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I accomplished it, too.
Only, there wasn’t supposed to be anybody in the room when I did it.
There was just supposed to be me.
Not Kristoff, the man that had made a few months of my life in my young teenage years a living nightmare.
“Let me in, Saylor,” Lock ordered.
I twisted the lock on the door unconsciously, and Kristoff’s left eye twitched.
The hand holding the gun pointed at me? That didn’t twitch.
“We need to talk about this like two adults…” Lock trailed off when he caught sight of Kristoff.
His hand went automatically to his back, where he usually kept his pistol when he wasn’t on duty, but it wasn’t there.
It was actually beside the bed behind Kristoff.
I could see it on the nightstand next to the wedding ring bag he’d been carrying around with him all day yesterday.
I could practically read the loathing coming off of Lock’s body as he chastised himself for his lack of preparation.
“Get in here and close the door,” he ordered. “Sit down on the bed.”
We both sat, sadly, on the opposite side of the bed from Lock’s gun.
“Long time no see,” Lock said, eyes narrowing.
I frowned.
“Yeah, it’s been a while since you beat the shit out of me for no reason, huh?” he asked. “All because your uptight sister thought it would be a great idea to lie and tell you that I tried to force her to have sex with me.”
So, this was Ares’ Kristoff, too?
What were the freakin’ odds?
“Lie?” Lock said. “I highly doubt it.”
“I didn’t try to force her.” He seemed as if he was getting agitated, wanting Lock to understand. “But this isn’t about that. This is about her.”
He emphasized the ‘her’ by pointing the gun at my face.
I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach.
Lock tensed beside me.
And then I realized what he was doing.
He was trying to keep the gun trained on him.
That was why he did what he did next.
“This isn’t about you almost raping my sister?” Lock drawled, sounding calm and collected, but his body language saying anything but.
Kristoff dropped his gun slightly, now aiming it around my lower extremities, and not my face.
“Yes,” he said. “This is about her, and her ruining my life.”
He punctuated that by jabbing the gun in my direction.
“Ruining your life?” Lock asked. “How is that?”
Kristoff reached his free hand up to tug at his ear.
“I was happy in Longview. Then she showed up. Even Kilgore is too close,” he snarled.
I blinked.
I hadn’t even known he was in Texas!
I felt sick to my stomach.
“All you had to do was leave,” he said. “I would’ve left it alone.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t.
Lock pricked at his temper, though, trying to keep the focus on himself.
I didn’t like it…but I knew that I wouldn’t like it even more if I had a gunshot wound in my face.
“A town doesn’t belong to anybody,” he said. “The Longview/ Kilgore area is more than big enough to house two people. Obviously since I was able to deal with having your stupid ass in the city all this time, you could’ve dealt with whatever imaginary beef that you have with Saylor.”
“Imaginary?” Kristoff laughed. “What I feel isn’t imaginary! She pushed me away, got me kicked out when I needed someone the most!”
I blinked at his anger.
“So, you thought it was okay to cut yourself and do fucked up shit in front of an impressionable kid, and it was okay?” Lock asked, sounding just as incredulous as I felt.
“Yes!” he said. “It was a cry for help!”
“It might’ve been,” Lock agreed. “But you put his kid in jeopardy. He’s always going to choose his own kid.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Kristoff sneered. “I was dropped like a goddam rock the moment she opened her mouth.”
Lock tensed on the bed.
He reached out and struck me across the face, startling both of us.
Pain exploded on my face, and the orange juice that I’d just consumed threatened to come back up.
Lock cursed and went to stand, but Kristoff turned the gun toward him, telling him without words that he wanted him to stay put.
“I was finally healing. Finally getting my life back on track,” Kristoff hissed. “Then there you are, selling fucking cakes and shopping in my grocery store, acting like you don’t fucking care that you ruined my life.”
God.
I’d had no idea.
How could I?
“Tad was supposed to push you away. Date you. Piss you off. Make you uncomfortable. Make you leave.” Kristoff growled. “Get you out of my city.”
I didn’t say a word, and neither did Lock.
“I sabotaged every single interview you had…making sure that you couldn’t stay.” He narrowed his eyes at Lock. “Then he went and found you a job with his mother and I couldn’t. Get. You. To. Leave.”
He kept right on going.
“So, I thought, maybe if I do this shit to her dad, she’ll go home. Get worried about him.” He banged on the door with his fist. “But no, he doesn’t tell you a single word of it. And YOU’RE STILL THERE!”
