This is Love, Baby(54)

He roars at me and charges. The man is bigger than me, but I’m furious. My rage is that of a hundred men. When he reaches me, I greet him with a fist to his gut. Then, I crack my elbow across his face and send him hurtling to the floor. He lands on his ass with a grunt. I waste no time and launch myself at him. Over and over again, I smash my fists against his face. His teeth cut open my knuckles on one hand and they are now dripping with blood all over the pristine living room rug.

“You’re a disgusting piece of shit,” I snarl in between labored breaths. “She’s your child.” My entire body is quaking with rage.

“G-G-Gabe,” he stutters and spits out blood along with a tooth, “said she’ll only be gone for two weeks. He p-promised he’ll get her back before anyone hurts her. He vowed to keep her safe and get me the money to save my wife.”

Tears fall out of his eyes but I have no pity for the sorry-ass motherfucker. The man who used to intimidate me now sickens me. He’s nothing but a piece of fucking trash. A piece of trash who’d negotiate his teenage daughter’s body for money.

“Where did he take her?”

Heat reddens his face. “He said it was best if I didn’t know the details. That if he went to prison for her kidnapping, I’d still be here with Lynn.”

I gape at him. “And you believed that bullshit?”

He doesn’t have to nod or speak for me to know he did.

“Did you ever think about Baylee, Tony?” I demand. “Did it ever occur to you how fucking scared she would be? Did you even once consider that Gabe was lying to you—that he would fuck your daughter? The man looks at her like she’s a piece of meat he wants to sink his teeth into and you sent her away with him.”

His eyes widen and realization seems to wash over him. “No…”

“Yes. He probably fucked her the moment he got her to wherever the hell it is he took her. There probably never was any money. I bet he concocted the entire thing so he could fuck your daughter like the goddamned pervert he is!”

“Get the fuck off me,” he roars. “Don’t talk about my daughter like that. Gabe is family. He loved her—”

“He loved her, all right,” I sneer. “I watched him love her from afar all the fucking time. While you were too busy trying to intimidate me away from your daughter, he was fantasizing about getting into her teenage panties. And if for some wild reason he does sell her without harming her, do you think for even one second she’ll be safe? Baylee is sweet and innocent. Those monsters will destroy her.”

He tries to shake his head, but my hands are around his neck before I can stop myself in my attempt to hold him still. My vision begins to cloud, blackness taking over the edges.

“She won’t be the same, Tony. You may as well have killed her yourself because if she comes back, she won’t be the same Baylee!”

His face turns an ugly shade of purple and his eyes bug out of his head as he desperately claws at my wrists. This motherfucker deserves punishment for what he did.

“I will find her,” I grunt out as I squeeze his neck harder and enjoy the hissing sounds coming from him. “And all she’ll have left is me. I’m going to marry her and give her a bunch of fucking babies. You’ll be a sad, distant memory. The man who sold her. The man who betrayed his own daughter because he was too stupid to realize he was being played by his own best friend. How does it feel, Tony? How does it feel knowing I’m going to ruin you like you ruined your own daughter?”

His eyes flutter closed and his hands slip away from my wrists. I could stop right now. The pulse in his throat is faint but still there. I think. Dragging my gaze away from him, my eyes find the picture of Baylee on the mantle. Her senior picture. She’s wearing a pretty denim jacket over a white lacy dress with cowboy boots. The smile she wears is bright. That girl deserves so much more than the piece of shit parent she was left with.

She deserves me.

With a sigh of frustration, I release my grip. “I’m doing this for you, babe,” I mutter aloud, my gaze still on her picture.




“Where the hell is he?” she screeches from the porch and stomps over to me, jerking me from my memory. “Where the hell is my dad, Brandon?”

I deserve to slay her monsters.

Her hand is already raised, poised and ready to slap my face. As soon as she nears, I snatch her dainty wrist and twist it painfully behind her.

“Ow!” she cries out. “Let me go!”

A crazed laugh rumbles around us and I shiver. For a moment I wonder if it’s Gabe coming back to haunt us but then I realize the laugh is mine.