Chapter 17

Blake

He’s going to have to kill me if he wants Roxanne…

The sun slides lower against the horizon as I leisurely approach Fancy’s with an amused smile. Just last week, I was bolting here, half-crazed with love, trailed by a tenacious cameraman. It looks different in the light of day. It looks different when you’re not in the middle of an epiphany about your life.

Now there’s a peacefulness to the flat, wide building, plated in tinted glass.

I take in a deep, appreciative breath for how lucky we both are. I know not every love story ends this way. A plastic bag from Baby Steps swings around my forearm as I stroll.

I hope she’s not going to be mad.

Roxanne told me that she didn’t want to start getting baby stuff too early and be disappointed if she were to lose the baby, reminding me that the first trimester is the most likely to produce a miscarriage. But she also left me alone on this strip of shops while she went to collect her last check from Fancy’s, and there was an entire emporium of baby products right there!

It’s just a set of newborn onesies. And some burp cloths. And binkies.

I pivot and come down the walkway toward the front door. The front door has clear glass panels, and I can see a narrow foyer that spills into a dark, wide dining and bar area. I can see the back of a man standing. It’s not Rudy. He holds something small in his hand, and my brow furrows.

I wonder what’s going on. I’m a little early, probably half an hour early, but I press my palms to the front door and it swings open.

My eyes gravitate immediately to Roxanne on the floor. She’s sprawled and unconscious next to a fallen chair. It doesn’t make any goddamn sense. A web of blood splatters across her face. Thick, amber shards of glass spread in a halo around her on the carpet.

A dark-haired man in an olive suit looms over her.

My heart lurches up into my mouth, and the entire world changes. The sunshine and peace of the sidewalk behind me folds up and falls away.

I think no further. I don’t ask questions, don’t look for answers. My body becomes my brain, like an animal, and I charge at full speed across the space of the front area. I kick both feet into the air simultaneously, sending myself soaring horizontal, knowing that I’m going to land hard on my back. But I don’t give a shit. I send all two hundred and thirty pounds of muscle into his face with a double-leg dropkick, like my entire body is a blazing spear.

The man twists in the moment before impact, and the last thing I see before both feet plant into him is his dumb face.

I know this is Jared Epstein. Without knowing, I know.

The force of the impact sends the piece of shit hurtling over Fancy’s bar and slamming into its lower cabinets. It’s a shame that all those liquor bottles don’t come raining down on him, but the dropkick is enough.

A soft moan issues from the floor behind me, and I twist, stooping to examine Roxanne’s fallen body.

“Roxanne?” I whisper down to her. The plastic bag of baby stuff is still strung around my forearm–everything happened so fast–and now I let it fall to the floor. “Roxanne, tell me what’s going on. Are you okay?”

She grumbles loosely and says nothing.

I clench my jaw and right the fallen chair beside her. I can sit her up here. Let her get herself back together. I’ll check on Rudy after I restrain Jared. He’s got to be somewhere around here, either dead or unconscious.

My hands go back to her shoulders and lower back, supporting her. Her hands unfold and topple to either side. I see the brass chain—our house key—wrapped around her knuckles, and my heart brims with pure love.

A voice rises up behind me, thick with hate: “Get your goddamn hands off my wife.”

I swallow and twist to examine this supposed man from over my shoulder. His hair is askew, though the rumpled suit lets me know that he is not the type of man to willingly go askew. He must have taken quite the beating before I even got here. His face is swollen, bloody, and bruised. He looks worse than Roxanne, even though he’s still standing.

He holds a thick, frosty vodka bottle in his right hand.

Perfect. Now I’ve got to disarm him.

But my hands never slide away from Roxanne.

“Oh yeah?” I lift her gingerly in my arms and deposit her, groaning and lulling, onto the righted chair. She naturally folds herself over the top of the table.

“Meriweather,” I remind him lightly, brushing feather-light fingertips over her laceration. It’s producing a lot of blood because her forehead was sliced. I just need to see her eyes open. I need to know that she’s not concussed. “Not Epstein. Meriweather. And soon…Berringer.” I turn my focus back to Roxanne. “Baby,” I whisper to her, “can you open your eyes for me? Please?”

“Mm,” Roxanne grunts. I see her eyelids try to lift.

Behind us, the sound of shattering glass fills the air, along with the pungent, medicinal odor of hard liquor. I hear the vodka raining in a pitter patter down onto the hardwood behind the bar. Maybe Jared fell backwards into the liquor shelf.

But, more than likely, he brought the edge of that vodka bottle down onto the edge of the counter.

“Can you look at me?” I plead in a whisper, trailing my fingers through her short hair.

“Guns,” Roxanne grumbles, her eyelashes struggling apart. Behind us, I can hear Jared clambering over the bar. It creates so much noise that I know he’s close to being done. He can’t even climb over the bar gracefully anymore. “Rudy hid…”

Fingers grapple at the sleeve of my suit and tear me backward. A deep, sudden sting sinks into my side and sickens me.

I move back, away from Roxanne, Jared’s wild gaze firmly on me. I draw him away from her. He reminds me of a bull as he shuffles forward, his heavy body almost angled downward, his dogged eyes angled up.

“She’s never going to be faithful to you,” Jared warns me. His voice grates against my every nerve. I do want to kill him. If we had met years ago, before my sojourn to Mount Kita, he would be a dead man now.

I hold his gaze and steadily walk backward. I’m bleeding freely from my side, but I’m sure nothing vital was hit. I can still fight.

He’s going to have to kill me if he wants Roxanne.

“That’s the difference between you and me,” I tell him. “If she wants to leave me, she can.”

“You think she won’t.” He waves the menacing broken bottle in the air, its jagged edge already stained with my blood. “You think she won’t run.”

“I love her,” I tell him simply. “I love her when she goes. I love her when she stays.”

Jared’s face twists, becoming as ugly as a demonic visage, and he lunges at my chest with the bottle.

I block it easily with my opposing hand in a flat palm, sending the bottle into the open air beside me. Jared roars and flings the offending hand in a high backswing aimed at my throat.

I dodge by jerking my head an inch back, but his desperation has now brought the weaponized arm perfectly within my grasp, while all his body is still caught in the momentum of his initial lunge.

I plant my feet and hold perfect form. I truly wish that Master Feng could be a fly on the wall in this moment. I set and grip his right wrist. I deliver two tight uppercuts. One goes into his elbow, forcing him to drop the bottle.

The pain is getting to Jared. I can see it all through his body. He’s going to drop soon.

I plant my second uppercut into his chin to push him over the edge. And hell, it just makes me feel better.

Come on, you weak son of a bitch. Fold.

I still have my grip on his right wrist. I release him and kick into his exposed side, sending him floundering into the stage on our right.

He collapses to his hands and knees against the platform, then spills down onto the floor itself.

This is it. He hangs by a thread. This will be my finishing move.

Jared’s hand sweeps under the stage. A part of me knows what is happening, and with dream-like helplessness, I witness him draw a bloody rifle from beneath its wooden beams.

I freeze. My hands go up. To do this is obvious. My mind switches tracks to a new objective: disarm gun. Wait for the opening, but don’t even flinch until I really see it. Because I might die now.

Roxanne murmurs and groans behind us, slowly regaining her senses. I don’t dare look at her. Not right now. Not when Jared is on his last frayed nerve, armed with this weapon. I hope she doesn’t move. I hope she doesn’t lift a hair.

“If there’s one thing an Englishman understands,” Jared pants, his split lips lifting into a manic smile, “it’s the value of a firearm in a fight. Am I right?”

“Yes,” I agree placidly.

Jared’s face gleams with sweat and blood. He limps toward me, shaking his head with clear hatred jumping like fire in his dark eyes. The advantage of the firearm has clearly given him a second wind.

“We’re a lot alike, you and I,” he suggests. “Two powerful men. Doers. Not thinkers.” He nods over my shoulder and rolls his tongue across his lower lip. “Both fucking that one over there, even though we know we can do better.”

My heart surges at him even mentioning her. Calling her “that one over there,” after I have slowly stolen every chance I ever got with Roxanne because of him. She was so scared of me because of him. He reshaped the structure of her heart, adding padlocks and reinforced walls where none were before, but he references her to me as if she’s trash.

He knows she isn’t trash.

That’s why he’s here to begin with.

He saunters a foot or two further, and the barrel drifts hauntingly close to my reach. But it’s also trained directly at my face.

He still hasn’t cocked it. So, there’s that.

“Not for the deal, though, right?” he wonders conspiratorially. “For the combination of hotness and weakness, she’s a steal, isn’t she?”

Jared’s face twists again, giving me a brief window into the real Jared, as he swings the butt of the shotgun in a sudden whip. It connects with my face, and white-hot light fans out across my skull. I drop to my knees and breathe around the ringing in my ears, breathe around the white noise rumbling through me.

I should have fucking known. I got caught up in his words. I should have known that he wouldn’t be able to resist a free hit.

I take a deep breath, and the pain lowers to a simmer. It’s bearable, and I can speak again.

The first words out of my mouth are, “She’s not weak.” I have to say it. “You don’t know her.”

The cool barrel nudges into the back of my head. “Why don’t you introduce me to her, then?” Jared suggests brightly, like this is the best day of his life. “Come on, get up. Why don’t you introduce me to your pregnant fiancée, and tell me all about how it isn’t my goddamn runaway wife? Do you think that I don’t know her?” he seethes. “Get the fuck up.”

I slowly climb to my feet, hands raised, hoping that Jared will make the mistake of reaching in to drag me to my feet, losing his focus on the gun.

But he doesn’t. He knows that I am dangerous, and keeps his distance. He keeps the gun trained on me.

As we cross the bar floor, I note the clock above the door.

New patrons could enter at any moment. We have fifteen minutes. The door is unlocked, though people don’t often come this early, Roxanne said. I don’t know. It’s a variable.

“Roxanne,” Jared calls to her in a sing-song voice as we approach. “Oh, Roxanne, honey. Dew drop. Sweet pussy.”

Roxanne drags herself into an upright position immediately, blinking in alarm, and my heart aches with sympathy. She must be in so much pain, but the sound of his voice dragged her back into consciousness.

She blinks up at me with foggy, uncertain gray eyes as I pull myself down on a chair and settle obediently beside her. Then her eyes register the gun and tension runs through her body, though she says nothing. I shake my head softly, trying to keep her calm. Now is not the time to panic. We are two trained adults. He’s desperate and badly hurt. All he has left is adrenaline and this gun. Someone could walk in at any moment.

And even if no one does, she has me. I can get us out of this.

“There was this part of me that wouldn’t give up,” Jared begins, shifting the gun idly between the two of us. I see. He wants to tell a story. His demeanor morphs into something more tender and contemplative. Classic sociopathy. “Bruce from the office—you remember Bruce, Roxanne, you wanted to fuck his brains out—he told me that he saw a picture of you on his daughter’s computer. That you were on a dating show.” He says it wonderingly, like he just can’t believe the endless parade of bullshit that this is. “A dating show with this prick.” He gestures to me with the rifle, but then trains it back on her.

I want to make a move for it, because he is distracted, but it’s always trained loosely on her.

“So, I learned everything I could about that fucking show, and it took some work. I had to get creative. But I got your phone number out of them, didn’t I?”

“I didn’t care,” Roxanne insists.

I glance at her, and my eyes narrow. She’s the new Roxanne, the one that fell in love with me. The pride is in her eyes. The strength in her chin. She’s back. And she’s going to get us both killed.

“You don’t scare me,” she adds.

Amazingly, Jared lowers the gun.

“Because you still want me, deep down, Roxanne,” he explains for her, like it’s the most regular, understandable thing in the world. “You remember my cock, and you want to be on it again.” His eyes travel heavily over her body, then his eyes flick to me. “You aren’t the only one who came inside her.” His eyes turn back to her, going soulful and intent with memory. “Every night. For years.”

Roxanne is rigid beside me, her eyes fastened to his with pure hatred. “I was on the pill,” she sneers. “I was on the pill the whole time. The maid got me a prescription. Because I fucking begged her too.”

Jared’s jaw sets. She’s done it. They must have been “trying” to get pregnant, as far as Jared knew. She knows where all his landmines are buried.

But why is she infuriating him like this?

Then it hits me: she knows that he doesn’t really want to kill her, and she can distract him. She trusts me to disarm him. Without a word between us, I know we have a plan. My heart gets tight with such love for her.

Jared cocks the gun, though it is still down. “What did you just say?” His face is eerily blank.

“How could you possibly think that I would let you put a baby into that house—”

Jared’s blank face twists again and he goes to step forward, to cross in front of me and attack Roxanne, with or without firing the gun. It’s cocked, but angled at the floor. He’s not looking at me at all. He’s crossing directly in front of me. I have to take it. This is the moment.

My leg flashes out and kicks into his stepping leg. He staggers and the rifle goes off into the ground. Now someone will come. I grip the barrel of the gun quickly, before he can regain his balance, and ram the butt up into his chin. Jared flies backward and slams into the floor in a full sprawl.

Now I have the gun.

Jared’s not getting up. He groans and rolls onto his side, then goes totally limp.

A fine tremble runs all through Roxanne’s body as she climbs to her feet, using the table and the chair for support, and then clings onto my side.

“Blake,” she breathes. Her voice sounds rough. I gaze down at her face, tracked with dry blood.

“Did he—?” I can’t even bear to voice the words. Did he hurt the baby? How much hell did I miss? “Did he hurt you?”

“He only got in one shot, and it was a cheap one,” she tells me. An actual smile blossoms over her lips, and my heart swells with relief.

“You did good.” I settle the shotgun behind us and come wrap my arms around her.

“Thank you.” She buries her face against my shoulder and, for a moment, we’re just pressed together and still. My hand runs slowly up and down her back. “I love you.”

I pull away from her slightly and touch her cheek with my fingertips. “You’ve never said that before.”

“Are you serious? Never?” she wonders.

“Never.”

Her eyes hold mine, and her eyebrows draw together with intensity and sincerity. “I love you, Blake,” she repeats.

My fingertips skate down to her jaw, and her face tilts. Our lips come together and the kiss tastes of blood and sweat and war, but I don’t care. I just want to feel her. I love her, too.

“Then come home,” I plead, running my fingers over her right hand, the one with the knuckles still wrapped in the chain and my house key. “Come home.” Our fingers interlace over the chain, the key pressed between our two palms, and the kiss deepens. Our lips crack open and tongues entwine. For a few seconds, I just drown in her. I can’t even feel the pain. Then we break for air. “Come home,” I breathe against her mouth, ragged now.

A slow grin spreads over Roxanne’s lips, and she nods. “I’m coming home,” she whispers back, winding her free arm around the back of my neck and pulling me down to meet her body. Our fingers still entwine over the key, and she sighs up at the ceiling as I kiss her neck. “I’m coming home.”

Behind us, I hear a deep voice grumble its disapproval. “Who the hell just ruined my 1967 John Lee McCoy nine iron, and is he dead?”

Our lips separate, and Roxanne’s eyes move to Rudy, shuffling down the hallway and holding the back of his head.

“He might as well be,” she tells him, squeezing my hand. I squeeze it back. “He might as well be.”