Linda Drakos sat in the backseat of her Rolls while her chauffeur was inside a local convenience store.  She, too, was about to get out because she had forgotten to tell him to grab a box of Skittles.  But just as she was about to open the door, a car pulled up beside her so close that she couldn’t open the door.  When she looked up, ready to cuss his ass out, she relaxed.  And rolled her eyes.  She knew his cool-acting ass was coming for her.

Alex got out of his Ferrari, walked around to the back-passenger door of the Rolls Royce, and got in the backseat beside his ex-wife.

“Why am I not surprised?” she asked.  “You play Mister Cool around that black bitch, but Mister Angry around me.”

Alex placed his hand in Linda’s hand, which shocked her.  But then he twisted her hand so violently that she let out a shriek and dropped to her knees on the floor of her Rolls.

“Call her out her name again,” Alex said, “and I’ll twist this motherfucker off!”

Linda looked at him.  She knew him.  She knew when he wasn’t playing.  “I won’t again,” she said.  “I swear I won’t, Alexio, I swear!  Now stop.  Please!”

Alex finally released her hand, and she breathe again.  Just as she did, her chauffeur came out of the store.  When he saw that she was no longer in the car, but he saw that somebody was, he quickly went to the back door and flung it open.

When he saw who was on the backseat, even as he saw his employer on her knees on the floor, his heart dropped.  “Mr. Drakos, sir, excuse me, sir,” he said, and closed the door back.

Linda couldn’t believe it.  Her bodyguard, the man paid to protect her, just closed the door back, and stepped away from the car.

Linda sat back on the backseat, rubbing her pained hand.  Alex was leaned back, looking relaxed, although she knew that bastard wasn’t.

Alex, in fact, wasn’t even looking at her.  He was staring forward, with his legs crossed.  “You play games,” he said to her.  “You are vindictive.  You are dangerous.  And I know you will try this shit again, but at a deadlier level.  But unlike you, I don’t play games,” he said to her.

He waited, as if he was expecting a response, and then he looked at her.

“I know you don’t,” she quickly said, realizing her error.  “I know you don’t play games.”

He stared at her.  How he ever allowed this woman to trap him in a marriage, he would never know.  But he had to make sure she understood where he was truly coming from.  He wasn’t going to be in Apple Valley most of the time, or even in the country half of the time.  He had to make himself clear.  Linda was capable of anything, if she felt she could get away with it.

He leaned forward, and then leaned toward her.  “Stay away from this State,” he said to her.  “Stay away from this town.  And you had better stay away from my lady.”

Linda shook her head.  “Your lady,” she said.  Despite the predicament she was in, the gall of it still angered her.  “You just met that woman a couple months ago, if that long, and already you’re claiming her as your lady?  It took you years to claim me.  Years!  You only married me because your horny ass slipped up and got me pregnant.  And even after me, you never claimed any of those other hundreds of females.  But she’s your lady already?  That plain Jane, spook, black, nigger maid?”

Alex grabbed her chin with clenched teeth, turned her face toward his, and with a knife she didn’t know he had in his hand, and with a chilling look in his eyes, he sliced the side of her face.

Linda felt the cut, but couldn’t believe it.  She grabbed the side of her face and then looked at her hand.  It was only after she saw the blood was she able to scream out.  And she screamed.  She couldn’t believe he actually cut her.  He actually cut her beautiful face!  She screamed and she screamed.  She kicked her feet, trying to get away from him, but he held her by that bloody hand and wouldn’t let her go.  Her bodyguard even looked terrified, as he could tell something was going on in that car, even if he could barely hear her cries.  But he heard something.  But that was Alex Drakos.  He wasn’t about to get in the middle of that.

“Bastard!” Linda was screaming at Alex as the blood flowed and she kept trying to get away.  “You bastard!”

“I warned you,” Alex said.  “Now I’m warning you again.”  He looked her dead in her terrified eyes.  His look was so terrifying that she stopped all movement to listen to him.

“You stay away from my lady,” Alex said, “or I’ll give you something to scream about.”

Their eyes locked onto each other.  Then Alex reached up his hand to touch her sliced face.  She moved her face back in terror.  He smiled.  Linda couldn’t believe it.  That sadistic bastard actually smiled.  And then he grabbed a handkerchief out of his pocket, wiped her blood off of his hand, and got out of her Rolls.

He got in his own car, backed up, and sped away.

It was only after he was completely out of sight did her bodyguard get onto the backseat.  Linda was still holding her bleeding face, and crying.

“He cut me,” she said. “Your coward ass let him cut me!  You let him cut me!  Now what are you going to do about it, Jake?”

What did she expect him to do?  “Go get some Neosporin?” he asked.

She took off her high heel and angrily threw it at him.  He ducked.  “Drive you piece of shit!” she yelled.  “Drive!”

And the bodyguard hurried onto the front seat, and drove.