Ride or Die (Rejects Paradise 4)

Russo clenches his jaw, and just like that, he gives himself away. He knows I’m right, and it only serves to fuel his anger. “What do you want?” he snaps, more than ready to get the show on the road.

“It’s really quite simple,” I tell him, slowly circling him and watching as he tracks my every move. “I want Ocean’s freedom. Give her up, and you can walk freely.”

Russo laughs. “Come on, kid. You know it's not that easy. I wouldn't give up that girl for nothing, more now that I know how badly you want her. Besides, there is no fucking out. She’s mine.”

“You see, that’s just the thing, I’ve already got her, and you know damn well that she wants nothing to do with you.”

“All the more reason to hold onto her a little tighter.”

His words grate against my every nerve, and while I want nothing more than to lunge out and tear his throat right out of his body, I smile, letting him see just how fucking far I’ll go for her. “I’m going to ask you again,” I tell him. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Your choice.”

Russo scoffs, leaning forward in his chair, though he doesn’t get far with his hands bound behind the plastic of the chair. “Try your fucking hardest,” he tells me. “You know, I’ve been fucking your mom. She’s all dried up, the old bitch, but I fucked her anyway. Took her ass harder than your daddy ever did.”

A grin stretches across my face, and for a brief moment, fear flashes in his eyes. I pull out my phone and send a quick text before taking a step back and leaning up against the pillar in the center of the factory. “Really?” I ask as I wait patiently. “Is that the best you got? The old ‘I fucked your mom’ bullshit? Is that supposed to send me off the deep end? So fucking what? No wonder she’s all dried up. She’s fucked half of Bellevue Springs.”

It’s only a short, two-minute wait before a text comes through to my phone, and I glance down and smile before putting myself right back in front of Russo. “I trust that you’ve heard of a little company by the name of VC Holdings, you know, the company that you run your whole organization through?”

His face drops, his skin turning a sickly shade of white. “What did you do?” he spits through his teeth.

“I bought it.” I turn my phone around, showing him the screen that shows confirmation of my latest purchase. “It seems some of your guys aren’t as loyal as you'd always thought. It was all too easy to get your company credentials and buy it out from under you, and I have to say, it went for quite a good price, next to nothing. Oh, wait, it was for nothing.”

“What do you want?” he spits, knowing that this company holds every last secret he’s ever held. With just one audit, I’d have his whole organization torn apart until it’s nothing but ash left on the ground.

“I told you my fucking price,” I tell him. “I want Ocean’s freedom.”

Russo clenches his jaw, his glare digging into me like two, piercing laser beams. “Fine, have the fucking bitch. Now, get me the fuck out of here and give me my fucking company.”

I laugh, unbuttoning the top button of my suit shirt before pulling out a pair of brass knuckles and sliding them onto my fingers, right where they fucking belong. “Oh, you think it’s going to be that easy?” I ask. “You think you can have twenty fucking guys jump my pregnant girl, and I’m just going to stand back and accept that?” My fist slams across his face, sending a mouthful of blood spraying over the floor of my factory. Russo grunts in pain, and as he looks back at me, I continue, “You think I’m just going to forget the sound of her flesh being beaten.” I step into him, bringing my fist around in a devastating uppercut, slamming it up under his ribs and watching as he gasps for breath. “You think I’m just going to let you walk out of here unscathed?”

I walk around him and untie the bounds on his wrist. He tries to stand, ready to run, but he’s not getting away that easy. He won’t be leaving this place until I’ve left him as black and blue as what his men left my girl.

I jump at him, instantly taking him down, barrelling my fists into him. I hit him in all the places his men hit my girl, listening to his grunts of pain like trophies awarded for the best kind of vengeance.

I beat him until he can hardly move, and then just a little bit more. Every bit of anger I felt watching his twenty men beat my girl, I took out on his body. All I can see is Ocean, curled up on the ground, nothing but a blur of fists and feet slamming into her over and over again. She couldn’t even cry. I’ll never forget it. Even beating the living shit out of Russo and ending him, it’ll never make what happened okay.