The past hour has been a blur.

The last thing I remember clearly is Tess telling me that Cari went to see James on her own. That he sent her a video of the two of them having sex. That he was going to show it to me unless she came to his office. Alone.

I remember Con grabbing the bat in my hand, trying to keep me from carrying it out the door, but I don’t remember taking it from behind the bar. I remember calling Sara and telling her that I need to get into her father’s building and asked what floor Cari’s ex worked on but I don’t remember if I told her why.

I remember parking my truck next to Cari’s car—the mixture of rage and relief I felt when I saw it—but I don’t remember the elevator ride to the 22^nd floor. I remember that I was there to beat James to death. Whether he hurt Cari or not—I was going to kill him. I remember the only thing that stopped me was seeing her face, red and welted, inches from mine. Feeling her hands on my chest.

Please take me home.

We’re in the elevator, taking the express route to the parking garage. As soon as the doors slide closed behind her, Cari moves away from me to stand on the far side of the car. I look at her, huddled against the cold steel wall, face battered. Shirt tore up the middle. Eyes red and irritated from the mace she got James in the face with.

I’m angry. So fucking angry that I’m considering shoving her out of the elevator when we get to the parking garage and taking the express back up to James office so I can do what I came here to do.

But I’m also proud of her. She doesn’t need me to protect her. She doesn’t need anyone. She fucked James up all by herself. I open my mouth to say it but what comes out is something else entirely. “It was stupid, coming here alone,” I say, the words tumbling out, hard and angry.

Across the car, she sighs, “I know,” she says, wincing a bit before pressing the tip of her finger to the corner of her mouth while her other hand clutches at her shirt to keep it closed.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I say because I can’t seem to stop being an asshole to her. I take a deep breath and try again, “If you’d come to me I could’ve—”

“Tell you what exactly?” She turns to face me, shoulders slumped against the wall of the elevator. “That my ex-boyfriend made a sex tape of us? That he manipulated the time stamp somehow to make it look like the tape was made on Saturday night. That it was Chase, I was fucking and not him?” She looks away, her gaze landing somewhere over my shoulder. “I couldn’t tell you any of that, Patrick because you never would’ve believed me.”

“What?” I say, taking a step toward her. I don’t even care. Not about the sex tape and not about the lawsuit. Not right now. Right now, all I want to do is hold her. “Why would you think—” She puts her hand up between us, her eyes narrow into a glare aimed right at me.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the money?” She presses her hand against my chest to keep me away.

“What money?” I say, the alarm bells going off in my head loosening the grip I have on the bat.

“Save it, Patrick,” she says, turning away from me to straighten herself from her slump just as the elevator gives a slight jerk. “James was all too happy to tell me everything. I know you own Gilroy’s. The term multi-millionaire was used so I can only assume that a college dive bar isn’t the only thing you own... and that was a rhetorical question.”

“Cari—”

She shoots me the kind of look a wounded animal gives you when you reach out to try and help them. Like they know damn well you have no intention of helping. That you’re just going to hurt them all over again. “I know why you didn’t tell me you had money,” she says, just as the doors slide open. I expect to be met by security or maybe the police, but there’s no one here. The parking garage is deserted. I don’t expect it to stay that way for long though. We left a hell of a mess upstairs. “But contrary to popular belief, I don’t fuck for money.”

She walks out of the elevator, leaving me feeling sucker-punched. “I don’t—”

“Tell me you don’t own Gilroy’s,” she whirls on me, face hard, her black-eye rapidly swelling shut. “Tell me that your uncle didn’t sign over everything he owned to you five months ago. Tell me you didn’t tell Sara but not me. Go ahead—tell me.”

“That’s...” I say quietly. My heart feels like it’s trying to hammer its way out of my chest. “That’s not why I didn’t tell you.”

Her face crumples a bit before she manages to smooth it out again. “Okay...” she makes this weird sound, caught somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “Okay... can we leave before the cops get here, please? My car keys are somewhere upstairs, and I’d like to go home and call my mom before the police show up to arrest me for felony assault.”

I lead her to my truck, parked a few spaces away from hers and open the door for her. “Cari.” I say her name because I know I’m supposed to say something. I should say something, but I don’t know what. She doesn’t even look at me.

“Just take me home, Patrick,” she says before sliding into my truck and shutting the door between us.