A needle of fear pricks my bubble of bravado, piercing it. For a moment, what was and what is collide, leaving me confused and frantic. I inhale sharply, my body mobilizing its fight-or-flight response as Calvin comes at me with an ear-splitting roar.
His aggression drowns out the loud clap of the front door flying open and ripping the hinges out of the frame. It doesn’t, however, drown out the image of Rogan racing toward Calvin like an avenging angel, come to save me.
At the last second, Rogan’s feet leave the floor. He’s airborne for only a few seconds before he comes down on Calvin like a two-hundred-twenty-pound hammer, driving his elbow into the top of his head. Calvin weaves and wobbles, dazed, before he stumbles back into me. I move to my right, barely escaping his falling weight, as Rogan comes after him again.
Kneeling, one knee on Calvin’s chest, the other on the floor, Rogan smashes his fist into my monstrous ex’s face in four punches of blurring speed. When he pauses, Calvin is oozing blood from his nose, mouth and the corner of one eye, and mumbling something about his daddy.
“I’m not thinking about your daddy. And neither should you. You should be listening to what I’m telling you right now, because I won’t say it again. If you ever, ever come near her again, I’ll kill you. I. Will. End you. I’ll break your neck, throw your body into a river and disappear before anyone can find me. And if you think I’m kidding, just ask your shithole of a father about me.”
Calvin rests on my floor, his head rocking back and forth as he drools blood onto his cheeks. Rogan stands to his feet, spitting on Calvin before turning to me. His expression is fiercer than anything I’ve ever seen. It softens the instant his eyes meet mine, though.
He doesn’t touch me, doesn’t come near me. I’m not sure I even want him to. I just want to stand here, in his presence, and take him in. Bask in his being, in the knowledge that he came for me. That he saved me. Again.
“You’re safe now,” he declares quietly.
I don’t know what to say. My tongue seems to be frozen to the roof of my mouth.
Behind him, I see Calvin stumbling to his feet. I gasp and Rogan jerks around, grabbing a handful of hair from the top of Calvin’s head and pulling down until my ex’s face meets the upswing of Rogan’s knee. With a nauseating crunch, Calvin drops lifelessly onto the floor again.
Barely breathing hard, Rogan straightens, turning his head just enough that I can see his profile. “I’ll be back after I take care of the trash,” he says quietly.
He bends, tossing Calvin over his shoulder and walking slowly toward the door. He pauses in the opening, like he might turn to face me, maybe to say something, but then he changes his mind. I just stand here, numb and stunned, until he starts to move again. That jars me into action.
“Rogan, wait!”
He stops and turns toward me, his eyes eating me up as I close the distance between us. He looks relieved.
“The Senator . . . he was blackmailing me. He said if I didn’t publicly date Calvin so that you would fight, he’d tell your secret. Kurt’s secret.”
He says nothing at first. Just watches me. “You know.”
I nod. “Yes.”
“Katie, I’m so sorry. I would never choose those snakes over you. If he hadn’t held that over my head . . . over my brother’s head . . . I swear to God, I’d have walked away and never looked back. For you. For you, I’d walk away from the world if it’s what you wanted me to do.”
My pounding heart soars.
As though Calvin is nothing more than the trash Rogan referred to, he drops him unceremoniously onto the floor and steps closer to me. His emerald eyes stare unflinchingly down into my face. “I’d rather die than watch you date Calvin Sims. I’m tough as hell and I’ve survived a lot in my life, but I wouldn’t be tough enough to survive that. I couldn’t stand it. I just . . . I couldn’t.”
His voice is raw with emotion and I feel belated tears well in my eyes.