Prologue #5
I shifted my weight, let it drop through my hips the way I'd been taught.
Hooked my leg behind his knee, felt it buckle, and swept him off balance with one smooth pull.
He went down hard. The impact of his back hitting the pavement knocked the wind out of him with a loud oof that echoed through the night.
"Nigga, get off me!" The words came out strangled, panicked, no bass in his voice anymore as he squirmed beneath me.
I dropped down to my hunches and leaned in, brought my mouth close to his ear.
"I'm tryna save you from yourself right now, Asher. This is me being nice."
He tried to get up but I pushed him back down.
"You put your hands near her face," I said, voice dropping even lower. "That was your mistake. Everything after that? That's on you."
He thrashed harder beneath me, trying to buck me off like I was a rodeo rider and he had a chance. But I held him down with one hand, fingers digging into pressure points my grandfather showed me when I was twelve. Made him wince, made his whole body go tense with pain.
"Relax," I said, almost bored.
Then I delivered a quick, clean punch to his side. Perfectly placed just below the ribs where the liver sits. The type of shot that doesn't look like much but shuts the whole body down.
He gasped, his whole body jerking from the sudden loss of air, eyes going wide as his diaphragm forgot how to work. His mouth opened and closed like a fish on a dock, struggling to remember what breathing was.
I let out a slow exhale through my nose, not even winded. Hadn't even broken a sweat. My heart rate probably hadn't gone up five beats.
"Now stay your drunk ass right here," I muttered, still calm, still cool, as if I hadn't just turned his attempt at a fight into a masterclass in humiliation.
"Relax," I reminded him.
I switched back to French, voice steady as a metronome. "Peut-être que je ne vais pas le blesser. C'est mon lieu de travail. Mais il doit partir." Maybe I won't hurt him. This is my place of business. But he needs to leave.
"Dillion, please! You are hurting him!" Aurelia's voice cut through, cracking with desperation, hands trembling as she reached toward me. "I'll get him to leave. Just... please. This is going too far."
Asher, still struggling to catch his breath, wheezing and gasping beneath me, glared up at me with what was left of his pride. Rage and humiliation etched into every line of his face. His eyes watered from the body shot but he was trying to hold onto something, anything.
"You think you the shit 'cause you got this lil restaurant?" he spat between gasps, words slurring worse now. "'Cause your daddy and shit? You ain't shit. You ain’t earned this. You ain't hard 'cause you got them tattoos, Ratatouille."
Ratatouille.
The man just got put on his back in three seconds, couldn't breathe right, and he went with Ratatouille. I stared down at him for a long moment, letting the silence stretch out. Then I shook my head slow, almost impressed by the audacity.
"Ratatouille," I repeated. "That's what you going with? While you on the ground?"
"You heard what the fuck I said." Asher's words came out strained, but there was venom in them now. A different kind of fight as he started to stand. "Ratatouille-ass nigga, cookin’ ass with your French bullshit." He laughed, even though he could barely breathe. "But guess what?"
I felt my jaw tighten.
"All this shit you got," he continued, gaining momentum now. "This restaurant, your Michelin star dreams, your money, your reputation…all of it. You got all that but, I got the one thing you really want."
My fingers started to twitch.
"I got your bitch," he said, grinning through the pain, eyes locked on mine.
"Yeah, I see how you look at her. Everybody sees it.
How you stay up under her. How you jump whenever she calls.
How you let her crash at your place when we get into it.
" His laugh was ugly now, knowing. "You want my bitch and you can't have her.
No matter how much money you make. No matter how many languages you speak. No matter how you cook."
I felt my old self starting to seep through my pores.
"At the end of the night," he continued, voice getting stronger like he'd found his second wind, "she goes home with me. She in my bed, not yours. Never yours. You just the shoulder she cries on till I call her back. You just the friend. You always gonna be just the friend."
My breathing slowed.
"And that's killing you, ain't it?" Asher pressed, reading something in my face.
"That's why you really out here. Tell the truth. It ain’t 'cause I made a scene or put my hands near her. It’s 'cause you want what's mine and you can't have it.
'Cause at the end of the day, Ratatouille, she chose me. Not you."
"You done?" I asked, voice eerily calm.
"I'm just saying what we both—"
Before he could blink, before he could take another breath, I grabbed his wrist. My fingers dug in like I was trying to reach bone, the grip so tight I felt his pulse hammering against my palm, locked like a steel trap that had just been sprung. With one fluid motion, I twisted hard.
The snap cracked through the night, loud, wet and final. The sound of something that wasn't supposed to bend breaking in a way it couldn't come back from.
"WHAT THE FUCK!!! AHHHH!”
Asher's scream ripped through the air – raw, piercing and high. Higher than I'd ever heard a man scream. His whole body convulsed. His knees buckled and he crumpled, folding in on himself, clutching his wrist like it was the only thing keeping him conscious.
"MY WRIST, MY FUCKING WRIST! OH GOD, OH GOD!"
"DILLION!" Aurelia's voice cut through everything, with horror. "DILLION, STOP!"
Not a flicker of emotion crossed my face. My eyes stayed locked on Asher writhing on the ground, as I began assessing. Was this enough? Or did I need to do more? Did he understand yet? Did he get it?
The old me was in full control now. The one from Roena County Juvenile Detention Center. The one my grandfather tried to teach discipline. The one who'd put three boys in the hospital before I turned sixteen. The one I'd buried under French technique and Michelin star hopes and three-piece suits.
He was back and asking if we were done.
“AURELIA!! CALL THE POLICE!"
"Va à l'intérieur et attends-moi, Aurelia," I said, to her with no room for argument. Go inside and wait for me, Aurelia.
Her voice trembled, cracked down the middle. "What did you do? Dillion, what did you do?"
Couldn't look at her. Didn't want to see what was in her eyes and I didn’t want her to see the darkness in mine. "Va à l'intérieur, maintenant! Je ne veux pas que tu voies la suite." Go inside, now! I don't want you to see what happens next.
"Ducky?" she whispered, hurt in her voice like she didn’t recognize me.
"Maintenant!" The word came out like a whip crack. Now!
The finality in my tone jolted her, cut through her like a blade through butter. I'd never once raised my voice at her in seven years. Never. Not when she burned dinner at my place. Not when she wrecked my car.
She ran toward the restaurant, heels quickly clattering against the pavement in a rhythm that sounded like panic, like prey fleeing a predator.
She didn't look back once or slow down. Good girl. She knew better than to witness what came next. Knew that some things, once seen, couldn't be unseen. That some versions of people you love need to stay in the dark where they belong.
"Fuck! Fuck! Somebody help me! PLEASE!" Asher cried.
I looked down at him. Still on the ground, holding his wrist.
"You ain't learned yet," I grumbled, more to myself than to him.
Then I reached down and grabbed his other wrist. His eyes went wide. Wider. Pure terror flooding them.
"No, no, no, no, wait! I'm sorry! I'm sorry, man, I'm..."
Snap.
His scream grew louder, more frantic, more animal than human. "STOP! AYO, CHILL! PLEASE, MAN... I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY! HELP! SOMEBODY HELP ME!"
Both wrists broken and useless now. The perfect matching set.
I'd been wanting to beat Asher's ass for a long time. Since the first tear I ever saw slide down Aurelia's face because of him. Since the first time she showed up at my place at two in the morning, voice shaking, eyes red and swollen, heart broken in ways I couldn't fix.
But I was a grown man. A businessman. Someone who built a name too respected in Westonberry to let emotions pull me into dumb shit. Swinging first and thinking later? Nah. That wasn't me anymore. I'd buried that version of myself years ago. I had too much to lose.
But tonight? Tonight, that motherfucker brought his bullshit to my doorstep.
As far as I was concerned, it was self-defense.
You show up on my property drunk and belligerent, disturbing my peace, my business, my people, threatening my customers?
I had every right to put you down. Plus, he swung first. All bets are off after that.
Having him detained was easy. My family's name carried weight around here. Three generations of community ties, big donations, fundraisers with my mama smiling next to the mayor in The Westonberry Times. The Duckworths were untouchable pillars.
When Asher stumbled in drunk, loud, and reckless, half the damn restaurant saw it. Not to mention, the security cameras caught him trailing after a customer into the parking lot, looking wild, unhinged, dangerous.
And me? All they saw was a concerned business owner doing what any responsible man would do. But what the cameras didn't catch, what that one blind spot in the lot didn't see, was me finally doing what I'd wanted to do for too long.
My fists connecting with his jaw. The crunch of bone against bone. Him stumbling, me not letting up. Years of frustration, of holding back, of watching her cry, of picking up pieces I didn't break, finally boiling over into something I couldn't control. Something I didn't want to control.