Born Wild

so she had no trouble hearing Blake’s surprised squawk of pain when her well-practiced right jab landed on the bridge of his nose.

Crunch! Cartilage cracked beneath her knuckles, and a bright burst of white-hot agony reverberated up her arm to explode in her shoulder. She paid it no mind as she reached back with her left fist to follow that first punch up with a second aimed straight at Blake’s soft belly. He wheezed a cartoonish, “oof,” as he bent in half, one hand holding his stomach, the other coming up to cup the blood draining from his nose.

Okay, so…she’d lost it. She’d absolutely, positively lost her flippin’ mind. And even though a part of her was standing outside herself, watching as she hurled punches like a bantam-weight boxer, she couldn’t seem to make herself stop. Not when her brain was screaming, after everything he put me through! After tricking me all those years ago! After ruining any chance I had at happiness, now he has the audacity to try to…to try to kill me?

She wanted to scratch his eyes out, rip his heart out! She wanted to scream and scream and—

Two strong arms wrapped around her from behind, bodily lifting her away from Blake’s folded form. She struggled against the embrace, her blood boiling through her veins like molten lava, her reasoning and restraint burned down to ashes from the roiling inferno of her heartache and fury.

“How could you?” she wailed at Blake even as she tried to wrestle out of the human vice clamping her arms against her sides. “After everything! How could you?”

“Stop this, Eve!” she heard her father command. And there was a time she’d have followed his order without a second thought. A time she’d have wilted like a lily to be yelled at in such a way. But, boy, oh boy, was that time ever gone.

Briefly she registered the shift in paradigm, but she barely paid it a fleeting thought. Because, suddenly, all the years of manipulation, all the times her father had disregarded her wants and needs in order to forward his own desires, all the pushing and prodding and wheedling flashed through her overheated head like a slideshow projector set on overdrive, and she turned on him with a snarl. By the way he stumbled back, his hand jumping to his throat, she knew the bitterness she felt in her heart blazed clear and bright in her eyes despite the fact that her hair hung in front of her face.

“Shut up!” she shrieked at him, blowing like the time she’d run the Chicago marathon in just over four hours. “This is your fault, too! You pushed me at him!” She jerked her chin toward Blake who was staggering back against the wall, still cupping his ruined nose in his hand as dark red blood seeped between his fingers. “You wouldn’t stop badgering me until I agreed to go out with him!”

“You’ve gone f-fucking cr-crazy!” Blake wailed, blinking against the tears pouring from his eyes.

Something inside Eve, something she’d never known existed, something feral and bloodthirsty smiled at the carnage she’d created. She opened her mouth to scream at him that the jig was up. That no amount of blustering or deflection was going to save him now. But then she heard Billy growl behind her, and she realized he was the one who’d yanked her away from Blake. He was the one who’d kept her from beating her ex-husband to a bloody pulp…er…bloodier pulp. And she didn’t know whether she should thank him for the effort or give him a taste of what she’d just given Blake.

But when he snarled, “You better watch your mouth, asshole. Because in case you can’t see through all your tears, Eve really wants off the leash here. And, rest assured, the only thing standing between you and a ripped out throat is the fact that I’m holding that leash,” she realized she didn’t want to thank him or feed him a fist sandwich at all. What she wanted was to turn around and kiss him. Kiss him for the strength in the hard grip he had on her, kiss him for the strength in the words he’d just spoken. Because that was something she’d never had before. A man’s strength to add to her own. A man to have her back.

In this case, literally.

And it was that strength, the knowledge that even after everything he still had her back, that allowed all the savagery and hysteria, all the mindless fight that’d overtaken her reason, to drain from her body like a river drains into the sea. One minute, she was completely out of control. The next, she was as calm as calm can be. Well, as calm as anyone could be when coming face-to-face with an ex-husband who’d attempted to murder her in cold blood not once, but four times …

Billy must’ve felt the sudden change in her, because he slowly loosened his grip.

No, she wanted to say. Don’t let go of me. I need you to—

And maybe he could read minds, or maybe he could just read her, because in the next instant he stepped up beside her, lacing their fingers together so they could confront Blake as a unit.

Sweet Lord in heaven. Okay, and she was officially on the emotional roller coaster from hell, because now she felt like crying. Her lip quivered in warning.

“You got this, sweetheart.” Billy squeezed her hand, his big palm so warm and reassuring against hers. “Go ahead.” He jerked his chin toward Blake. “Let him have it.”

Eve glanced up at him, into his wonderful face—the best face on the whole planet; her favorite face—and what she saw was one-hundred-percent, no-holds-barred, Whatever happens, I’m right here with you shining in his dark, diamond-bright eyes.

Yes, I’ve got this, she thought, her stomach quivering with gratitude. With you by my side, I’ve got everything.

Pushing her hair out of her face, she turned to throw down the gauntlet in front of the man who’d been the one to orchestrate so much of the sorrow she’d suffered over last dozen years. The man who, for some reason she couldn’t begin to fathom, was trying to kill her…

Dragging in a deep, fortifying breath, she glanced around the foyer and noted Mac and Delilah were standing quietly off to the side. Mac was watching the proceedings with his usual stoicism, face blank, arms crossed, gaze narrowed ever-so-slightly. Delilah, on the other hand, wasn’t so good at hiding her feelings. If Eve wasn’t mistaken, that was unfettered glee she saw in the woman’s eyes as she watched Blake use the hem of his shirt in an attempt to stymie the river of red that continued to sluggishly leak from his broken nose.

And, yes, she should probably be embarrassed that they’d witnessed her losing her…erm…S- H-I-T. as Billy would say—although he’d never spell it out, silently or otherwise. But instead, she was bolstered by the knowledge that she could put two more check marks on her mental scoreboard under the heading: Folks Who are on My Side.

On the other hand, there was her father…

When she turned her gaze to him, the look on his face had her lungs seizing in her chest and her heart skipping one horrid beat. No support there. Huh-uh. In fact, it was just the opposite. In a word, her father’s expression was one of…disgust.

Billy squeezed her hand again, and she shook her head, blowing out a resigned breath, because that was it. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. She’d tried for so long to gain her father’s approval. And to have him look at her like he was looking at her right now was just too much. She was done. Done caring.

Your loss, Dad, she thought savagely before turning away from him, from his frown of displeasure, and from any hope that they’d ever share the kind of love and understanding she’d always craved. Sucking in another deep breath, taking comfort in the smell of soap and soft leather that clung to Billy in a soothing cloud, she focused her mind and her gaze on Blake.

It was time to face the music. For both of them…

“Why did you try to have me killed?” she asked, surprised and gratified when her voice came out as steady as the Rock of Gibraltar. Not one ounce of the betrayal she was feeling was evident in her tone. And perhaps it was the feel of Billy standing so tall and strong beside her—a real-life knight in shining biker books—or maybe she’d finally grown that set of brass ladyballs, but in that instant she knew there was nothing Blake could say to hurt her, nothing he could do to make her back away from the truth, however unsavory that truth might be.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he insisted, his words garbled and nasally as he pinched the end of his nose, tilting his head back.