"So how does it feel taking over anotherman's life?" Victor hissed.
Fucking hell. Cade tried. Everyone could see thathe tried, right?
Turning around slowly, he looked at Victor. Theman was dressed in his police uniform as usual. No equipment belt, no vestunderneath, just the uniform fitting to the man's slim figure.
"Christ, how did she even get wet foryou?" Cade mumbled as he stared down at the shorter man in obviousdisgust.
Victor's eyes went wild. "What the fuck didyou say?"
Cade sighed. There was no stopping this trainnow. Instead, he threw himself directly into the eye of the storm and grinned."I said, thanks for booking me that vacation, man. It was exactly what weneeded. I'll reach out to you next time we are looking to go somewhere. You gotsome real travel agent talent up your sleeve, Ortega."
Cade could see the man's mind break under theweight of his words and felt supreme satisfaction as Victor took one step, thenanother, and punched him. Turning his head at the right time, Cade made surethe man's fist collided with his cheekbone. Cade felt the sting from the man'spunch but didn't allow it to rock him off balance.
Turning his head slowly he looked back at Victorand raised an eyebrow. "Did that make you feel better?"
"I should fucking kill you," Victorgrowled, both of his hands were balled into fists at his sides.
Cade laughed. "I know you've been wishing todo just that since the day I came back."
Breathing hard as if he were the one who had justbeen punched and not the other way around, Victor glared at him with murder inhis eyes. "No, since the day you showed up, I've been fucking yourgirl," he shot back.
Cade felt the muscles in his body tense at once.On his second breath, he lunged forward. Raising his hand, Cade caught Victor'shead in his palm and slammed it against the opposing lockers. Strugglingbeneath his weight, Victor punched and kicked, trying to scramble out frombeneath his hold, but Cade held firm, pressing his full weight against the manuntil he had him pinned face forward into the lockers.
"Another statement like that will have yougetting your jaw wired shut," he growled low. "You think I wouldspend damn near a year driving a wedge between you two to just let her go backto you?" He let out a cold laugh.
"You son of a bitch," Victor hissedbetween his teeth at the revelation as he tried to renew his struggle againsthim.
"You got that right," Cade whispereddarkly as he looked towards the entrance of the locker room, making sure theywere still unseen. "She's mine. She's been mine for years. I fucked up once;it’s not happening again."
With a surge of strength, Victor pushed kickedhimself off the lockers forcing Cade to step backward. Turning around on hisheel, Victor gave him a wild, unhinged look. "I'll fucking kill you,"he roared.
He swung at Cade again. Moving this time, Cadeavoided the punch and stepped back to narrowly miss another.
Cade laughed as he looked at the man. "Thefunny part is, you had a slight chance of keeping her if you weren't so fuckingstupid," he said, enjoying the frantic anger in the man. Cade knew forcertain if Victor would have had his equipment belt, he would have probablydrawn his weapon right then and there, but he didn’t, so Cade didn’t see anyreason to stop pushing the man over the edge. "I took a bet on your fragileego and it worked. Thank God, right? I couldn't live the rest of my lifeknowing my one moment of fuck-up with Bethany would cost me a lifetime watchingRitz be with you. Thanks for being predictable as fuck, bro."
Lunging forward, Victor let out a strangled crycatching Cade off guard in a tackle. Cade let out a grunt as he slammed intothe lockers behind him.
"Hey, what the fuck, guys?!" Edwards'sbooming voice shook through the air.
Looking up, both men spotted Edwards standingshirtless at the end of the locker aisle. Victor turned back and threw one morepunch, catching Cade on the side of the head. Cade blinked at the dazingfeeling of the cheap shot and grabbed the man by the throat, with everyintention of collapsing it beneath his grip.
A much stronger hand gripped his wrist and Cadelooked up to see the very serious gaze of his partner. "Break it the fuckup," Edwards ordered.
Letting go of Victor, Cade stepped back with hishands up and smirked. Shrugging out of Edwards's grip, Victor stomped out ofthe locker room.
Edwards sat on the bench in the middle of theaisle with a tired sigh and gave Cade a level look. "You know you have totell the chief about this incident, right?"
"Yeah, I know.” Cade grinned as he scratchedhis sore jaw, his smile slowly fading as the adrenaline within him lowered andhis thoughts caught up. “Sadly, it isn't the chief's reaction I'm reallyworried about."
~*~
Sitting outside of her uncle's office, Maritziabounced one leg as she bit at her fingernail. It was a habit she thought shehad broken years ago, but ever since she came back from lunch with Valerie andher brothers to find out from Scanlon and Edwards that Cade and Victor just gotinto a physical fight in the locker room, the nervous habit was back in fullforce. Looking from the windows where she had been staring out for the past tenminutes, she sent another pleading look to Tala who sat behind her desk infront of the chief's office.
Tala simply gave her an understanding smile.
Silently, they both listened to her uncle's deepvoice through the wall. Cade was inside with him. Maritzia tried to imagine heruncle's anger at Cade and shuddered. She had only seen her uncle angry once andthat was when they were kids and they all had returned back home extremely lateone night after getting stuck on the other side of town. They all expectedMaritzia's father to come marching down the stoop of her apartment buildingblistering their ears, but it was so much worse. Standing at the building'sentrance with his arms crossed over his chest, her uncle was like a silentthunder god. They had all stopped short and audibly swallowed as he crooked afinger at them demanding them over. The silent seething rage he cast over themthat night was memorable even to this day. Neither Maritzia's parents norPedro's parents said a word as Uncle Andres came down on them like a pile ofbricks. They just stood in the hallway watching with almost smug expressions asAndres listed to them what the next two weeks of their summer vacation weregoing to look like—basically, child labor. From that day forward, every singleone of them became religious about checking the time and always made sure theycaught the train home. She couldn't imagine what he was saying to Cade rightnow.
Finally, Tala's phone beeped. Picking itup, she spoke quietly on the phone before hanging it up.
