Any Way You Want It (Brand Clan #2)(79)

Landis Kennedy stood by the fireplace shouting and waving a leather-bound book at a visibly distressed servant.

The butler came up behind Remy. “Sir, I must ask you to leave this moment.”

Kennedy and the red-faced servant whipped their heads toward the door. When Kennedy saw Remy standing there, his eyes bulged in shock.

“What the hell are you—”

Remy shot a hard glance at the servant. “Leave.”

The woman took one look at his ominous expression and scurried across the room. She gave him a wide berth as she went out the door and closed it behind her, taking the sputtering butler with her.

As Remy looked at Zandra’s father, a crimson haze settled over his vision. He cracked his knuckles, his lips curling back over his teeth in a snarl.

Kennedy eyed him nervously. “Now just hold on, Remington—”

As Remy lunged forward, Kennedy’s eyes flew wide with panic. He dropped the book and turned to run toward the terrace doors, but Remy was already upon him.

The first blow he landed struck Kennedy’s left cheek and snapped his head back. Before the man could draw breath to cry out, Remy punched him again, smashing his fist deeper into skin and bone.

Kennedy screamed and doubled over, clutching his broken nose.

Remy could have snapped his sorry neck and been done with it. But he was too enraged to offer swift mercy. He wanted Kennedy to suffer, wanted him to feel the pain of every punishing blow Remy delivered.

So he hit him with two more uppercuts that dropped Kennedy to his knees, gurgling in agony. And then he swung a roundhouse kick into the man’s stomach, driving him backward.

As Kennedy toppled to the wood floor and lay there groaning, Remy crouched over his prone body and whipped out his KA-BAR knife. The steel blade caught the light as his hand slashed down, bringing the razor-sharp edge to Kennedy’s throat.

“Oh, God. Oh, Jesus.” Kennedy stared up at him, his eyes so wide with terror that Remy could see the whites around his pupils. Blood gushed from his nose and a gash in his cheek, and his lips quivered piteously.

“Please,” he whimpered. “Please don’t kill me.”

Remy pressed the deadly blade into the man’s flesh, drawing a thin ridge of blood. With one flick of his wrist he could sever Kennedy’s carotid artery and end his miserable life.

Tears spilled from the man’s eyes as blood soaked into the collar of his white shirt. “P-please d-don’t do this, Remington,” he stammered pleadingly. “Y-you know th-this isn’t wh-what she’d want.”

Remy stared down at him, violence pumping hot and thick through his veins.

Relief flickered in Kennedy’s eyes as Remy slowly removed the knife from his throat. He brought it to his mouth, closing his eyes as he licked the stained blade.

“I’ve been craving your blood all my life, old man. It tastes even better than I always imagined.”

Opening his eyes, he stared into Kennedy’s horror-stricken face.

A small, feral smile curved Remy’s mouth.

Slowly, deliberately, he ran the tip of the blade from Kennedy’s throat down to his rib cage, stopping at his pounding heart.

When a pungent odor filled his nostrils, he glanced down and saw a dark stain spreading across the front of Kennedy’s pants. The f*cking coward had pissed on himself.

Remy smiled narrowly, looking into the man’s eyes. Shame had now joined the fear.

“Give me one damn reason I shouldn’t gut you right now, you pathetic son of a bitch.”

Kennedy whimpered. “I—I didn’t mean to hit her. Sh-she provoked me.”

“Wrong answer!”

“Please don’t do this, son—”

“I’m not your damn son! And you’d better be glad I’m not, ’cause I’d have killed you after the first time you put a hand on my mother.”

Kennedy gulped audibly. “Be reasonable, Remington. You’re trespassing on my property. The police are probably on their way right now. You wouldn’t get away with killing me.”

“You’d be amazed what I can get away with,” Remy snarled, slicing the blade of his knife through two of Kennedy’s shirt buttons. When the man whimpered, Remy sneered contemptuously. “You sniveling little piece of shit. You like pounding on helpless women? You like taking out your frustrations on people who can’t fight back? That shit ends today, you hear me? Today is the last f*cking day you will ever terrorize—”

“Remy” came a quiet voice from across the room.

He tensed, then glanced over his shoulder to see Zandra and her stepmother hovering in the doorway.

Johanna Kennedy looked stunned and horrified, while Zandra’s expression was indiscernible behind the sunglasses she wore.

“Let him go, Remy,” she said softly. “Please.”

He clenched his jaw, turning back to Kennedy. The man had the relieved look of a condemned prisoner who’d narrowly escaped a one-way ticket to the execution chamber.

Not so f*cking fast.

Viciously grabbing the man’s chin with one hand, Remy commanded, “Take a good look at your daughter.”

Kennedy obediently looked across the room at Zandra.

“Every time you think of her from now on,” Remy snarled, “I want you to remember her as the angel of mercy who saved your sorry hide today. But understand this. If you ever come anywhere near her again, if you even think about contacting her, I will take great pleasure in disemboweling you. That’s not an empty threat, motherf*cker. That’s a promise.”