I get to the Golden Cup just a couple of minutes after closing. I’m peering through the glass of the front door to the Golden Cup, about to rap on the door so Sydney will come let me in, when I see something. Movement, in the hallway.

It’s Sydney.

And she’s kissing someone.

The powerful cocktail of rage, shock, and confusion that hits me almost knocks me flat on my ass. I fucking can’t believe what I’m seeing. Of all the things I could ever believe about Sydney, this is dead goddamn last. And yet it’s right in front of me.

My first instinct is to beat down the door, but I’m so fucking angry right now I’m pretty sure I’ll end up killing one or both of them if I do. It takes everything I’ve got in me, but I force myself to turn around and walk back down the street toward my bike.

The next few minutes are a blur. I open the throttle and speed away so fast it’s a minor miracle I don’t lay the bike down. I don’t even know where I’m going, I just know I’m trying to drive faster than the thoughts careening around in my head and it’s not working. When I run through a stoplight and almost hit a middle-aged lady on a bike, something snaps in my head and I realize I need to get off the bike before I kill someone, so I pull into the gravel parking lot of a shuttered crafts store and start pacing instead.

Sydney.

How could I have not seen this in her?

How in the fuck did I ever get in so deep with her that it’s ripping me to shreds like this? How the fuck did I let myself fall in love with her, like a goddamn idiot?

Jesus fucking Christ. I pace faster, clenching and unclenching my fists, unable to stop. I need a goddamn wall to punch. I need something to hit. To destroy.

It’s unbelievable. It’s impossible. It’s fucking impossible.

It’s…

Kind of impossible.

The seed of a doubt starts to form in my head, stopping me in my crazed tracks.

Everything in me tells me Sydney wouldn’t do this. That’s what’s fucking with my head so much. Even after seeing it, I’m still having a hard time believing it.

But I did see it. And I know what I saw.

Don’t I?

Do I?

I don’t know why the idea suddenly clicks inside my head just then. I almost can’t make myself do it, but I have to know. With an unsteady hand, I reach back and pull my cell phone out of my pocket, walking over to a shaded area to the side so I can see the screen better. I fumble through the apps until I find the ones that connect to the security cams I installed at the Golden Cup, and click on the one that shows me the front of the shop and the hallway. I slide the bar with my finger to move the video back twenty minutes, and start fast-forwarding through.

And roar with rage when I see the man throw Sydney against the wall, his hand around her throat.

The minutes it takes me to get back are the longest of my fucking life. I’m sick with fear, convinced I’m too late to stop whatever he’s about to do to her. Instead of going to the front, I fly into the alley and drop my bike in the small lot next to her car, which at least is still there. I reach into the waistband of my pants for my gun in preparation to shoot the lock off the back door, but when I get there, it’s open, propped ajar with a cinder block. I don’t assess the situation like I should, I just fling open the fucking door, and they’re not in the hallway anymore, but when I round the corner to Sydney’s office she’s there on the desk and this motherfucker is pointing a revolver at her and it’s obvious what’s about to happen.

I reach up and yank him back by the hair, throwing him down onto the floor. His finger was on the trigger so it goes off, missing me by about a foot as the bullet lodges in the ceiling. I wrench the revolver out of his grasp, ignoring the yelp of pain as I bend his wrist back violently. Then I’m down on the floor, the gun in my hand, and I’m going to kill him with it eventually but right now I just want to beat on him, so I smash the handle against his face, again and again, enjoying the crunch of his nose as it breaks and the spurt of blood and the gurgling sound as he struggles to scream and breathe.

“Gavin! No!”

At first, her voice seems far away, almost like I’m dreaming it.

“Gavin, please! Please, don’t kill him!” She’s down on the ground with me now, grabbing at my arm and trying to make me stop hitting him.

I stop what I’m doing, putting a hand around his throat in a vise-like grip and look at her uncomprehendingly.

“Please!” She’s panting, her eyes wide. “Don’t kill him!”

“Why the hell not?” I manage to say through the fog of my rage.

“I… I don’t want you to go to prison.” Her eyes fill with tears. “Please, please let him go!”

“Who is he?” I demand.

“His name is Devon,” she tells me. She’s pale, frightened. “He was the leader of the team I was on in Atlantic City.” Sydney glances at him, and then quickly away. “When I left, I didn’t tell him. I took some money that belonged to me and walked away. I thought he’d let me go, but…” She shakes her head. “Somehow he found out I was living here in Tanner Springs. He… he found my phone number, and texted me a couple of times, but I didn’t think…” A strangled sob breaks from her throat. Her hand goes to her face, and she takes a few deep breaths to calm herself. “I didn’t really think he would come for me.”

If Sydney wanted to make an argument for me not killing him, that wasn’t it.

“Please,” she whispers, as though she can read my thoughts.

I look down at the hamburgered mess of the motherfucker’s face. He’s barely struggling right now, and I think it’s because he’s having trouble breathing.

“I will kill you next time,” I tell him. “Know that. If you ever come back to this town again. If you ever come near her. Fuck, if you ever leave New Jersey. I will end you.”

His eyes are wide and terrified. I ease up slightly on his windpipe.

“Yes,” he gasps.

I stand up, and for good measure land one good kick into his abdomen with my boot. He doubles over and begins to retch. Beside me, Sydney flinches.

“Crawl your fucking ass out of here,” I spit. “If you’re not gone in ten seconds, get ready for another round.”

Impassively, I watch as he claws at the floor and drags himself through the hallway and out the back door. I kick the cinder block away and the door shuts behind him.

I come back to where Sydney is standing. She flings herself into my arms and begins to cry.

“Oh, my God,” she sobs against my chest. “Gavin, thank God! He… he was going to…”

“I know,” I murmur. “I saw what he was going to do.”

“I never thought he’d… I mean, I thought he was just trying to scare me. I thought… I don’t know… that he’d get tired of it when I didn’t respond.”

“And you never thought to tell me,” I say.

“I didn’t think it was a big deal at the time,” she sighs. “I was going to tell you, but I didn’t want you to worry about me. I just thought you’d go into over-protective mode. I was going to wait until your club business stuff was over, so you could focus on that.”

“And now, instead,” I continue, “I just have to worry about you lying to me.”

“What? Oh, come on, Gavin!” she cries, pulling back to look up at me. “I didn’t lie to you! I just…” she stops, stricken. “I just…”

“Didn’t tell me the truth,” I finish for her.

“I was going to tell you” she half-wails. “But I didn’t want you to overreact!”

“Over-fucking-react?” I yell in disbelief. “What exactly would have been overreacting about the fact that some ex-boyfriend of yours was going to try to kill you?”

“I don’t think he would have killed me,” she protests weakly. “He just… wanted…” Her voice trails off, her lip trembling. “He…”

I know exactly what he fucking wanted. The murderous rage is back, and I have to stop myself from storming out the back door and putting a bullet in his goddamn skull.

The fury is so overwhelming that it almost feels like a physical force inside me, fighting to get out.

Then, just like that, it’s gone.

“I’ve been trying to keep you safe since we met,” I say. My voice sounds flat, and kind of far away. “I thought you were worth it. I fucking cared about you.” I look at her. “And you couldn’t even be bothered to tell me this. You couldn’t be bothered to let me in enough to know where the real threats were.”

“It’s not like that at all!” she screams. “I was trying to protect you!”

“I don’t need protecting, Sydney,” I say, detaching myself from her. “What I need is to be able to trust you. Which I can’t. Not anymore.”

It feels like all the adrenaline has drained out of my body at once. Suddenly, I don’t feel anything but dead inside.

Mechanically, I walk over to the back door and open it. That motherfucker Devon is long gone.

“Get in your car,” I command.

“Gavin, I —”

“Get in your car!” I roar. “Now!”

Frightened, she goes into her office, grabs her purse, and does as she’s told. I slam the door behind both of us.

“Go home,” I tell her. “Lock the door.”

“Gavin,” she says tentatively, tears in her eyes. “Are you… coming over?”

“No.” I walk over to where I dumped my bike on the ground, and haul it upright. “We’re done, Sydney. That way, you don’t ever have to lie to me again.”

She calls my name over the sound of my bike, but I don’t turn around.

I don’t know where I’m going, but I can’t be here anymore.