AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Still, I needed him to let me see Sydney, so I pasted a smile on my lips and said, “I’m the coach of her community basketball team. I just wanted to check on her and see if she was sick or something since she missed the last two sessions.”
“Nah, she didn’t miss nothing. She’s not doing that crap anymore. I don’t like the kind of people you have her mixing with over there.”
“Kind of people?” I cocked my head and quirked my brow, anger building at the insinuation. I knew he was talking about the other girls—the ones who didn’t have parents with fancy cars. Still, I tried to remain professional and polite. “What on earth do you mean?”
“I mean that you’ve got all kinds of riff raffs over there. People who do all sorts of shit and let their daughters color their hair. I don’t want my daughter learning the wrong thing.”
Oh great. He was a damn bigot too. “I understand, but you should consider your daughter in this too. Ever since Sydney started on the basketball team, she’s been great at it, and she also really seems to enjoy it. She will probably improve with time and might even get a scholarship out of it—”
“You think I give a fuck about that?” he spat, walking forward as I walked backward. “I can afford to send my daughter to college without a scholarship. She can go anywhere she wants or even not go if she wants. That damn basketball thing was her mother’s idea, and I’m not playing along with it anymore. Now get off my property before I make you.”
“There’s no need for the threats, Mr. Hull,” I said in a voice that was now heated with the anger I was trying not to feel.
“Excuse me?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, did I stutter? How about this? You being a complete bully to me doesn’t stop the fact that you’re taking away something that your daughter loves simply because of your prejudice. And no amount of money is going to make up for that, nor does it make you a good father.”
I shouldn’t have said that because pure rage filled his face. “Who the fuck are you to tell me what kind of father I am?”
And in prime Charlie fashion, like someone who didn’t already smell the danger in the atmosphere, I doubled down and replied, “Someone who knows a bully when I see one.”
He pushed me, and I turned to flee, but then I yelped as my ankle twisted, and I fell onto the ground.
But before I could process the pain or whatever else he was yelling about, a growl sounded behind me. With a gust of wind, Sydney’s father was crying out in pain, driven to his knees by a blow.
And Zane Kazan was standing above him.
4
ZANE
I could kill him.The thought slithered through my mind as I stared at the pathetic creature squealing on the floor.Just eviscerate him. It would be the perfect pinnacle of my day.
Murder wasn’t on my mind when I stepped out the door this morning, nor was meeting my asshole neighbor. I didn’t care that the motherfucker gave me dirty looks whenever he saw me around or that he’d called the cops on me twice already for jogging in my own neighborhood. I didn’t care that I could sometimes hear him and his ex-wife having it out on my front lawn in the early morning while their daughter sat in the car watching the whole thing.
I thought that was what I was hearing again when I opened the door and prepared to go for my evening jog. The damn bastard was arguing with a woman, as usual, moving forward threateningly and pointing his finger in her face. Anger bubbled in my stomach, but I held myself back. The last time I tried to intervene in a marital spat, I almost ended up in jail. It wasn’t my problem. It wasn’t my business.
Until I recognized the woman that he was yelling at.
It took me a few seconds to process what I was seeing, but she was unmistakable. The red hair was like a fire around her face as she spoke and gestured around her, standing her ground. She was dressed in a baggy shirt and basketball shorts that did nothing to hide the curves of her body.
And after a whole week of trying not to think about it, that night flooded back to me.
Charlotte was here again.
Before my brain could work up what on earth she was doing here, the asshole made what could be the biggest mistake of his life. His hands shot out to push her.
It surprised me. My neighbor was an angry motherfucker, but I’d never seen him hit a woman before. The fucking balls he had to try that shit in front of me in broad daylight.
And with Charlotte, no less?
Nah, he was dying today.
I was already storming toward them when I heard her yelp and saw her stumble to the side. Her feet got caught in the pavement, and she tripped, crying out in a surprised, “Ow.”
Her cry of pain had my anger doubling. Fuck I think she just hurt herself. That was his fucking fault too.
And the damn bastard didn’t back down. He was still coming at her.
