Carbon: Devil's Rose #8

Chapter 8: Roman Grant

I take off her helmet quickly once I park in front of the bookstore, and she lays a light kiss on my cheek. She darts into the front door, the bell banging above her head, and I make sure I have my bike keys before heading inside after her. 

Lily, her coworker, sits in the corner of the bookstore. Gabby freezes for a moment when she sees the man that's standing pretty close to Lily who is cradling herself on the floor, and I have a bad fucking feeling about this. 

I squeeze Gabby's shoulder to signal to her to take care of Lily, and I'll handle the rest. I watch the women closely but pay more attention to the man that stands above them, a smirk on his lips.

I step between the two women and the man, pushing him slightly away.

"Who the fuck are you?" I sneer at him.

"Lucas."

I hate his voice. It's like nails on a chalkboard but worse.

"What happened here, Lucas? I'm at fucking lunch and all of a sudden my girl has to race back here because her friends having a fucking panic attack. And then I see you who looks like a fucking douchebag, so please explain to me why the fuck you're here."

"Is Gabby your girl? I remember having the best times with her when she was mine."

He's Gabby's ex. Why would she ever date this fucktard? He looks like a troll and smells like one. Get a fucking shower and brush your teeth, man. What the fuck?

"Leave him alone, Lucas," Gabby speaks up, having settled Lily down.

"You gave you the right to speak?"

Oh, he didn't just say that to her. I'm going to be put in jail. It's going to be worth it.

I punch him directly in the nose and feel a rush of joy when I hear the snap underneath my touch. I grab his collar, shoving him outside the door and pressing him against the side of the building. Blood gushes out of his nose and drips onto his shirt. 

Tears gather in his eyes, and I raise my knee, slamming it into his balls. He shrieks out in pain, but I don't let him double over to cradle his dick. Instead, I slam his head against the brick of the building, letting him cry out in pain, the tears now starting to fall down his cheeks. 

I slam his head again, releasing one hand on his collar to grab a knife from my belt. A gun seems too violent. I press the tip of my knife against his stomach, choking him with my forearm.

"You ever fucking speak to her or anyone like that again, I'm going to fucking break you. I'm gonna mess you up so fucking bad, you don't even recognize you're ugly ass self in the mirror. Don't be such a fucking jackass and get some therapy, okay?"

"Shit, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Fuck, I didn't-I'm sorry."

"Stop blubbering. I'm not the one you should be apologizing to, Lucas."

I let him go, and he starts apologizing profusely. I turn to tell him off again, wanting him to apologize to Gabby, but I see her standing there in the opening of the alley. She doesn't take her eyes off me even as a bloodied Lucas apologizes to her and goes stumbling back to her car. 

I don't say anything to her, not entirely sure what I should say. I place my knife back into my hiddle holster and look down at my hand to see one of my cuts opened from my punch. She steps closer to me, examining Lucas' bright red blood on the sleeve of my shirt.

I warned her. I didn't want her to see this side of me so quickly, but no one has ever gotten everything that they wished for. I told her that I hurt people before.

"Carbon, that was the hottest thing I've ever seen in my life. Do you want to go out to dinner tonight?"

What the fuck? What in the absolute fuck?

I don't think I've understood women, but this, this is so fucking far beyond me, I don't know how to react. Huh? What in the hell is going on? 

I just beat up a man, her ex, on the side of her work in broad daylight and shoved a knife at his stomach while I practically threatened to almost send him to his grave, and she just asked me to dinner. I am beyond stunned.

"Yes, I wanna go to dinner. Did you see what happened?"

"It was amazing," is the only thing Gabby says in reply.

Alright then. I'm taking the win regardless if I actually understand it.

"You might wanna clean the blood off first. Meet at my apartment at six tonight?" she asks.

"I don't know what's happening," I confess.

"What you did was hot, Carbon. Beating him up was freaking sexy, okay? And I wanna see you tonight, and I want you to pick me up tonight for dinner. Please. That's it," she teases me with a chuckle.

"I'll see you at six. Your apartment," I assert.

"Good," she says softly with a wave and heads back inside Vellichor.

She's hot for that.

I stand in the alleyway for a moment longer, finalizing wrapping my head around what happened. It felt like a blur. Lucas was saying something shitty about Gabby, and I saw red. My whole body had a visceral reaction to him speaking about her and to her in that way. I have a level head. 

As someone who sits behind a monitor most of the time and watches what goes on through a screen, I can't let my emotions take control. No one in the field needs that. What they need is someone telling them what they don't know. But that reaction was something else entirely. I've never done something like that before.