Unattainable (Undeniable, #3)(81)

Dirty’s fist met Ripper’s and he nodded.

Dirty waited until he could no longer see the taillights of Ripper’s pickup before turning back to Mooresville. Cocking his leg back, he sent his booted foot straight into the *’s ribs.

“Wake up, f*cker!” he yelled.

Air exploded from the man’s lungs in the form of a gasping groan and Mooresville’s eyes blinked open. Coughing and sputtering, he tried to turn away from Dirty, but Dirty didn’t give him a chance and immediately sent his boot again into his ribs. The f*cker bounced a few feet forward and then went still.

Crossing the small distance, Dirty stepped over him and reached down to grab his shirt collar. “Open your eyes!” he demanded and Mooresville’s eyelids fluttered before finally opening.

“You gonna die now, f*cker,” Dirty growled. “But first you’re gonna lie there like a f*ckin’ bitch and take everything I’m gonna give you. And f*cker, I’m gonna do you dirty.”

Yanking him up by his shirt, Dirty sent his fist straight into the man’s mouth. It hurt for sure, the f*cker’s teeth cut through his knuckles, but it was efficient in knocking out nearly all of Mooresville’s front teeth.

Letting him fall back to the ground, Dirty sat down hard on his injured ribs, pinning him in place.

“Please,” Mooresville rasped brokenly. “Please…”

“What’s that?” Dirty said, sneering. “I can’t f*ckin’ hear you?”

“Please!” the man screamed.

“Fuck you,” Dirty spat and sent his fist flying into the side of Mooresville’s face. Over and over again, he punched him as hard as he could, beating on him until he was covered in the man’s blood, unable to see straight. Until it was no longer Mooresville he was beating on.

It was himself.

Because as much as he hated comparing himself to a dirtbag like Daniel Mooresville, he didn’t have much of a choice. He was just as big of a dirtbag. He’d never spared a female who wasn’t part of his family a second thought; he hadn’t given a f*ck what kind of pain he’d caused, instead he’d rationalized it. Justified it, even.

He was the worst kind of dirtbag, thinking he had a right to inflict pain on other people just because pain had been inflicted on him.

The world didn’t owe him shit. Nobody did.

He didn’t deserve a second chance. He deserved nothing. Worse than nothing. He deserved every inch of what he had and what he was going to put this motherf*cker through.

“You think you got a right to hurt people?” he yelled as he dragged the chief of police’s broken body toward the row of condominiums. “What gives you the motherf*ckin’ right?”

Dropping him on his stomach, Dirty yanked down the man’s pants and boxers, then took inventory of his own possessions. Yeah, no way was he going to use his gun. Or his phone. He grabbed the next best thing. His blade. It wasn’t a sissy knife either; it was a serrated hunting blade, made especially for death.

“Open wide,” Dirty said, and shoved that motherf*cker straight into Mooresville’s *. Hard. Over and over again, each time amping up Mooresville’s following screams of pain as they echoed throughout the wide-open empty space.

“Upsie daisy.” Dirty laughed, hooking his hands under the man’s dislocated shoulders. Once he had him positioned on the front steps to the condo, Dirty wrenched his mouth wide open and forced the corner of the concrete stair between his lips. Mooresville whimpered his protests but there wasn’t a bone in the f*cker’s body Dirty hadn’t at least tried to break. The guy could barely breathe, let alone move.

“Good night, f*cker,” he said.

Then, holding him in place, Dirty lifted his boot and, as hard as he could, slammed it down on the back of his skull.

Standing up and with shaking hands, Dirty lit up a cigarette and pulled out his cell phone.

Cox answered on the first ring.

“Got a problem,” he said around a cloud of smoke.

“Yeah?” Cox asked. “Whatchu need?”

“Special sauce.”

“Where you at?”

“Mama Vi’s.”

“Be there in twenty.”

Dirty shoved his phone back in his cut and looked down at his bloody boot. Lifting up his foot, he wiped the gore off onto Mooresville’s body.

“Be seein’ you in hell, f*cker,” he said. Hocking up a wad of phlegm, he spit it out onto the back of the man’s broken skull. “And you best believe you’ll be gettin’ another beat-down when I do.”

? ? ?

Ellie’s stomach was churning, her head was pounding, and she was so high-strung her anxiety had reached volcanic levels, that when she heard the jingle of keys against the door, she fell face first onto the floor when she attempted to scramble out of bed.

“Jesus,” Dirty muttered. Hands gripped her arms and she was hauled to her feet.

Ellie choked on her surprise as she took in Dirty’s disheveled, dirt-and blood-covered clothing. Her gaze dropped to his blood-covered hands and his swollen, split knuckles.

“Michael,” she whispered. “Did you…”

Tears formed in her eyes. “Please tell me you didn’t kill him,” she finished quickly, praying to God that he hadn’t.