His face turned red. I’d done this enough times to calculate exactly how long I had before I lost him. That was the key…take them right to the edge, and then give them a reprieve. Once they regained awareness, you pushed them right back to the breaking point, only to pull away at the last second. Over and over again. It was basically an endless cycle of giving and taking, all done by one person.
When I let go, he rolled to his side and curled into himself as best as he could, coughing and gasping for air. “Who are you?” he choked out.
“It doesn’t matter who I am. But if it’ll make you feel better, then I’ll tell you.” Once again, I shoved him onto his back and pinned him to the floor with my knee—this time, holding most of my weight off his chest. “I’m the blade of a sword, the brass tip in the chamber of a forty-five, the noose around your neck. I’m the judge…the jury…” I wrapped my fingers around his throat again. “And the motherfucking executioner.”
I had to pull away before I completely lost control—I was only hanging on by a weak and tattered thread. My hands shook and my neck flamed with intense heat. An ache settled into my jaw and set about a ringing in my ears. I’d never experienced anger like this. I was familiar with the desire to hit something or someone. But never, in all my life, had it brought me to the breaking point. The moment when I thought of nothing more than reaching inside a person’s chest and ripping out their heart with my bare hand.
His chest heaved beneath my knee as he fought to catch his breath. He lifted his head to lean forward, and against all logic, I let him. “I never forced her to do anything.”
Blinded by hate, I choked him again. “Did you come onto her when she was sixteen?” Realizing he couldn’t answer with my grip suppressing his airway, I added, “Blink once for yes, twice for no. The faster you answer my questions, the sooner you can breathe again.”
This time, before I’d stolen his oxygen, he’d taken a full inhalation. He thought he was smart, but all he did was completely expand his lungs without any way to relieve the pressure. Realizing this, he blinked his large, panicked eyes—once.
“Did you take her hand and make her touch you?” Blink. “Did you take her virginity?”
He rapidly opened and closed his eyes multiple times, as if repeating his answer. When I pulled away, he appeared to be on the verge of tears, desperately trying to ease the pain in his chest. But even that didn’t stop him from fighting back. “She never said no…” More coughs, more strangled gasps. “I swear.”
“That doesn’t make it right!”
Needing physical distance, I stood and stumbled a few steps away, my hands pressed against my temples in frustration. If I didn’t pull myself together, this kitchen would be a crime scene with evidence of my presence all over the place. And there would be no coming back from that.
“I’m not a pedophile. I know that’s what you’re thinking, but I’m not,” he argued in a borderline pleading tone. “I’ve never so much as looked at another girl her age.”
“Then why her?” I felt like I had lost my mind. This asshole didn’t deserve the right to explain his actions. I didn’t need to hear his response, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking. My chest burned beneath the tightness, and I swear my heart cracked behind my breastbone.
He stared at the ceiling, only one shoulder resting against the tile. With his hands trapped beneath him, his chest heaved with the labored exertion of breathing. “I married Lindsey when Jade was twelve.”
“I don’t give a shit about memory lane. I asked a fucking question.” The words slipped through my gritted teeth while I held my hands in fists at my sides. The muscles in my arms strained against the sleeves of my shirt.
His head rolled to the side, and his green eyes found mine. “And I’m trying to answer you.” When I didn’t interrupt, he returned his stare to the ceiling and continued. “She was shy, so to get her out of her shell, I’d joke around with her. After a while, she started playing along.”
My jaw clenched impossibly tighter.
“When she was fourteen, her laugh changed. It was no longer sweet and childlike, but more flirtatious. Then she started touching me.”
I couldn’t listen to any more.
But I couldn’t do anything to make him stop.
I was frozen—a reaction so foreign to me I was helpless to stop it.
“She’d shove me with her shoulder or playfully slap my arm. Her clothes got tighter, and the neckline on her shirts got lower. Her body was changing, and it was like she wanted me to notice. She may have been a teenager, but she was shaped like a woman.” He turned his attention to me again and added, “I’m not a pedophile. Girls don’t do it for me. But she was built like a grown woman.”
In two long strides, I stood over him with my feet on either side of his contorted body. I squatted down far enough to grab him by the front of his shirt, yanked him up so his shoulders came off the floor, and brought him closer. “You’re a sick son of a bitch. I don’t care what size bra she wore, she was a fucking kid. One you manipulated and took advantage of. You used the control you had over her as her parent, and you abused the trust she should’ve had in you. Then you knocked her up and left her to fend for herself.”
“Is that what she told you?”
I didn’t just let him go—I pushed him back to the tile and then swung at him. My fist connected with his jaw. I wanted to hit him again, but he curled his shoulder and pressed his cheek against the floor.
“I told her to have an abortion, to get rid of the baby, but she didn’t listen. If she had to fend for herself, it’s her own fault. She knew I wouldn’t be able to help her with a baby, but she chose to keep it anyway.” Then he cut his eyes to the side to look at me, and my world turned red. “If Lindsey doesn’t pull through, you better believe I’ll go after Jade and get custody of that kid.”
I was standing over him one minute, and kicking him in the ribs the next, screaming, “She’s mine, you motherfucker! You can’t have her! Aria’s mine!” The only reason I stopped was because I was physically dragged away. My arm was twisted behind me, a hand pressed against my heaving chest, restraining me.
Then I saw a pair of black boots, and it was enough to break the spell hatred had over me. I realized the position I was in, my arm locked behind me, a hand over my furiously beating heart, and my red world turned black.
“W-what are you doing here?” I stammered, unaware of how breathless I was until I tried to speak.
“Here? You mean in this house? Or in town?” Rhett didn’t play games. He never asked a question he didn’t already have the answer to, but sometimes, he’d ask something without actually seeking a response. This was one of the times I wasn’t sure which kind of question it was.
He took a step toward me, ignoring the wheezing man behind him.
“I came to town to do a li’l investigatin’ on her ma’s ol’ man. I’m here, in his house, because I found one of my men in it—unauthorized.”
I shook my head, as if I could convince him that this was all in his imagination.
“I find it interesting that you’re here an’ all, when ya told me you’d be home…on the other coast of Florida.”