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Then Ryan laughs. “Nah.”
“No?” Eli walks forward, standing a foot from Ryan, looking him directly in the eye. “Then I’ll make you leave.”
“Relax, old man. Don’t make me hurt you.”
Eli laughs darkly. “Go on, then. Hurt me.”
“Fuck this,” Ryan snaps and then throws himself into a vicious right hook.
I gasp, my hands covering my mouth, as Ryan’s fist arches toward my man’s face. Time seems to slow as the fist makes a terrifying path.
I know the difference between a trained punch and an untrained one from so many years of watching Hudson compete. This guy knows what he’s doing.
Eli waits until the last moment and then ducks to the side, spinning around with an elbow that catches Ryan across the jaw.
The other men spring into action, all rushing Eli.
People are yelling. Izzy for it to stop. Jocelyn is trying to get control. The security rushes in, but they’re too slow to stop Eli’s devastating whirlwind of violence on Ryan.
He’s like a tornado but graceful too.
He slips another punch and hooks his arm around the attacker, throwing him against another man. Ryan springs up, as if to hit him, and Eli spins and kicks him in the belly, moving with perfect form, moving like a predator finally let out of the cage.
Ryan gasps, keeling over.
The security guards are wrangling the other men, but Eli grabs Ryan and drags him over to me. Ryan is gasping and shuddering, his hands over his stomach.
“Apologize,” Eli roars, kicking Ryan to his knees. “Now.”
Ryan stares up at me, his lips trembling. His words come out past gasping breaths. “I’m… ah… I’m sorry.”
Eli throws him to the ground, and then walks over to me. I’m aware half the college is out here now, dozens of eyes aimed at us.
But when Eli reaches down and takes my hands, everybody else drifts away. Everything else ceases to matter.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I nod, staring up at him, my whole body pulsing with the force of my heartbeat, with the proof he meant everything he said.
He’s risked his job, risked injury against terrible odds, risked so much to defend me.
“Yeah,” I whisper.
“You’re mine, Della,” he says intensely. “You’ll always be mine. And I’ll always protect you.”
Suddenly, Jocelyn is at our side. She normally has a strict schoolmistress manner, but it’s amped up now.
“My office, Elias,” she says sternly. “Now.”
Eli frowns, nodding. “I’ll see you soon, Della.”
“Soon,” I say firmly, giving his hand a squeeze.
The security guards lead the men off the campus. I wonder if anybody’s going to call the cops, but nobody mentions it.
A couple of the men have bloody noses and Ryan’s still gasping, but everybody saw that Ryan threw the first punch, and everybody saw the other men leaped in and joined the would-be assault.
Mary looks at me for a moment.
