A Gorgeous Villain (St. Mary's Rebels 2)

This is all he’s got?

After what I did to his sister.

So when I finally straighten up, crack my neck and tap my pulsating jaw to get ready, I decide to up the ante. “Well, good to see you too, Ledge.”

My casual response enrages him more, as I knew it would. And so the next time he comes at me, he does it harder. So much so that I go back a couple of steps, my jaw on fire.

Yet I don’t go down.

Yet I straighten back up and face him, his wrathful eyes, his furious face as he bites out, “You fucking asshole.”

What the fuck is he doing?

He’s embarrassing himself. He’s embarrassing me.

I need him to do better than that.

“Yeah, same to you.” I jerk my chin at him. “Not that I don’t enjoy our witty repartee but care to enlighten me on why we’re meeting like this? Feels like old times.”

The vessel on his temple seems to be on the verge of exploding. “You’re fucking kidding me, right?”

I pretend to think about it. “Not really, no. If I was, you’d be laughing. Trust me. I’ve got a killer sense of humor.”

Another punch.

Now we’re getting somewhere.

“You know, we could go back and forth like this,” I tell him, panting, wiping the blood off my chin, “or you could just tell me what the fuck your problem is. So I can properly thank you for this special treatment.”

That does it, I think.

That gets him going and he stares at me like I’m the lowest of the low. “Yeah. Yeah, let me tell you what you did. Let me tell you exactly what you did, you motherfucker.”

With that, he launches himself at me.

His fists come crashing down, his bones connecting with mine, over and over and over.

And I take it all.

I welcome it all. I welcome his wrath, his fury, his anger.

I welcome his disgust at me.

It finally matches mine.

It finally rivals my crime. What I did to her.

And yet it’s not enough. Not for him or for me.

So he keeps going.

He keeps punching me, hitting me, and I keep taking it and stumbling back and when I think he’s finally beaten me down enough that I’m going to lose my footing, my back connects with something.

My Mustang.

My fucking Mustang saves me from going down.

And Ledger grabs my collar, pulling at it and smashing my back against the metal. “Did that jog your memory, huh? You remember what you did now?”

I’m panting; every muscle in my body throbs and pulses. My fucking legs are trembling and yet I’m still standing. It pisses me the fuck off.

“I think…” I breathe out, tasting blood. “I’m gonna need a little more.”

He shakes me again, making my bones jar, and I groan.

“You fucking asshole, you ruined her life. You ruined her life. You realize that, don’t you? You realize what you did to my sister.”

I do, yeah.

I do realize it. I realize that I’ve ruined her now. I’ve destroyed her.

I speak through the pain in my chest, in my body. “You really don’t wanna know… what I did to your sister.”

As expected, he pushes me into the car again.

“You’re a fucking piece of shit, aren’t you?” He tightens his grip on the collar of my dress shirt. “I should kill you for what you did to her.”

“You should.”

“But if I killed you tonight, then you wouldn’t be able to see.”

I spit out blood. “Yeah? See what?”

He chuckles then, his fingers tightening. “What I’m going to do to your sister.” Another chuckle. “She’s a firecracker, isn’t she? Tempest.”

I don’t know where I get the energy, the strength to move my hands, let alone grab his collar. I don’t know where I get the strength to shake off his hold and fucking maneuver him so I have his back against my Mustang now.

All I know is that if he says my sister’s name again, I’m going to rearrange his face in a way that he’s not going to like.

“Don’t talk about my sister,” I growl, my body screaming in pain.

“Yeah?” he bites out. “Pisses you the fuck off, doesn’t it? And I haven’t even done anything yet. To her.”

“You want to kill me, Ledger, you better stop talking. Because if you rile me up enough, it’s going to be you who dies tonight.”

He laughs, sharp and hollow. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”

And then, I feel the sharpest, fieriest pain that I’ve ever felt in my life. So much so that I finally stumble back and my body goes down.

I finally fall on my knees, my vision going blurry for a few seconds.

Because Ledger has kicked my ankle. My right ankle, which has weakened from years of playing soccer. And since he’s played with me, used my weakness against me on the field due to our rivalry, he knows about that.