Page 243 of Micah
Weapons gone.
Egos gone.
They're bruised.
Bleeding.
Breathing hard.
Scarface lifts his head when he hears my truck door shut.
The sneer he wore inside The Watering Hole is gone.
Funny how quickly courage evaporates.
I walk toward them.
Slow.
Measured.
No hurry.
The crunch of gravel beneath my boots is the only sound in the clearing.
I stop a few feet away.
“You thought this was going to end differently for you.”
Nobody answers.
“You figured you'd rough up a woman.”
My voice never rises.
“You figured you'd make an example out of her.”
Scarface looks away first.
Mistake.
“But I warned you.”
I crouch until we're eye level.
“And you didn't listen.”
Silence.
The kind that settles heavy.
The kind men remember.
“I don't give a fuck what Patrick owed you. I don't care how much money you think you lost. And I sure as hell don't care what excuse you tell yourselves for putting your hands on my woman.”
I let each sentence hang. One of them starts to whimper. Then a second one.
But I don’t feel any sympathy or pity.
