Free Scarred (Lost Series Book 2) by LeTeisha Newton Page A

happen.
    “You wanted me?”
    “Tell me about Derrick Reese.”
    I found out more of him in her reaction than I thought. I finally looked at her. She wore her fear on her sleeve, her eyes going wide and her breath hitching. She gripped the back of the chair in front of my desk until her knuckles were white and then bit her lip.
    “Why do you want to know now?”
    I didn’t answer her, just turned the picture and the note I was given around so she could see. She picked up the picture with trembling hands, but she only looked at the note long enough to read it before looking back at me.
    “Derrick Reese is the illegitimate son of Senator Connor Reese of New Hampshire. To keep him from going to the press and messing up the Senator’s campaign for president, Derrick is kept in money and out of trouble. His mother is some diplomat from overseas. I never got a chance to meet her.”
    A senator’s son. I wouldn’t be able to kill him outright, then.
    “How rich are we talking?”
    “His mother is an heiress, so he already came from money. His father mostly keeps him with ready cash and carte blanche with most of his run-ins with the law. You saw some of what he could do when he put me in the hospital.”
    Yeah, and I should have asked these questions sooner. I hadn’t cared then, but I cared quite a bit now. Not that I gave a shit of how he twisted her up, what I wanted to know was from how many directions could he challenge me.
    “Does he have protection? Connections?”
    River shook her head. “I don’t know. He kept me out of a lot. That’s why I was always so careful with new people or trying to get close to anyone. He could have them on his payroll and I’d never know. I do know he has some cops and judges in his pockets. The few times I tried to press charges, everything fell through quickly, if they even filed any paperwork. He’s untouchable.”
    “No man is untouchable, River. Remember that. This changes things.”
    “Why?”
    “It’s enough that I’ve told you that. Let me worry about the rest.”
    “This is my life, Ethan.”
    “And it now belongs to me. I protect what’s mine.”
    “This was about me killing him. That’s why I came to you. It’s why I’m here.” She threw her hands up in the air, letting out a frustrated sound.
    “Let me do this.”
    “It’s not your choice to make.”
    “We had a deal! I give you everything I am and you give me him. That’s what we agreed on.”
    “You will still be mine long after he’s dead. What does it matter who kills him?”
    “It matters to me.”
    I could see that, but it wasn’t happening. I wasn’t letting River within a mile of this man unless it was at my side, with him at my feet, taking his last breath from my hand. He came to me , not to her, with his little fucking message. He knew who the real threat was.
    And I just ignored the fact that imagining her in danger twisted me up. It wasn’t real, any more than this farce of a relationship we were in, but it was enough for us. It would have to be.
    “Get Pavel in here to work me out. I can practice night and day until I’m ready. He knows where I am now. It’s only a matter of time before he makes his move.”
    Everything she was saying was true, but it didn’t matter. None of it mattered except what I said would happen. I needed to make sure River understood that, in the best way possible.
    “And you think you will be ready to kill him after a few lessons, is that it?” I stood up and circled around the desk. River froze, but she was on to me too late. She wouldn’t give away.
    “Ethan.”
    “I asked you a question.”
    “If you’d teach me some more, I would be. It can’t be that hard to kill someone who isn’t trained to fight like that. He hides behind whoever he pays. I never could fight back before, now I can.”
    “How long does it take to choke out a man?”
    “What?”
    “How long do you think it would take to strangle someone to death?” I was close to her,