Chapter 32 #3
That ownership. That entitlement. That disgusting, casual way he says it like Lexi is a stolen wallet and not a little girl with nightmares and a stuffed bunny and a laugh that sounds like the first good thing I’ve ever heard in my life.
When I speak again, there’s enough violence in my voice to strip paint. “You ever call Lexi yours like that again, I’ll cut your fucking tongue out.”
Silence.
Not long. Just long enough that I know I hit something.
Then Cal laughs again, but it’s thinner this time. Meaner. “Touch a nerve?”
“You don’t get to talk about her.”
“I made her.”
That one.
That one almost does it.
My hand flexes once around the phone, knuckles white enough to ache. I want him in front of me so badly it’s making my teeth hurt.
“She cries for me sometimes,” he says conversationally, like he’s discussing weather. “Did Raven tell you that? Little girl gets upset and starts asking for Daddy when she’s scared enough.”
That is such a filthy fucking lie I almost black out for half a second.
Not because I believe him. Because he would say it anyway.
Because he knows exactly where to aim. Because he wants me imagining Lexi crying and confused and reaching for the wrong man just so he can feel like he still has some kind of hold over them.
He doesn’t. He never fucking will again.
“She doesn’t remember you,” I say, every word sharpened to a point. “And if she did, she’d learn fear before she learned your face.”
The line goes quiet for a beat. Then his tone changes completely. The smile drops out of it. The warmth disappears. What’s left is something colder. Something more honest. “Careful,” he says softly. “You’re getting awfully attached to things that don’t belong to you.”
That almost makes me laugh.
Almost.
Because if this pathetic bastard thinks belonging is still something he gets to decide, he’s dumber than I gave him credit for.
I lower my voice. Make it mean. “She belongs to herself,” I tell him. “That little girl belongs to herself. And the only thing either of them has from me is protection.”
He scoffs. “Protection?” Then he chuckles under his breath like he’s picturing something funny. “Is that what she told you? That she needed saving?”
I don’t answer. I don’t need to.
He takes my silence as permission to keep digging. “She always did know how to make herself look soft when she wanted something,” he says. “Big eyes. Quiet voice. A couple bruises in the right light and suddenly every idiot with a hero complex starts thinking she needs rescuing.”
My vision narrows so fast and so hard I can hear my own pulse in my ears.
If he was standing in front of me right now, he’d be dead already.
Not maybe. Not eventually. Already. And I think he hears some version of that in the silence because he keeps going, voice slick and ugly with self-satisfaction.
“Let me guess,” he says. “She’s got you feeling real special too, huh? Like you’re the first man who ever made her feel safe. Like you’re different.” He laughs softly. “She’s good at that.”
I smile. Actually smile. Because he’s made a mistake.
A big one.
He thinks if he talks about her like she’s manipulative, weak, damaged, or deceitful, I’ll doubt her. He still doesn’t understand the kind of man he called.
“She never had to convince me,” I say.
The confidence in my voice must throw him because he goes quiet again.
I keep going. “She didn’t need to sell me a damn thing. I took one look at her and knew exactly what kind of man you are.”
His breath changes on the line. Subtle. Tighter.
Good. Now we’re getting somewhere.
“You don’t know me,” he says.
“No,” I agree. “I know enough.”
He lets out a short breath through his nose. “And what’s enough, exactly?”
I shift my grip on the phone and glance once toward the common room where I know Raven and Lexi are still inside this building, still safe, still breathing.
Then I answer him honestly. “Enough to know she ran from you bleeding.”
The line goes dead fucking silent. Not because the call dropped.
Because I hit the truth hard enough to split whatever mask he was wearing clean down the middle.
And when he finally speaks again, the civility is gone. What’s left is colder. Sharper. A lot more dangerous. “She’s still my wife.”
“No,” I say. “She’s the woman you’re never touching again.”
His laugh this time is all teeth. “We’ll see.”
“No,” I tell him, voice dropping lower. “You won’t.”
That lands.
I know it does because his breathing shifts again, just enough to tell me the call isn’t going the way he thought it would. Let him feel wrong-footed. Let him feel threatened. Let him understand he didn’t call some random brother who’s gonna posture and fold.
He called me. And I’ve buried less for less. Then he says the thing that seals his fate so completely I almost feel sorry for him.
Almost.
“You know what I miss most?” he says, voice turning ugly-sweet again. “Either the way she sounds right before I’d take her without asking or the way she sounds when she realizes fighting’s only gonna make it worse.”
Everything in me goes black around the edges.
There it is.
The thing he wanted to say from the start. The thing he called to say. The thing he wanted me to hear so I’d picture it.
Raven scared.
Raven cornered.
Raven under him.
Raven hurting.
And just like that, the last thin thread holding my self-control in place cinches into something colder than rage. Something cleaner. Something final.
When I speak, I don’t raise my voice. I don’t need to. Because now he gets the version of me that doesn’t bluff. “Listen to me real carefully,” I say.
The line is so quiet now I can hear the faint static behind his breathing.
“If you ever say another word about her like that, I will rip your fucking jaw off your skull.”
Nothing. Not even a breath.
I keep going. “And if you ever get close enough to make her afraid again, I won’t just kill you.” My hand tightens around the phone. “I’ll make sure every piece of you regrets surviving long enough to meet me first.”
That one lands exactly the way I want it to.
Because when Cal speaks again, the arrogance is still there, but there’s something else under it now too. Something he didn’t have at the beginning of the call. Uncertainty. “You threatening a detective?” he asks softly.
I almost laugh. “No,” I say. “I’m promising a dead man.”
The silence after that is the best part of the whole fucking conversation.
Then he says, “Tell Raven I’ll be seeing her soon.”
And before he can hang up, before he can take the last word and feel like he left this call with any kind of control at all, I cut in hard enough to stop him. “You don’t say her name.”
His breathing stalls.
Good.
“You don’t think about her. You don’t look for her. You don’t breathe in her direction. Because from this second forward, every step you take toward her is a step into your own grave.”
My voice drops lower still. Murderously calm. “And if you’re stupid enough to come for Lexi?”
That’s where I let him hear it.
Not rage. Not temper. Not emotion. Conviction. “I will turn your whole bloodline into a cautionary tale.”
For the first time since he called, Cal doesn’t have a clever answer. No smug laugh. No slick comeback. No taunt. Just one long, ugly second of silence.
Then the line goes dead.
I lower the phone slowly and stare at the black screen for half a heartbeat before I look up.
Dom’s still standing there. Watching. He doesn’t ask what was said. He doesn’t need to. He can probably read enough of it in my face already.
Because I know exactly what I look like right now. Like violence with a pulse. Like a countdown with skin. Like the kind of man people pray they never give a reason.
I tuck the phone back into my cut and roll my shoulders once, every part of me locking into place with terrifying clarity.
Then I look at Dom and say the only thing left to say. “Find him.”
And this time, I don’t mean eventually.
Now.