I was just fired on and exchanged fire...
I straightened as he continued to growl into the phone, his eyes on me but my thoughts were still elsewhere.
He had that snow on him because he threw himself to the ground to dodge bullets aimed at him in front of my house.
My man had thrown his beautiful body to the snow to dodge fucking bullets aimed at him in front of my fucking house.
And he had his gun in his hand because he'd had to return fire.
And I knew exactly who ordered that unidentified male to aim bullets at my man.
No.
Oh no.
I did not fucking think so.
Just like I lost it when Levi was at Brock's house, I didn't think.
I just moved.
And what I moved to do was snatch my keys off the counter and then I ran out of the house.
"Tess!" Brock shouted but I was gone.
Down the walk and in my car.
"Goddamn it! Tess!" I heard Brock shout from somewhere outside the car.
Car on, I didn't even look and put the pedal to the floor.
I didn't know how I got there and it was a miracle I made it without killing myself or anyone else. But I hit University then turned right then turned left on Yale then I drove like a demon through Donald Heller's established, tidy neighborhood with its big houses on big lots, a path I had taken frequently for twelve years while dating and married to my shitheel of an ex but had not taken once in the last six and a half.
And I went there because I had no idea where Damian lived.
But I sure as fuck was going to find out.
I screeched to a halt at the curb, shot out of my car and raced through the snow in the yard to the front door, not noticing the headlights of the truck that followed me go out as it parked behind my car.
I banged on the door loudly, not letting up as I shouted, "Don, open the fucking door!"
A hand came from behind me, fingers wrapping around my wrist, halting my pounding as I felt warmth hit my back and heard whispered in my ear, "Tess, Jesus, baby, calm "
Brock didn't finish because the door opened and Donald was standing there.
His eyes flashed quickly back and forth and back and forth again between Brock and me then a tentative smile hit his mouth as his eyes started to light and he whispered, "Tess, honey, my "
He didn't finish because I shouted, "Where is he?"
Donald blinked, his gaze moving between Brock, who now had my wrist and arm wrapped around my belly, his with it, and me then he asked, "Who?"
"Your fucking scum of the earth, shithead, asshole of a son, that's who!" I shrieked.
He blinked again then I heard, "Tess?" and looked beyond Donald to see fucking, fucking, fucking Damian standing several feet behind him in his father's foyer.
And that was when I lost it again.
Tearing free of Brock, I shoved straight passed Donald and launched myself at Damian, arms raised, nails bared, ready to scratch his motherfucking eyes out.
His hands came up to defend himself and he took a step back but I didn't get there.
A steel arm clamped around my waist, I let out an "oof!" and was hauled back against Brock who then clamped another steel arm around my shoulders and chest at the front.
At my ear, he whispered, "Cool it, sweetness."
"Fuck cool! " I screeched and struggled against his hold at the same time planting my feet as he tried to pull me back. Through this my eyes stayed glued to Damian. "You fucking dick! " I kept screeching.
"What on ?" Donald asked with soft shock at my side but I shouted over him.
"It wasn't enough hitting me?" I asked and Brock froze at the same time I sensed Donald doing the same. "It wasn't enough raping me?" I kept shouting and disregarded the noise that came from Donald that sounded like someone landed a blow to his stomach. "Then you call me out of the blue, fucking lie to me a-fucking- gain after you lied to me so many fucking, fucking times I lost count with the women you screwed who were not me, and told me your father was sick as a ploy to get me to meet you."
"My God," Donald whispered but I kept yelling.
"Then you keep contacting me when I asked you over and over and fucking over again not to call me and you drag me into your shit with the DEA and the FBI and the police and now you send someone to shoot at my boyfriend in front of my house! "
Damian kept his eyes glued on me too and when I quit shrieking, he said softly, "Tess "
"Fuck you! " I spat. "Fuck you, Damian. What did I do? What did I do but fall in love with you? What did I do to deserve you treating me like a piece of garbage and then... then...
finally when I have something good in my life, something beautiful... finally when I feel fucking safe you move to destroy that too?"
"Honey, I didn't do " Damian started but I cut him off.
Screaming at the top of my lungs, the sound so shrill it pierced the space like a dart, I shouted, "Don't you dare call me honey! "
Damian held my eyes. Brock held me close. I glared at Damian, heat boiling through my veins, through my brain, so fucking hot, it was burning me alive.
Then Damian pulled his eyes from mine, turned his head to the side, his face grew concerned and he started to move that way saying, "Dad."
"Don't," Donald ordered and I tore my eyes from Damian to see Donald standing at the wall of the foyer, hand pressed against it, that hand clearly holding him up. His face was pale, his eyes on his son wounded and I hadn't seen him for awhile but he'd always seemed younger than his years, his humor and love of life making him that way. But in that moment he looked beyond his seventy-two years and well into his nineties.
At the sight of him, a wave of pain rolled through me, my hands went to Brock's arms, my fingers curling around, one at my chest, one at my belly and Brock's arms got tighter.
"That's why," Donald whispered to his son.
"Dad," Damian whispered back.
"That's why we lost Tess."
I felt tears fill my eyes.
Donald didn't look away from Damian when he whispered a tortured, "You raped her?"
"It wasn't " Damian started, my body straightened, the tears vanished and I interrupted him.
"It was," I snapped and Damian looked at me.
"Tess," he shook his head and started to lift a hand, "things just got out of hand."
Oh.
My.
God.
Brock made a noise low in his throat, his arms going super tight around me but I didn't read these warning signs because I lost it again.
"Out of hand? " I shrieked.
"Tess " Damian started again, his eyes darting back and forth between me and Brock and, honest to God, it looked like he was weighing the decision to approach.
"Don't you get near me, you motherfucking asshole," I clipped. "And, newsflash, Damian, a woman is fighting you tooth and nail screaming, 'No!' at the top of her lungs, crying uncontrollably and begging you to stop and you still fuck her that... is... rape even if she is your goddamned wife."
Brock's super tight arms convulsed twice through this speech but I only had concentration enough for Damian who winced.
Then he said softly, "You left the next day, Tess. You never gave me a chance to explain."
I felt my eyebrows hit my hairline.
"Explain?" I asked. "Explain?" I repeated my question. "Are you fucking high? "
"Tess, I was "
"Clawing your way up a drug cartel," I finished for him then leaned forward, taking Brock's arms with me thus taking Brock with me. "I know," I hissed and leaned back.
"Stressful, hunh?" I asked. "So stressful you suddenly lose your ability to be a decent human being and when your patience snaps because your wife is asking you simple questions like, 'Honey, what's stressing you out?' you take your hands to her. And when she says no to sex, you lose your mind and rape her. It must have been tough for you dealing with all that stress as you climbed to the highest heights of the criminal underworld, Damian. I feel bad for you that you didn't have a different woman in your life who'd eat your shit. Sorry I was such a crap wife."
"You weren't a crap wife," he whispered.
"I know," I bit out. "I was being sarcastic, you moron."
"I made some bad decisions and let my emotions get the better of me, Tess, I'll admit that," Damian said.
"Big of you," I retorted. "Though bad decisions and emotions getting the better of you don't entirely destroy lives, Damian, something you've been doing to people you care about and people you don't even fucking know for over a decade now."
"I " he started, his jaw clenched and he looked away, tearing both his hands through his hair and I noticed belatedly he looked good. Like his father, age barely touched him. And like the asshole he was, impending incarceration didn't faze him. Fit frame at least three inches shorter than Brock and probably more than thirty pounds lighter. Light brown hair. Dark brown eyes. A sharp crease in his well-tailored dark blue trousers. A light blue shirt that I knew had been made specifically for him because he always spent a whack on his clothes.
Polished, dark brown, Italian leather shoes.
Even now, he had it. Even now, even as detached as I was, I sensed his magnetism. Decent looks, great clothes he wore well, undercurrent of charisma never switching off.
Toxic charisma.
Poison.
He dropped his hands and leveled his eyes on mine.
Then he stated, "If you gave me a moment to explain at lunch before you took off, I got in touch with you because I was trying to make it up to you."
Make it up to me?
Maybe he was high.
He kept talking.
"I asked you to lunch to explain..." his eyes moved to Brock then back to me and he carried on, "about the money. To go over the bank documents with you. I wanted you to have..." again he looked to Brock then back to me, "if something happened to me, I wanted you covered."
"You wanted me covered?" I asked, my voice filled with derision mixed with shock.
"Yes," he clipped.
"Why?" I queried.
"Because you were my wife, because I still love you, because I fucked up and because I wanted to make it up to you."
"You thought..." I whispered but stopped, momentarily unable to go on then I went on.
"You thought that you could make it up to me by infiltrating my life and saddling me with your ill-gotten gains and when I didn't hang around long enough to say yes to this super generous offer, you forged my name on the documents anyway so you could be certain to continue infiltrating my life at the same time fucking it up when the best thing you could do, bar building a time machine so that you could go back and make sure you never met me, would be to leave me... the fuck... alone?"
He pressed his lips together and said not a word.
I turned to his father.
It killed me to see this was killing him.
But I could not help that. I couldn't. I had enough on my plate.
So I wasn't even going to try.
"I love you," I said softly. "I always will. I think of you often, so often..." I sucked in breath and decided to leave that because I couldn't go there. "Your son took a lot from me, all of it hurt, so much you wouldn't believe me even if I described the pain. And losing you was part of that pain."
Tears filled his eyes; I watched them as I felt the same happen in mine.
"Honey," he whispered, taking his hand from the wall and turning away from his son to face me.
"I love you and miss you but I'm not coming back, never, no matter what happens to Damian. I can't have anything that reminds me of him in my life. It's toxic. I just released it and I can't take it back. I can't have it poisoning me anymore. Not anymore. He took eighteen years of my life. He can't have any more."
I watched him swallow.