He straddled the man, raining punches on his dome. Right fist. Left fist. Over and over, on repeat. Cash was in the zone, wanting blood. This wasn’t a fight anymore, just Cash on a mission of destruction. Sweat poured off of him, biceps and knuckles screaming for a reprieve.

Reality came back. Arms wrapped around him. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t focus on anything but the broken nose and bloodied mouth in front of him.

“Cash.”

The sounds of his name pulled him out of his trance. He shook. Someone was shaking him. He didn’t want to get vertical, but someone pulled him upright. Rocco slammed him against the black Explorer. “Get your ass in gear. We gotta roll.”

Cash looked around. He’d fucking gone nuts. “Is he dead?”

“Almost, dude. Almost.”

Cash lunged forward, but slingshotted back against the Explorer, thanks to Rocco. “Chill.”

“I’m cool man. I’m good.” Cash nudged out of Rocco’s grip, rolling his shoulders.

“Walk it off. Get in the car. Nic’s in our Rover. She’ll drive you back to the house. These two fuckers—” He pointed to the KO’d dude and the none-too-fazed woman. “—will go with us in their car. Move. Now.”

Roman pushed the lady into the backseat and did a once over of Nicola, making sure she was okay. They did some brother-sister nod that made his gut twist in what could be labeled a jealous swell, but was really more a pang of nostalgia. A connection had been severed that he missed in a way that tightened his airway and clouded his judgment.

Rocco could’ve used a spatula to scoop the dude off the street, but used his hands instead, then hopped back to the driver’s seat. He pulled a U-turn, leaving Cash standing alone in the middle of Mayberry-frickin’-Avenue.

“Cash. Let’s go.” Nicola was in their Range Rover, waving him in, as cool as if it was just another day for her to man the getaway vehicle.

He snapped to attention and jumped into the SUV. God, he’d lost control in a bad way, and he didn’t need to be near that dude for a while. His white-hot temper was so far past boiling that he was surprised the guy was still breathing.

Nicola hit the gas. Their tires spun. They’d been on scene for five minutes, tops. Nicola had been gone a short while prior to the bam, bam. The whole thing had gone down in less than twenty minutes.

Stupid suburbia.

“You okay?” Nicola asked, driving past identical black mailboxes with little red flags.

“Fine.”

“Yeah, totally looked like it.”

“Back off,” he snarled and immediately hated himself. “Sorry. I flipped. I just… lost it.” No reason to go into why, though his motives were clear.

“Yeah, you did.”

They were three driveways from the safe house. “I need a minute. Keep going. I’ll kill that dude if I see him right now.” He saw the red welted handprints around her neck. “Fuck that. Turn around. I’m going to kill him.”