“You’re going to need surgery for this one,” Sid said with a sigh.
Daniel’s eyes narrowed at me.“You see what your new bitch guard did to me?I want her dead, Darren.I’ve had enough of the female disrespect in this house.”
Ignoring his comment, I stormed over to him and slammed my fist under his chin in a brutal uppercut, knocking him right off the medical bench and onto the floor.
Sid backed away clumsily, bloody gauze and medical equipment flying into the air as I marched past him for my target.
“What the fuck, Darren!”Daniel shouted as he attempted to scramble up from the floor.
My foot stomped down hard onto his chest, pinning him in place while he grunted and groaned in pain.Leaning down, I put all of my weight onto my foot and pulled Jaden’s knife out from inside my suit jacket.Flipping it open, I buried the blade deep into his shoulder, his growl of pain barely making a dent in my thirst for blood.
But it was a start.
“Did you touch my wife?”
“What?!Get the fuck off me!”he spat angrily.
“Did.You.Touch.My.Wife?”
“Fuck youandyour stupid whore of a wife!She deserves worse!”
Seeing nothing but red, I twisted the knife deeper into his shoulder.
“Since you’re so keen on marking up what’s mine, maybe I should have all of Katherine’s hair shaved off so she can’t try to hide her facial burns anymore and you’ll actually have to look at them,” I seethed down at him, my voice firm with venom.“Or maybe I should just kill herandyour daughter so you can start fresh with a younger, unscarred wife and get the son you’ve always wanted?Is that what you’d prefer?Or do you not like the idea of me making decisions for your family like you do mine?”
Daniel continued to struggle beneath me, his torn, bleeding hand grasping at my leg and getting his blood all over my pants.With nearly all of my weight on his chest, he could barely expand his lungs to take a single breath, and each attempt was accompanied by the sharp sting of the blade still piercing through him.
“Answer me!”I roared down at him, lifting the weight of my foot by only a centimeter.
“No,” he croaked, blood leaking from his shoulder down his neck and soaking his shirt.
“I didn’t fucking think so.Like it or not, Daniel, this ismykingdom you’re living in, and youwillrespect my reign.That includes my wife.Do you understand?”
Daniel groaned and gurgled his words as he tried to pry my weight from his chest.
“So that Russian Amazon bitch can shoot your own brother and that’s totally fine with you!There’s a fucking hole in my hand, Darren!”
“A hole that you earned for attempting to attack mypregnantwife!”I snarled in response.“You’re lucky that’s all Sloane did.”
And hewasfucking lucky.Because I was still weighing whether or not I should continue and break every bone in his fucking body.
Daniel sucked in several heavy breaths through his bloody teeth before he finally spoke again.
“I wasn’t trying to attack her?—”
“Oh, no?Then what the fuck were you going to do, huh?Shake her fucking hand?”
He groaned louder as I placed more pressure into the knife in his shoulder.“No, but maybe if you’d teach your wife some damn manners, I wouldn’t feel the need to do it myself!”
My fist instantly connected with his face, splitting his lip in half and splattering more blood across the floor.
“I don’t give a fuck what she’s done.She’s mine to discipline, not yours!”I roared down at him, trying my hardest not to completely severe his arm from his shoulder.“If you ever touch my wife again, or even look at her the wrong way, not only will you lose the entire limb, but you will be on your own, Daniel.I won’t be there to protect you from Matt anymore.”
Daniel scoffed loudly at my threat, then groaned with anguish as I ripped the knife out of his shoulder and stood back.He took in several gasps of air before his eyes turned to me with hellfire raging behind them.
“I don’t need you to protect me from Matt, Darren,” he spat.“But our family is at war.We’re supposed to show a united front!”
“You mean the war thatyoustarted?The war that cost me a once trusted friend, over a dozen allies, and tens of millions of dollars?That war?The same war that has now escalated so far out of hand that it might actually bankrupt Triguard?”I snarled at him.“Or maybe you’re also including the first war our youngest brother started?Because he too couldn’t seem to curb his own ego and think rationally before he did something stupid thatIwould have to clean up!Seems the two of you had that in common.”