AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Realization dawned, and I shook my head on a humorless huff of laughter. “It was you, all this time. The calls and the feeling I was being watched. That was all you. You’re the one who trashed my house.”
His smile was unrepentant and full of glee at having done something so childish and cruel. “You deserved to have your head fucked with a bit, I’d say.”
“How did you even find me?”
He rocked backward, pushing the chair back onto two legs as he crossed his arms over the spare tire that circled his gut. “Wasn’t that hard, really. Had your mom hire someone to find you. At least that woman knows how to follow orders.”
God, I hated this man. I hated him more than I’d ever hated anything in my entire life. “So why now, huh? Why stop sneaking around like a coward and show yourself now?”
The front legs of the chair slammed back onto the ground as he leaned forward and braced his elbows on his knees. “Wasn’t easy, findin’ the time to make this little reunion happy since you started spreadin’ your whore legs for that cop.” He spit out the last word like it left a disgusting taste in his mouth. “This was my chance, so I took it. It’s time to make you pay for what you took from me, you ungrateful cunt. You stole eight fucking years of my life!”
I leaned forward, the words spilling from my mouth on a shout. “You killed my brother! You deserved every single one of those years and then some for what you did to him!”
“It was a goddamnaccident!” he thundered, his voice rattling in his chest.
I shook my head in disgust. I was done. Absolutelydone.I refused to cower before this man. I refused to let him make me feel weak and scared. I’d made something good for myself here, and this piece of shit thought he had the right to come here and try to take it all away from me like he had once before? Not a chance in hell. I was done fearing him. I was going to fight for this new life, for the memory of Cal.
“You made the choice to get behind the wheel of that car drunk, knowing your kids were in it with you. You didn’t give a shit about us, not for a single day of our lives. You made the decision to drive drunk, and that decision took Cal and another innocent human being from this earth. That’s not an accident. That’s you being a piece of shit!”
He lunged forward so fast, I didn’t see it coming. His hand shot out, striking like a snake and slapping right across my face. My cheek caught fire instantly, and stars burst before my eyes, but I refused to show him that I was hurt. Instead, I turned back to face him, a smile pulling at my lips.
“God, you’re pathetic,” I said on a raspy chuckle. “A sad, pathetic old man who has nothing to live for but anger and hate.” I felt Ms. Gates shift beside me, felt her arm slide across my back as she reached for something. Then a second later, I felt her slide a book off the bottom shelf and hide it behind me.
“You had a second chance. Hardly anyone gets that, but you did, even though you didn’t deserve it.” My laughter grew, sounding more manic by the second. “And this is what you did with it. You have so much hate in your heart, youwastedit.”
“Shut up,” he hissed, his face growing ruddy with anger.
“You’re such a miserable excuse for a human being, that you wasted it! You’ve been so busy hating me, you let it eat at you, let it cause you to make stupid decisions, and once Holt gets his hands on you, he’s going to make you pay, mark my words.” I didn’t have a single doubt in my mind that was true. I knew in my heart that this wasn’t the end of my story. I deserved my happily ever after, damn it, and I was going to take it. I was going to hold on to it with everything I had, sink my nails in deep if I had to.
“I saidshut up!”
But I didn’t. I felt a thrill at pushing his buttons just then, and I knew I needed to throw him off his game if Ms. Gates was going to have any chance with whatever she was planning.
“All this time, you’ve been thinking about me, about how you wanted to make me pay.” I shook my head,tsking. “And what you didn’t know was I never gave you a passing thought after I watched them drag you out of the courtroom after your sentencing. Because you weren’t worth remembering.”
“You little bitch. I’ll show you something worth remembering!”
He shot from the chair like a bullet, sending it flying backward as he lunged for me. Only, he didn’t make it. As though she’d been anticipating that very thing, Ms. Gates grabbed hold of the book she’d been hiding and swung like it was a baseball bat, connecting with the side of Boyd’s head.
He flew to the side, crashing into the floor with a grunt. The gun slid free from his pants and landed across the floor as Ms. Gates and I jumped to our feet. I moved to the gun and picked it up while she ran at Boyd, the book held aloft over her head. With a battle cry, she brought it down on his head again. And again, slamming it into his back.
When she lifted it for a fourth time, I rushed to stop her. “Whoa, whoa! It’s okay, Ms. Gates!” I held my hands out in a placating gesture that might have been more believable had I not been clutching a gun in one of them. “It’s okay. It’s over now.” I looked back at the man sprawled out on the ground, unmoving. “Holy shit, Ms. Gates. I think you knocked him out. What did you hit him with?”
Her chest was rising and falling like she’d just run a marathon as she stared down at my father in a daze. At my question, she blinked back to reality and lifted up the book she was still brandishing like a weapon.
I snorted, my eyes bugging out as I took it in. “Oh my god,” I said on a giggle. It was the Complete Miss Marple Collection by Agatha Christie, the thickest book we had in the entire library. It washuge! One more hit with it and she very likely would have killed him.
She huffed out a breath and let the book drop to the floor. My literature-loving heart flinched, but given that she’d basically just saved my life, I was willing to let it slide. This time.
I opened my mouth to thank her when a sudden banging on the locked entrance doors made us both jump and let out a shriek.
I whipped the hand still holding the gun up and aimed poorly in that direction right before I heard Holton’s voice shouting, “Lyric! Lyric, baby, open the door!”
“Oh, for goodness sake.” Ms. Gates rolled her eyes and took the gun from my trembling hand. “Give me that before you hurt someone. Do you even know how to use this thing?”
I shook my head, flabbergasted. “No.” I arched a brow and asked, “Do you?”
She braced her legs, holding the gun like a professional, and held it on Boyd just in case he was to wake up and try something else. “Of course I do. I grew up in Tennessee. Now go unlock the door before they bust the thing in. I’ve got things under control here.”
