come to his house to get them. And I fucking knew he wouldn’t have just given them to her.
“Ma, you better get a criminal defense lawyer ready,” I told her as Rodger pulled up in front of an apartment building. The place was low-rent, but there were girls in the pool splashing around and giggling while some guy in swim trunks took pictures of them with his camera.
Ma didn’t have to show me the picture she had of the guy for me to know this was Eric.
I opened the door with my good hand and took off running as Ma yelled after me. There was a tall iron fence between the parking lot and pool. I climbed it and jumped over. As my feet touched the concrete on the other side, I heard Cannon grunting behind me and knew he was following, but I didn’t wait for him.
A few of the bikini-clad girls laughed, and then one of them called my name, recognizing me. But my gaze was trained on Eric. His back was to me as he flirted with a few of the other girls, and I rushed him.
With a pained groan, he landed on the concrete, the skin of his bare chest and shoulders scraping. The first punch I landed to his face connected with his mouth. His teeth grazed my knuckles, the impact so hard I heard his teeth crack as my skin split open. I hit him over and over again, until the girls around us were screaming and crying as blood splattered over the concrete and my clothes.
Cannon picked up the camera and went through the picture history. “She’s not the only naked girl on here,” he growled as he dropped the camera on the ground. I heard the satisfying crunch as the expensive device shattered under Cannon’s boot. “All right, Jags. You can let him go now, man. I took care of it, and I have the memory card.”
But I wasn’t done. I wanted this fucker dead. I wanted to watch his life fade from his eyes as I beat him to death.
“Jagger!” Cannon yelled and grabbed my arms, trying to pull me off the photographer.
“Hell,” I heard Rodger groan as he attempted to help my friend. But I was too enraged.
“Jagger.” Ma’s voice was right beside me, the sound like a whip.
The red haze cleared from my eyes enough that I looked up at her. Her face was pale, and her eyes were an intense, bright green as she stared down at me.
“That’s enough, baby boy,” she said in a calm, soothing voice. “Let him go.”
The sound of sirens finally reached my ears. I looked around to find several cop cars were now in the parking lot, and a few officers were standing nearby with their guns aimed at me.
Rodger and Cannon pulled me away from Eric, but I shrugged them off, knowing what was about to happen.
Ma sighed heavily as two of the officers in uniform stepped forward. One cuffed me, and the other read me my rights. “I’ll meet you at the station,” she promised.
“Actually, you should meet us at the hospital,” the officer who cuffed me said. “Looks like he broke his hand pretty good. And he’s going to need stitches by the looks of these cuts on his knuckles.” He nodded his head toward Eric. Another cop and an EMT were working on him. “Hope it was worth almost killing that guy.”
“I didn’t finish the job,” I told him with a shrug.
“What the hell did he do to you, man?” the officer who’d read me my rights asked as he led me toward an open gate.
I clenched my jaw, refusing to answer. My lawyer could answer all of their questions.
An hour later, I was still in the ER. I’d already had my stitches. Twenty total, with several in each of my four knuckles of my broken hand. Now I was just waiting for them to tell me whether or not my hand needed surge
ry or a simple cast.
All I’d seen were the two cops who’d brought me to the hospital and the doctor and nurse who were tending to me. I’d heard Ma’s voice out in the hall a few times, but the cops had refused to let her in to see me. The only people they said could come in were medical staff and my lawyer.
When the door opened and a blonde in medical scrubs walked in, I grinned. “How’s it going, cutie?” Aunt Dallas asked as she came over.
“Been better,” I muttered. “How is she?”
“Haven’t told her yet,” she said with a shrug. “But she’s home with her dad, so she’s fine for now.” She picked up my hand, eyeing the stitches. “Pretty clean work. But this hand is all fucked up. You do this on his face?”
“And a window,” I answered honestly. “Might have punched one when Ma told me what Eric did.”
“What did Eric do?” the cop on my right asked, not for the first time. He was the guy who’d cuffed me earlier, and I’d learned his name was Officer Pope.
I pressed my lips into a hard line, and Aunt Dallas smirked. “He did what he needed to do to protect what is his,” she told Pope.