7 Kimmy #2
Ronan's toothy smile dropped. He stepped forward, pressed his hand against my shoulder, and pushed me to the wall. I had no time to react. My newly obtained self-defense knowledge failed me.
He leaned in and hissed out, "We were clear about the terms, weren't we? You keep to yourself. Don't show up at events like this." He took one more step, his jacket brushed against my dress, and my stomach churned. "Or did you forget?"
"I'm working tonight," I said flatly, trying to keep calm. "If I knew you'd be here, I wouldn't have come. So just deal with it for one evening, okay?"
He shook his head and made a tsking sound. "That's not going to work, Kimmy." He reached out, aiming for my strand of hair. I jerked my head to the side, and his hand just grazed my cheek.
"Don't touch me," I hissed.
"That's not what you said when I fucked that tight little cunt of yours, sweetheart," he said as he stared at me for a long, dark second.
My stomach entered full riot mode from disgust and nausea.
"What? Cat's got your tongue, baby?" he added with a flash of a fake smile before his voice returned to its nasty growl. "You should have stayed home."
The man in the suit—the one who'd dragged me here—remained at his side. I was boxed in, with nowhere to move but forward or into the wall. And last I checked people couldn't walk through brick and wood.
"You better listen if you want to keep living your quiet little life," Ronan went on, making another attempt to grab my hair.
I wanted to spit in his face. Instead, I raised my hand, palm open, and knocked his fingers away.
He blinked, clearly stunned. Then he grabbed my chin with force that bordered on harm. My mouth fell open from the pressure. Instinctively, I clawed at his wrist with both hands trying to wrestle his fingers away from me.
"You weren't this interesting when we banged you." He laughed like a maniac.
The world narrowed to just his grip, his insult, and the sound of my shallow breath. I counted the seconds. One, two, three…
A sound came from around the corner. The squeak of wheels.
I couldn't physically turn my head, but from the corner of my eye, I saw a member of staff in all black, heavy duty boots, head slightly down, eyes shaded by messy hair, and chin covered by a trimmed beard.
He pushed a utility cart loaded with empty glasses and linen napkins.
He moved just fast enough to be inconvenient.
He came right up to us, didn't even slow down. The cart must have clipped Ronan because he swore and let go of my face.
At first, I thought I imagined it—the man giving me a tiny, almost invisible nod.
To Ronan, he said, "Sorry, sir." His voice wasn't even a little bit apologetic. He started to move the cart, suddenly patting Ronan's pants as if to remove some invisible mess he'd left, but Ronan's sidekick in a suit put a hand on the handle of the cart and said something.
I bolted.
My breath came in ragged bursts, every cell of me set to run-or-die. The laughter and music came back like a slap as I entered the main ballroom, and for a moment, I was just another girl in a cocktail dress, tripping on her own shoes. Nothing more, nothing less.
For a few frantic heartbeats, I didn't move at all.
I was trying to process what had just happened in the hallway.
The ballroom vibrated around me—voices rising and falling, clinking glasses, drunken laughter. I tried to blend into the crowd, but my legs were locked up and my skin felt too tight where Ronan had grabbed me earlier.
The urge to wash his touch off was so strong, my entire body pulsated.
I stood behind a group of women dissecting the scene like it was a fashion show. I counted things and breathed through my nose before grabbing a flute from the passing waiter.
Then Ronan's face appeared in the crowd again, and I felt a wave of panic washing over me again.
I turned, searched for the entrance, determined to leave. Coming here was a mistake. Geneva shouldn't have insisted.
And then something else happened. The police officers entered the room and scattered through the crowd. One of them called out Ronan's name.
I spun in the direction of where he stood with his companion. His face twisted.
Things developed too fast from here on.
The police had Ronan's wrists behind his back, pinning him like a trussed bird. They pushed him toward the exit, and the guests parted in a slow wave, some craning for photos, others hiding behind their drinks. One of the officers read charges aloud.
"Mr. Wick, you are under arrest for embezzlement, fund misappropriation, and tax evasion—"
The words didn't make sense at first. They didn't fit the man I knew. Or maybe they fit him perfectly, just not the version that lived in my nightmares.
It hit me then. This wasn't a coincidence. This was my doing. This was the ruin I paid for.
And I actually got to witness it.
I watched his face as the charges rolled over him. I didn't know what to expect—pleasure or relief. The game was well played.
Someone touched my arm. I flinched and glanced over my shoulder.
It was Amanda, the woman from Castell Funding, her eyes wide and bright with gossip. "Did you see that?" she asked in a half whisper. "He was just—God, that was brutal." She looked closer at me. "Are you okay?"
No. Yes. I had no idea. My mouth said, "Just a little shocked they arrested him at a public event like this."
"Someone must have pulled some strings," Amanda supplied matter-of-factly.
She was gone before I could reply. I drifted to the side of the room, letting the crowd build up a buffer. I touched my chin where Ronan's fingers had left a phantom bruise. It didn't hurt anymore. The pain had migrated, all of it, to some deeper place I couldn't name.
For a minute, I just stood there, scrutinizing the last flashbulbs of the disaster fade out. And even though I didn't feel much, the world itself grew strangely peaceful, as if every problem I'd ever had had just gotten up and walked out of the room in handcuffs.