When Doom Found Violet novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: One Word

Doom's POV

The river path ended at a drop of ten feet into black water.

Kent had run out of path.

He stood on the last of the gravel with his back to the river and his hands out in front of him, and his bad hip had gone from under him twice.

I took my time.

"Doom," he said. "Prez. Mr. Rushton."

"Don't."

"We can work something out. I have money."

"You have a county retainer," I said. "Say that again."

He stopped talking.

I closed the last six feet and took him by the throat.

It was easy.

He weighed nothing, and he kicked.

I lifted him until his heels left the gravel, and his hands clawed at my wrist.

He made a thin, wet sound.

"You hit her," I said.

"I didn't..."

"You put your hand on her arm and pulled."

He clawed harder.

I saw it then, as I had every night since.

The Camaro crushed against my bumper, and the window, and a woman hanging by a seat belt with blood on her temple and her eyes shut.

I had thought I would never be sorry enough.

I had been wrong, because it wasn't my sorry that made her hang there.

It was this man.

He had sat in his office and typed the hour into a phone.

He had written it down for a year while she passed him potatoes.

My fingers closed.

His eyes bulged, and his lips turned a dark color.

A calm part of me waited.

It wouldn't take long.

"Doom!"

I didn't turn.

I heard her boots on the gravel, running, uneven, and her breath tearing in her chest.

"Doom, stop!"

"Go back to the lot."

"No."

"Violet."

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