“Yes, it is my business what you do with it. Do you think this bullshit doesn’t affect him? I’m warning you, Veronica...”
She scoffed. “And what do you think you’re going to do about it? I think we’ve already established the answer to that is nothing.”
My fists clenched. I was two seconds from coming unglued. From blowing this flimsy understanding between us, every detail in her benefit, twisted in her favor.
Except for one—the one that mattered most.
“You took it too far this time, Veronica.” The words grated, rough in my throat with the threat.
Defiantly, she took a step forward, lifting on her toes to get in my face. “You did this to me.” She drove her index finger into my chest. Tiny daggers of guilt speared me with every jab. “Now you get to play by my rules.”
“He’s not a game. He’s my life.” God, she had me tied. Backed in a corner I didn’t know if I’d ever escape.
“Then you know what you need to do to keep him that way.” Her words rang with a threat, the bitch tightening that noose a little tighter, constricting air and life and the reason for my being.
The words were grit. “Where’s Liam?”
She lifted a defiant chin. “Not here.”
I could feel this insanity wanting to crawl out, this protectiveness that would send me right over the edge. “Where?”
“A friend’s.” Her answer was flippant. Inconsequential.
She had to be kidding me.
Fury stormed through my veins. Darkness. Hate. My laughter was bitter. “I’m finished letting you get away with this shit. I bought that house so he’d be safe. So you’d be safe.”
She snaked her hand out, gripping my shirt, her body pressed to mine. “Then maybe you should come inside and remind me just how much you want me safe. Remind me how much you care about me. I know you miss me. Tell me I’m still your favorite secret.”
I curled my hand around her wrist and pried her fingers free. “Not ever again.”
She laughed a mocking sound and then yanked her arm out of my hold. “We’ll see.”
I stepped back before I did something I couldn’t take back. “Next time I come by, he’d better be here.”
I started backing down the grungy hall. Shouted voices echoed from behind doors in the middle of the night, this shitty side of town alive and well with its sleazy, debased offerings.
Anger struck every nerve, my muscles going rigid and tight.
Looking like sex and trash, Veronica slouched back against the middle of the doorframe, wearing nothing but a camisole and underwear, a smirk on her face. “Don’t pretend like I don’t know why you really come around.”
I pointed at her, hating the way my voice shook. “Next time, Veronica. Next time.”
Chapter Four
Zee
A streetlamp flickered above just as I froze when I heard the scream echo through the dense night air.
A plea for mercy.
A call for help.
Adrenaline thundered through my veins, mixing like poison where it gathered with the rage still simmering from the confrontation with Veronica.
It was an overwhelming feeling that gripped me everywhere, spurring me forward. It didn’t matter that I was supposed to lay low. That I was supposed to do my best to remain unseen so the paps wouldn’t go digging through my life.
I should make a call and walk on, mind my own business, but there was no fucking way I could ignore the desperate cry that rang from the alley and poured into the street.
There was no caution in my steps when I started running between two run-down apartment buildings, cutting behind a dumpster as I rushed for the alley.
My heart roared in my ears, and I swore I felt myself trip over some invisible line when I saw the fucker who had a woman tacked against a graffitied wall. Cries tumbled incoherently from her mouth, the girl begging and flailing helplessly.
The bastard had her wrists pinned above her head with one hand while he fought to get the other up her shirt.
Anger propelled me, and I rushed their direction without a single consideration of the consequences except for setting her free. I lunged. The asshole was so wrapped up in defiling her that he didn’t even notice me until my shoulder rammed into his side.
He flew through the air.
The girl screamed a sound that landed somewhere in the realm of shock and relief while the piece of shit cursed when he slammed into the pitted, cracked asphalt, pooled with dirty drain water and littered with debris.
I dove for him again, straddling the pussy at the waist, pinning him down. “You piece of shit,” I gritted as the rage I’d held back on Veronica came unleashed.
“Asshole…you’re gonna wish you hadn’t done that.” He spat in my face, struggling to break free.
He was wrong.
Because I felt zero regret when I rammed my fist into his face. He returned the blow, pain shattering through the right side of my jaw, but I shook it off as I felt something inside me come unhinged.
I retaliated. Not for me. For her. Fist after fist. Crack after crack. Again and again.
Flesh against flesh and bone against bone.
He moaned, his fight weakening with each hit. I didn’t stop until his head fully slumped back to the ground and his body went limp.
Struggling for a breath, I pushed myself off him, my eyes wide as I looked at him lying there. My lungs were so goddamned tight, nearly bursting with rage.
Adrenaline pumped too hard and too fast.
Blinding.
I looked at the piece of shit tossed out like a nasty, wasted pile on the ground.
Fury urged the twisted part of me to go back and finish the job. End him. The other part of me was drawn to the girl weeping where she’d slid to the filthy ground and curled into a ball.
My heart stampeded, a thunder that pounded at my ribs and incited chaos inside me I was sure I’d never felt before.
Carefully, I stood, my nerve-endings frayed, spikes of electricity prickling across the surface of my skin like tiny, powerful prods. I edged her direction, both terrified and compelled, somehow knowing this girl needed me.
Blonde hair was stuck to her tear-stained face and blood streaked from the corner of her mouth. She was rocking, and whimpers, which she tried to subdue, were sliding from her lips. When she peeked over at me, she had these eyes that lit up like the whitest flame against the darkness that threatened to consume her.
My chest tightened. I took another step.
My hand was shaking like a bitch when I reached out. She flinched when I set it on her arm.
“It’s okay,” I whispered. “It’s okay. He’s not going to hurt you. Not ever again. I won’t let him hurt you.”
She cried harder at my promise. The gut-wrenching sound somehow ached with relief. I dropped to the ground, and she let me pull her onto my lap. A relieved breath escaped me, because there was no avoiding the impulse I had to wrap her up. Hold her. Protect her.
Because this girl?
She felt light.
Too light.
Too soft and too good and too pure.
Out of place in this pit of misery.