“Who do you think you are?” Rob said.
“You know who I am, Rob. I’m Grant Lucas. My job, my only job, is to look after Lacey Eden. If you were the right man for her, that would be one thing, but you’re nothing more than a scumbag piece of shit.”
“Fuck you.”
“Yeah, fuck me,” I said. “I know about your plan to rip her off, too.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your little debt at the loan company. What is it? Two million and change?”
There was a look of complete shock on his face. “How do you know about that?”
“Let’s just say, I think they’re going to be pressuring you a lot harder for their money in the near future.”
“What?”
“And you better come up with a new plan to get it for them, because Lacey is off limits.”
“Lacey is my fiancée.”
“No she’s not, you piece of shit. You had your chance with her, and you blew it.”
“So what? You’re going to tell her who she can and can’t marry.”
“No. You’re going to call off the engagement, Rob. And if you don’t, I’ll make it so that your life won’t be worth living.”
The woman’s voice called out again from upstairs. “Rob, what’s going on?”
“Just a minute, Cassie,” Rob said. “It’s just some business.”
“Should I call the police?” I said.
“No,” Rob said. Then he went quiet. He looked at me. “What do you know about my debt?”
I shrugged. “What’s to know? You’ve got some addiction you’ve been financing by borrowing money from them. I don’t need to know the details.”
Rob laughed. “You think you’re real clever, don’t you, Grant. Coming in here, telling me what’s what. Forbidding me from marrying Lacey.”
He was standing next to his desk and in a single, fluid motion, his hand reached for a drawer. Instantly, I leapt toward him, but I wasn’t fast enough. He grabbed a gun, a nine-millimeter, and pulled the trigger. I was diving for him, in midair, when the bullet tore through the flesh of my left shoulder, sending me into a spasm of agony.
I landed on Rob and grabbed his gun arm before he could fire another bullet. I brought him to the floor, the gun sliding across the ground away from him. I punched him once, hard, in the face, and a second time in the gut.
“That’s for Lacey, you son of a bitch. If you ever go near her again, I’ll kill you.”
He looked up into my eyes, my blood flowing down my arm and onto him, and he knew I meant it.
“All right,” he said.
“You call her, make some excuse, and tell her the engagement is off.”
“All right,” he said again.
“And Rob?”
“Yeah.”
“If she asks if you cheated on her, don’t tell her the truth. She doesn’t deserve to hear that shit again. Not from you. She’s been through enough already.”
“All right,” he said, clearly terrified.
I don’t know if it was the punches that knocked the fear into him, or the fact that he’d pulled the trigger of his own gun and put a bullet in me, but he was scared now. I wouldn’t have any more problems from him. He didn’t strike me as the kind of man who’d ever shot someone before, and it might have been the shock of seeing how small an effect the bullet had had on me, but I knew he’d back down. When it came to Lacey, it would take a lot more than a bullet to stop me, and he could see it in my eyes.
“You’re not going to hurt me?” he said, as I climbed off him.
“Not unless you shoot me again,” I said, a small smile on my face.
“You seem to be taking the fact that I shot you pretty well,” he said as he climbed back to his feet.
“Well, Rob, the way I look at it, as much of a dirtbag as you are, I owe you.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because until you came along, I never realized just how deeply I needed Lacey. I always thought I could live my life without her. Now, thanks to you, I realize that without her, my life is nothing. So for that, I’ll always thank you, even if you are a complete prick.”
“I showed you all that?”
“You showed me that there’s no one out there who will ever come close to loving her the way I do. Not even close. I’d die for her. I’d kill for her. And that’s the kind of love she deserves.”
“So you’re going to go home and ask her out?”
I laughed. “No, Rob.” I said. “I’m not going to ask her out. I’m going to go home, and I’m going to fucking claim her. I’m going to make her mine, and she’ll never even think about a guy like you again.”
Chapter 36
Grant
FROM ROB’S PLACE, I INTENDED to ride straight home, but I was losing so much blood from the gunshot wound that I had to see a doctor. I knew I couldn’t risk showing up at a hospital, not after pulling off a robbery the same night, so I dropped by a twenty-four hour pet clinic on the edge of town and walked in.
A receptionist in a cute nurse’s outfit greeted me.