Dark Sexy Knight (A Modern Fairytale)(12)

Looking across the mostly empty parking lot, Colt saw Ryan standing between the two shifty-looking men he’d noticed earlier as they tossed a can of Coke back and forth over his head.

“That’s for Ver’ty,” said Ryan, reaching in the air for the Coke can as it sailed overhead.

“For your hot-piece-of-ass sister? Well, now, you tell her to come over here and git it, dum-dum.”

“Yeah. Tell ’er to come and git it,” laughed the other man, throwing the can back to his buddy. “On her knees.”

Ryan jumped up in the air as the can was lobbed overhead, reaching for it without victory.

“Aw, fuuuuuck,” grumbled Colt, shoving his keys back into his pocket. He sighed, opening his trunk quietly and reaching inside for a crowbar, then made his way deliberately across the parking lot.

As he approached, one of the two *s torturing Ryan looked over, holding the can in his hand while he sized up Colt.

“Go on back the way you came,” he said, tossing the soda from hand to hand. “Ain’t nothin’ here concerns you.”

“Actually,” said Colt, mimicking the man’s movements, but with the crowbar instead of a little can of pop, “it does concern me.”

The other f*cker sneered, showcasing a row of rotten teeth. “That right?”

“Yeah,” said Colt, nodding slowly. “That’s exactly right.” He shifted his eyes lazily to Ryan. “You okay?”

Big tears welled in Ryan’s bright blue eyes. “They took the can a’pop for Ver’ty.”

“And now they’re going to give it back,” said Colt, a menacing growl in his voice as he cut his eyes to the dickhead holding the can of soda.

The redneck’s eyes slit narrow, and his lip curled with anger, but then his face cleared and he nodded, a mean smile spreading over his ugly face.

“Yeah. Sure,” he said. “Here you go, dummy.” Holding his arms out toward Ryan, the man cracked opened the soda can and cackled with glee as the pop exploded all over Ryan’s dress shirt and pants, covering his face and hair in a shower of Coke.

Ryan cried out, shielding his eyes.

“Stop!” screamed Verity from behind Colt, running across the parking lot. “Stop it! Leave him be!”

Colt faced her. “Stay behind me.” Then he turned back to Ryan, jerking his head toward Verity. “Go stand with your sister.”

“Yeah,” said one of the two motherf*ckers, between gasps of hyena-like laughter, “go stand next to your sister, retard!”

Colton Lane had always had a temper.

Always.

Always.

It had gotten him into trouble before, that temper. He felt it now, rage and fury churning inside like a twister, turning and frothing, boiling and freezing—the heat readying him to fight and the cold stripping him of any humanity that might moderate his wrath.

In a move he’d perfected at work, he bent his knees and drew his arm back, striking forth with the crowbar against the first one’s thigh like the hammer of Thor. A sickening crunch sounded, and the man screamed in pain, falling to the ground as his broken femur gave way.

Behind him, Verity screamed, but Colt ignored her, advancing on the other man, whose wide, terrified eyes begged for mercy. He stumbled backward and fell onto the cement, a stain of wetness spreading across the crotch of his shorts and making a puddle on the ground. Colt raised the crowbar to strike again—

“Colton!” she screamed again. “No! No more!”

He gasped, the crowbar high over his head, much higher than the can of pop had been when the two men were throwing it back and forth. Frozen, as though his body could move only if she gave him leave, he panted through a fog of fury, waiting for her to speak again . . . but she didn’t.

She didn’t say anything at all.

Out of nowhere, her small hands locked around his chest, embracing him. Her small breasts pressed up flush against his back, her cheek rested on his T-shirt. He felt the in and out of her chest as she drew quick, even breaths behind him.

“No more,” she said gently, her voice calm, soft, and white, cutting through the raw, red haze of his rage. “That’s enough, now.”

Panting in jagged spurts, he lowered the crowbar slowly, closing his eyes and clenching them shut for a moment before opening them again. His eyes shuttered back and forth between the two men—one lying on his back sobbing in pain, the other whimpering in a pool of his own piss. Colt gave them each a hard look, then spat on the ground between them.

Without looking back at Verity, he covered her hands with his, carefully pulled them away from his body, then headed back to his car.

***

Verity looked at the uninjured man cowering on the ground and raised her chin. “Call an ambulance for your friend. I think he might have broken his leg.”

“That guy is f*cking crazy!” he screamed with wild, frightened eyes.

She advanced on the man, fists clenched, ready to finish what Colt had started. “I’ll call him back here and you can say that to his face!”

The man shook his head, putting his hands up in surrender. “No! Don’t do . . . just . . . just go.”

“You shouldn’t pick on defenseless people,” she said, reaching up to swipe at a runaway tear. “Shame on both of you. You got what you deserved.”