Page 210 of Joker

“Get up,” I tell him.

He stares at me from the floor, blood running over his mouth, one eye already swelling. “Go fuck yourself.”

I kick him hard enough in the side to roll him.

He screams.

There. That’s the sound. Not power. Not control. Not cool. Just pain. Exactly where he should’ve been living this whole time.

I grab his shirt and haul him up just enough to slam him back against the broken wall.

“You say one more word about her,” I tell him, voice low enough to scrape the room raw, “and I’ll remove your teeth one at a time and make you swallow every last one.”

He laughs anyway. Blood on his lips. Insane bastard. “You love her,” he says.

Not mocking now. Realizing. The truth of it hits him in real time and I watch his face shift around the understanding. “That’s what this is.”

I don’t answer. Don’t need to.

He sees it. And because he’s exactly the kind of rotten he’s been all night, he decides to use that too. “Then you already lost,” he says hoarsely. “Because men like you always think love makes you dangerous.”

He coughs once, spits blood at my boots, and smiles. “It just makes you weak in all the places I know how to cut.”

That one almost earns him death right there. Almost. But no. Not here. Not yet.

Because I promised him something. And I keep promises.

I slam his head into the wall one more time, hard enough that his body finally goes slack. Not dead. Not for lack of wanting on my part.

Just out.

For now.

The room smells like blood and busted wood and old dust. My chest is heaving. Knuckles split. Face throbbing. Temple ringing. None of it matters.

I look down at him where he hangs half-collapsed in my grip and all I feel is disappointment that unconsciousness came before I was finished.

Logan steps into my line of sight carefully. “You done?”

I look at Cal. Then at Logan. “No.”

He nods once, like that’s exactly the answer he expected. “Then don’t finish it here.”

Fair.

This place is too random. Too temporary. Too quick. This deserves better. Worse for him. Better for me.

I let Cal’s body drop to the floor in a heap and wipe blood out of the corner of my mouth with the back of my hand.

Then I turn to the brothers at the door and say the only thing left to say. “Bring him back to the garage.”

Shadow just nods.

Cain looks entirely too pleased by the instruction.

Blaze’s brows go up and he smiles for a minute. “Bro, you didn’t even ask him why so serious?”

For a minute the tension is lifted by my dumbass brother.