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“I know that you had a play in that,” I said softly. “You think I’m completely stupid? I’m not.”
Tyson Threadgill’s brother, aka Tantor, was a dead man.
He just didn’t know it yet.
“I haven’t a clue what you’re referring to,” Tantor lied.
I felt my hands once again curl into fists, and this time I wasn’t sure that I’d care if there was a cop to witness this beat down or not.
“Go fuck yourself,” I growled, angry as hell now.
Tantor picked himself up off the ground where he’d been passed out for the last minute and smiled at me.
“I told you to follow the rules.” He brought his hand up to his jaw and stretched it out by opening and closing his mouth a few times.
He had told me to follow the rules. His rules had been very straightforward: tell your friends that it’s time to find new support.
That’d been it.
It’d literally been thirty-two hours ago. I’d been seconds away from boarding a plane as this fool had been disembarking his. We’d passed and he’d stopped me by putting his hand on my chest.
After uttering those words, he’d left me there, standing and wondering what in the hell that was supposed to mean.
And let’s not forget that I had a pair of earbuds in and I only caught what he said by sheer luck.
Some chick had been behind me and had dogged my steps all the way onto the plane, and when I’d sat down in my seat in first class, she’d sat down in the one behind me.
After calling Bayou and relaying what I’d heard from the little piece of trash and getting confirmation that we weren’t going to let him intimidate us and agreeing, I lost track of time.
When I’d woken up hours later, naked as a jaybird and lying next to a crinkled note that said, ‘Thanks for the good time,’ I’d had a minor freak out.
I hadn’t been able to control my body, and I’d laid there wondering what in the hell had happened to me.
It was only after I’d been able to get a hold of Elouise—since she’d been the last person to talk to me—that I’d gotten help.
I’d tried to send a text message to Conleigh as I’d waited for my body to respond to commands, but even that hadn’t gone well. My hands had felt like they’d been wrapped in cotton—right along with my mouth.
Honestly, I was surprised that Elouise had been able to understand that there was something wrong.
The next few hours were a whirlwind.
At some point that morning the paramedics had arrived, and after a ride to the hospital and another couple of hours on IV fluids to flush whatever I’d inadvertently ingested out of my system, I’d finally been aware enough to get back online.
Only, not one single time had Conleigh returned my calls, and I’d gotten really worried.
What if the same thing had happened to her that had happened to me?
It was only when I’d checked myself out of the hospital AMA—against medical advice, and was on a private flight back to Texas, that I finally caught wind of what had happened. Of what Conleigh had likely seen—and realized that things had gone from bad to worse.
Bayou had reported that she was fine, and at the hospital. But it was Pru who’d relayed what she had seen, and from there I realized the reasoning behind her radio silence.
The woman had filmed us. Filmed herself touching my body.
And then had released it to the public.
In the span of thirty-two hours—twenty-five of which I couldn’t account for—I’d lost Conleigh. I’d lost my contract with FaithSports, and I’d lost my sense of goddamn dignity.
I felt like trash. Like a piece of well-used, left-on-the-side-of-the-road, trash.
And dirty.
So goddamn dirty.
“Let’s go.”
I looked up to find the last person in the world I thought would’ve been there to help—Tyson.
Tyson was standing at the side entrance to the ER, the one that Conleigh had met me at a few times as I’d picked her up over the last couple of weeks, and was staring not at his brother, but at me.
I frowned, my head once again whirling.
“Uhh,” I hesitated. “What?”
Tantor started laughing and walking his brother’s way, but Tyson held up a hand. “No. Stay there.”
And that was about when the media finally got around the police officer who’d stopped them all and sent them back to wherever he’d had them corralled to anyway.
One of them slipped past the cop’s eye and started to make a beeline straight toward me.
Knowing not to look a gift horse in the mouth, I slipped into the open door that Tyson held for me and breathed a sigh of relief the moment I was through, Tyson slammed it shut.
It took me all of fifteen seconds to ask him, “Why’d you do that?”
Tyson was staring at the metal door and drew in a large breath that made his shoulders rise, then blew it right back out.
