Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
Lake
The proper motivation in place, and Mack’s assurances that he’ll be here as soon as possible, I glare at Nova’s sister.
“If I were you, I’d sit your ass down and shut up.”
She scoffs, but clambers down next to the asshole whose head I want to rip off.
He hurt Nova.
He put hands on her, shook her like a rag doll.
He hurt Steve.
The urge to commit murder rises again, and I exhale slowly, trying to let it go, trying to release the anger.
Knives thrown my direction.
Shrieking and shouting and weaponized tears.
Stories sold to the press.
Olivia doing—
It doesn’t matter.
All of the bad shit—through all of that bullshit, all of the dysfunction and drama and the fucking theatrics, I never once put my hands on a woman.
Fucking. Never.
The asshole opens his mouth, probably to spout off about his treatment, but I just shoot him a glare and turn toward Nova. She’s crouching next to Steve, her expression set in deep lines, the worry clear even from fifteen feet away.
I want to go to her, but I can’t.
I need to stay here, and…
Fuck. It doesn’t matter.
I just can’t go there.
But my feet start carrying me over anyway, and then I’m squatting down next to her. “Help is coming,” I say. “For Steve and to get these assholes out of here.”
She glances up at me with glimmering emerald eyes. “What do you mean?”
There’s a scuffle back by the front door, so I don’t have the chance to explain.
Mostly because my next minutes are taken up by tackling the asshole to the floor, ripping his car keys from his pocket, and then, pulse pounding, adrenaline ramping, hands fisting, desperate to plow into the asshole’s face, I shove him down to the floor.
“You can go,” I say and hold up the keys, “but you’ll be going without these.”
“Fuck you,” he snaps.
“Right back at you,” I mutter, pocketing the set before turning to Nova’s sister. “And you’re welcome to fuck off right out of here too.”
“I-I’m just trying to talk to my sister.” Her lip quivers, and I don’t buy the innocent act at all.
“That’s not happening.”
She crosses her arms, innocent falling away right on cue. Drama and bullshit coming out, as is typical of women. “You can’t tell me what to do.”
Just not all women.
Or maybe…just not Nova.
“Sure can,” I say, narrowing my eyes at her. “Especially when you’re trespassing.”
A blip of something crosses her face—guilt, calculation. But it’s gone a second later. “I don’t even know who you are,” she snaps.
“And I don’t give a fuck,” I tell her. “Brave the storm or shut the fuck up.”
“Brave it in an empty house?” she sneers.
“An empty house with heat, or a blizzard that’s going to get worse in the next hour.” I shrug. “Your choice.” Not giving her a chance to reply to that, I go to the kitchen, fill up a couple of bags of ice, and bring them to Nova.
“Coat off,” I order, carefully removing her camera, setting it on the floor.
“What?” she whispers, pausing in her gentle stroking of Steve’s forehead, skin pale, eyes damp. No drama here. Just care and concern…and a woman who’s taken more than a few hits in life.
“Butterfly,” I say more firmly. “Coat. Off.”
Her throat works. “I’m fine—”
I tug the tab of her jacket down, peel it from her arms. Then I undo the zip of her hooded sweatshirt, tug up the sleeves of her T-shirt beneath.
Then have to bite back the urge to slam my fist into her ex’s face again.
There are fingerprints on her arms, dark bruises already forming.
She winces and I release the fabric. “Ice,” I grunt, setting the bags gently over those short sleeves, knowing it probably won’t make a difference, but needing to do something.
No hysterics.
No tears—or at least none for herself.
She’s calm, but I hate the vacant look in her eyes, hate how rocked to the core she looks, hate how it reminds me of how she was when I yelled at her on the side of the road.
But she rebounded then.
She can do it now too.
“Snap out of it, butterfly,” I say. “That asshole cheated on you, remember?”
A flash of fury in deep green eyes. “Yeah,” she hisses. “I remember, considering I walked in on him balls deep in my sister.”
Good.
Fire. Rage. Not lost and hurt and scared.
“Then act like it, yeah?” I say, reaching for her hands, gently lifting them, crossing her arms over her chest and settling her palms over those bags of ice so she can hold them in place. “Instead of mooning over a shitty man and your bitch of a sister.”
Her chin juts out. “You really are an asshole, you know that, right?”
“Maybe,” I agree. “But when a woman’s mine, she’s mine. I don’t look anywhere else, I don’t want anyone else, and I will never be balls deep in a cunt that isn’t mine.”
She sucks in a breath.
But I don’t stick around to watch her face, don’t stay near her and allow myself to feel what that look in her eyes does to me. I don’t do anything but stand up, move to the door and watch out the windows for Mack and Jer.
I hear the motor of the snowmobile before I catch a glimpse of it coming up the road, the nose visible through the trees first.
Squinting, I crane my neck, relief sliding through me when I see two bodies on the back of it as Mack navigates into my driveway.
I have the door open the next instant, wanting to meet the sheriff, to brief him on the shitshow, the extra assholes I have in my house. But I’m not leaving Nova.
Or Steve.
So, I just wait for them in the doorway, impatience in every cell, fury blooming in my stomach.
Finally, they grab their shit and come up to the door.
“These have better be the best tickets of my life,” Mack calls, clomping up to my front door.
The snow has slowed, but the temperature has dropped.
Which means we’re going to be contending with an ass-ton of ice in the morning.
Now, though, we have bigger shit to deal with.
“Did Jer bring his stuff?”
Mack cocks his head to the side, but, no doubt taking in my tone, he just nods and picks up the pace. “Want to break it down for me?”
“Have a friend staying at my house. Her—”
Mack’s brows shoot up, probably because I don’t have female friends and I sure as shit don’t have female friends staying at my house, but I ignore him.
“Her,” I say again, “asshole ex decided to show up and assault her.”
“I did not!” George says, exactly like the asshole he is.
Mack barely glances at him, flashing his badge.
“I’ll be with you in a minute, sir,” he says calmly, but I know just from my one statement and the outburst from George that he’s already lost whatever little amount of patience he would have had with the other man.
Mack doesn’t tolerate violence toward anyone, but he sure as shit doesn’t tolerate it against women.
“Then he kicked her dog,” I say.
“That little shit bit me—”
“The dog is all of fifteen pounds and was determined to protect his owner,” I interject.
Mack’s jaw hardens.
I also know him well enough to understand this is the kiss of death for George.
Violence against animals is another trigger point for the local sheriff.
“That dog bit me!” George shouts, pushing to his feet, moving toward us aggressively.
“I wouldn’t,” I warn.
George puffs up his chest. “Fuck you!”
“Sit down,” Mack snaps.
“And fuck you too!” George yells at Mack.
This is the wrong move.
This makes me smile for the first time since I looked out in the back yard and saw what was happening.
Because approximately three seconds after George tells Mack to fuck off, Nova’s ex is face down on the hardwood floor, his hands cuffed behind him.
“You rang?”
My smile is wiped away when I see Jer on the threshold. The vet had a big bag in one hand, another tossed over his shoulder.
“Yeah,” I say, tilting my head toward the pile of blankets.
He starts toward Nova and Steve, glances back over his shoulder. “I get tickets too, right?”
I sigh.
“Yeah, Jer. On the glass.”