Page 31 of Last Man Standing

“You watching her?” Lincoln questions, then, “She’s letting you?”

“I’m not in the garage with her.” I’m just using the tech my buddy thought to leave behind before his demise. “She’s safe. I can hear her, and if some motherfucker felt like today was a good day to breach the property, I can have her in a football hold and outta Dodge in five seconds flat.”

He releases an unhappy grunt. Closes a fridge. “People die in five seconds, Jameson. That’s four and a half too long.”

“Yeah, well, I doubt she’d be thrilled if I went in there and pulled up a seat. Either you want her to expel her energy in a healthy, productive way, or you⁠—”

“If you suggest fucking might be a decent alternative, I’ll slit your damn throat.”

I choke out a barking laugh. “You’re thinking about my dick, Castro? Again?” I wrinkle my nose and look toward the shed for the two seconds, three, four, it takes for the sounds of Scarlett’s powerful strikes to start up again. “It’s weird how obsessed you are with me.”

“Jameson!”

“I was actually gonna say, either she works out, or she starts doodling on the fuckin’ walls.” I want to chuckle, but just thinking about that tiny woman climbing the walls to avoid the things that drive her anxiety makes me wanna smash something. “She’s got a problem,” I grunt. “It’s an unhealthy compulsion.”

“It’s drawing,” he scoffs. “She’s fine.”

“She needs help.”

“Drawing is the help!” he snaps. “She talked to the shrinks. She explained how she gets all wound up when she’s nervous. She used to chew her nails to the quick, and when she ran out of nail, she’d chew the skin. When her fingers bled, she’d tear at her hair, and when all that was done, she’d lie in bed and cry. All fucking day. All night. She was a mess, but now she’s a functioning member of society, so don’t come at me about how often she draws.”

Bleeding fingers?

“She’s fine,” he grits out. “When she doesn’t have some prick leaving notes on her door, and when she’s not forced to live across the hall from an asshole obsessed with his own dick, she’s actually pretty fuckin’ happy. This note was a setback. It’s another taste of the psychological bullshit Roy used to throw at her, because instead of coming at her head-on, he’s scaring her halfway across the country and doesn’t even have the courtesy to leave his name. She’s drawing more because her entire life is on its head, but once we figure this out, she’ll go back to normal.”

“I don’t⁠—”

“Your job is to keep her alive, not lecture me on her coping mechanisms. Just leave her alone, stop picking at her, stop talking about your dick, and if she starts chewing her nails, put a damn pen in her hand. That’s it. Everything else, I’ll take care of.”

Scarlett’s fist glides off the side of the bag, slippery because of her own sweat, so what should have been a deep, satisfying thud is actually a cry of frustration and her delectable body crashing against the eight-foot-tall hanging bag.

Exhausted, she wraps her arms around the leather and hugs it while her long, brown hair curls from sweat and her chest lifts and falls with every rapid exhale.

“Are you listening to me, Jameson?”

“Yeah, I heard you.” I push off my chair and study my screen for a moment more, narrowing my eyes because her back bounces in what looks suspiciously like a fucking sob.

She’s crying? Because she missed the bag?

“Tank?”

“I’m hanging up now. I’ve got shit to do, and I have no interest in being your little gossip buddy. You do you, I’ll do me. She’s safe, she’s secure, and she needs you to focus more on your mission and less on micromanaging me.”

“Tank—”

I end our call and stare down at the security feed of a woman in crisis. A woman whose brother loves her so much that he needs her to be okay. But in his quest to hear her say those words, he completely missed the part where she was lying through her teeth the whole time she spoke them.

Her ex stripped her to the fucking bone, peeling bits of her soul away for fun, and if that wasn’t bad enough, she turned back around and helped kill the motherfucker.

Even if he deserved it, even if she swears she feels no remorse, that kind of thing imprints itself on a person. Especially when that person is her.

To take a life, no matter how righteous, is to kill a small part of oneself, too.

Scarlett Castro is attending her own funeral, but she’s intent on pasting on a pretty smile and pretending she’s having a great time.

Locking my phone and cutting my view of this woman, sweaty, sexy, and primal, I slip it into my pocket and jog down the steps. I move onto snow-covered grass and follow the white clouds of my own breath. Across the yard, verge to the left. I slow at the shed door, quiet so the gap she left for fresh air doesn’t give me away. But I guess my footsteps were noisier than I intended, because she’s already back to pretending. To wiping her face and slamming a vicious roundhouse kick into the side of the bag.

I move into the shadows and take a moment for my eyes to adjust, for the scent of Scarlett’s sweat to filter all the way to the bottom of my lungs.