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“He has feelings for me, you know.” Her chin rises a little. It doesn’t dent my confidence. The woman is deluded. “Before you, we were a sure thing.”
“Clearly not such a sure thing,” I reply, refusing to allow her animosity to get under my skin. Or her tall tales to worry me. I’ve had so much taken from me, I’ll be dead before I let another woman try to take Danny. “Shouldn’t you be leaving, since you have nothing here anymore?”
Her dark lips twist. “You’re nothing but a whore.”
“Maybe. But at least Danny wants this whore,” I fire back, my irritation threatening to show. She will not get a rise out of me. “And at least he doesn’t share this whore.”
She can’t disguise the shock on her face. “Will he want you when I tell him you’re a rat?”
I smile. I can’t stop myself. She’s in it for the win, obviously. Shame she’s already lost. “Do what you’ve got to do, Amber.” I brush past her, set to go find out where Danny hides his remote control.
I get only a few paces before I have her claws in my back. Literally. Her nails sink into my shoulders through my thick sweater and haul me back, and she screeches something inaudible, slamming me into a nearby drinks cabinet. I’m momentarily disorientated, stunned that she would physically attack me, then I gather myself and wrestle her away, channeling my energy into shoving her back and using the time to compose myself. I refuse to have a catfight with a woman. Jesus, what on earth is wrong with her? “You’re showing yourself up, Amber.” I straighten myself out. “Have some self-respect.”
“Fuck you. He would have been mine had you not seduced him.” She stands and reaches behind her back, pulling a gun out and aiming it at me.
“Are you kidding me?” I stare at the black weapon in her hand, stunned. “You’d shoot me?”
“I’ve done worse than kill a whore.”
I blink a few times, thinking I’m imagining things. Thinking the gun is actually a lipstick or something innocent. Yet five blinks later, I still have a 9mm pointing at my chest. I look up into her eyes, cold eyes, and shake my head in disbelief. “You think killing the woman he loves is going to win him over?”
She advances, her hand steady. “The chances of him loving me are a lot more likely without you around.” She disengages the safety. “I need him. More than you do. I’m dead out there without him.”
“You’re insane.”
“That’s what happens when you hold out for years on a man. I will have him. No one will stop me. Not you, not him, and not—” Amber loses her line when she’s barged from the side, taking a tumble to the floor on a loud thump. She drops the gun, and I watch as it’s kicked away. I expect to find Danny when I look up. I don’t.
Esther is glaring at Amber as she scrambles to her feet, a look of pure disdain tarnishing her usually clear complexion. “Get out,” Danny’s mother seethes, throwing an arm toward the door. “You’ve long overstayed your welcome.”
Amber, her forehead heavy with a frown, pulls herself to her heels, never taking her cautious eyes off Esther, who is positively thrumming with anger. “Why do you care?” Amber asks, darting her eyes to me.
“Because if my son wants to keep her out of harm’s way, then I do too. If my son wants you gone, then I do too.”
Amber’s shock is embedded in every pore. “Your son?”
Esther moves in, slowly and intimidatingly, backing Amber into the corner. “Be warned, you gold-digging, power-tripping slut. I will tear you to shreds if you’re not out of this house in one minute.”
“You’re his mother?”
“Get out,” Esther hisses, moving back. “Or so help me God, I’ll—”
“What’s going on?” Danny appears, and I drink in air, bracing myself for the extended showdown. His gaze jumps between the three of us, lines perfectly straight across his forehead. I’m quiet. Esther backs up even more, falling into the subservient mode I’m familiar with. Amber, though . . .
She’s quick off the mark, quick to get her version of events across. She practically disintegrates on the spot, tears springing from her eyes like they were ordered on demand. Because they were. “Danny,” she breathes, shaking her head in a really amazing display of despair. “I was just—”
“Shut up, Amber. I told you I wanted you gone.” He doesn’t give her a chance to spill her lies. Walking calmly across the room, he lowers to his haunches and picks up the gun, turning it over in his hand a few times, inspecting it closely. Anyone would think he’d never seen one before. Looking up, still crouched, he holds it out. “Whose is this?”
I keep my mouth shut. I’m not a squealer, and Esther seems to have taken the same road as me, because she’s quiet too. Both of us still and silent, letting it play out without our input or intervention. Danny knows. Danny knows everything.
